Royal row between King Charles and Earl Spencer

[Viviennemary]

Buckingham Palace said they don't usually comment but they can't stay silent. Apparently Prince Charles said at the time of Diana's death rest assured we'll forget her soon enough. Which is pretty horrendous. Charles has more or less said grief had clouded Earl Spencer's judgement and memory.

I don't know why he has waited nearly 30 years to come out with this.

What a distasteful post.
" how smashed up she was" .

I don’t think that William would have exactly been your average 18 year old who didn’t think it mattered if he “got engaged” on a whim. Especially when it took him 10 years to get engaged to the woman who will eventually be Queen

Not when one of them is the future King it isn't!

Perhaps it was decided it would be too upsetting for them.

Double post, sorry!

Oh come on. He clearly does care for his nephews - the whole row started because Spencer did not think they should walk behind their mum's coffin!

They are both now middle aged, or verging on and will have heard far far worse. They hardly require protection at this point. Some people believe that honesty is the most healing policy. He has spoken up about his abuse that happened at boarding school, for example.

None of will ever know for sure but I think it is believable.

It does seem unlikely of someone whose mother reportedly told him not to rush into marriage, and who advised his brother the same.

If this is true, I’m sure that Charles Spencer would’ve put it in his extremely damning speech on the day of the funeral. Personally, I don’t think KC Is stupid enough to say something like that to Charles Spencer. I remember the sombre expression on KC face when they went to retrieve her body.

I thought that William point blank refused to do it (after Tony Blair and Angie Hunter had insisted they did to temper down the public mood) and Prince Philip asked William if he'd do it if he (Phillip) did it too.

To deploy an old fashioned but accurate insult, everything about Charles Spencer's life suggests he is a cad, pure and simple. I will except from this his moving and fierce eulogy to his sister at her funeral. But he said everything that needed to be said there.

Isn’t it true that none of Charles Spencer’s adult children Have much to do with him? That itself says a lot about his character

I think this will all be a storm in a tea-cup as everyone has moved on. Diana is an historical figure not in the living memory of anyone under 50. In her heyday in the early 80s it would be the equivalent of us being concerned about the ins and outs of a woman in the 1930s.

I do think CS has a unique perspective on Diana - arguably the closest person to her in childhood (her mother was shunned) and they shared a bleak and emotionally stunted and deprived childhood. This had the consequence of leaving them both as very damaged individuals whos limited emotional capacity and literacy destroyed many relationships around them. Yes CS has had 4 marriages and doesnt speak to some of his DC - but we have no way of knowing if Diana’s life would have continued in a similar vein - she had at least 6 extramarital affairs (the first starting before PH was 2) often with married men. She has fallen out with many family members and friends by the age of 37 - there is nothing to suggest that this trajectory wouldn’t continue.

CS has recently had therapeutic intervention from which he was able to write about his CSA at boarding school. I am hoping that his emotional literacy and capacity has improved and increased and this book turns out to be a considered and compassionate insight into the troubled sister who’s emotional core was deficient and flawed due to parental emotional neglect (at the least) in childhood and how she navigated an extraordinary institution and fake marriage with such little internal resources.

I have to say it sounds unlikely to me too. Does anyone know where the claim has come from?

Also, having Charles, Prince Philip, William and Harry walk behind her hearse at the funeral was exactly a way of making it a memorable event and almost marking it as a state funeral, which only a reigning King or Queen has (aside from Winston Churchill).

It's quite inconsistent to slam Charles for insisting on a great honour at Diana's funeral, which made it an iconic and hence memorable moment, while at the same time alleging that he said no one will remember Diana.

Earl Spencer did speak out publicly about the boys walking behind the coffin.
The speech at Diana's funeral was not a time to hurt the boys by stating their father said everyone would soon forget Diana. That would have been wrong to say then.

Yeah. He certainly is one of life's chsrmers.

Funny because PW said it was a "group decision" and I can't find any accounts from the time that say that it was KC's decision.

Interestingly though I have found a piece where Prince Harry " pays tribute to KC for how supportive he was over that time of her death and afterwards".

Yes, or they more kindly just say we've had enough - let's talk with Parliament about a divorce deal and decide who gets what. They could then become a very wealthy aristo family amongst other very wealthy aristo families and George would be free to do what he wanted and entitled to privacy as a family and left alone.

Hear hear to this!

Reported by media. Probably came from one of their friends.
I think it is very likely. It's the kind of thing people say when young and on a very long holiday. Sun, sea and sex.

They then probably got back to normal life and thought oh no, what was I thinking.

It's a normal thing. Why this insistence of pretending William had never been in love before Catherine? It doesn't make their marriage less.

I hadn't realised until today that he described his first wife- who was anorexic- as being "both thick and thin". It certainly does not suggest a decent man.

I’ve always found Charles to be a selfish whiny petulant twerp so I can well believe it.

It’s very much in line with the dismissive “whatever love means”.

He was furious Diana was more popular than him, and just wanted to be Camilla’s tampax, so he would have been delighted Diana was out of the way.

Are you stark raving mad! What would the media do, what would the slavering public do? What, no gossip, no frocks, tiaras, spats, weddings, divorces, banishments.

Ah no. We'd have to keep them for the entertainment value alone. But on a reduced budget like the rest of us. 😊

Respectfully, I disagree.

Nobody needs callous comments by their father about their mother's death - either alleged or actual - plastered all over the tabloid newspapers.

And if honesty is indeed the best policy (and that may not always be the case), then it can take place behind closed doors and not in the glare of the world's media.

Spencer has a book to sell, and sensationalist headlines result in great publicity. If this was genuinely about addressing past wrongs, perceived or genuine, then he would have approached it in a very different manner.

What else could he say though ? The level of involvement, between Charles and Diana in the lead up to his and Diana’s wedding is still being disputed by historians but it’s clear that Diana didn’t realise how significant it was in those early days. I remember Charles and Diana being interviewed when their engagement was announced. I think it was Charles who was asked whether they were in love. Before he could answer Diana said ‘of course we are’ and he added on, almost as an afterthought ‘whatever in love means’. I remember the hurt that crossed Diana’s face and I felt very sorry for her.