Discussion about Charles Spencer's book - Swan Song : Diana, my sister , Beautiful, Beloved, Hunted.

[BasiliskStare]

I know there is a thread about the theft of some pre publication editions of this book.
This thread is more by way of a book club discussion about the actual book , the text. Threads will go where they will , but my intention is this is more for me to give my opinion on the book and for others who read it or are interested in the book to join in. I have pre-ordered from Kindle (half price otherwise I may not have 😊) But is only available on September 22nd. So a holding place if you like.

That makes sense. Saying he wasn’t in love with her before the wedding does seem unnecessarily cruel this said.

Yes, I agree. It was a stupid question and he should have been more tactful. It's come back to bite him, anyway.

Yes, indeed, you have made very good points. As for it being the saddest day of her life, she said that in 90s....easy to be wise after the event.
Also, there's several acts in her life; there's her wedding and marriage, and then there's the divorce and meeting dodi. Of course one thing lead to another, but that's the case in everyone's life.

I think this, too. I lived through it and saw the pictures. I do understand that difficulties might have arisen quite soon, but I do think they both wanted it to work. Of course, I want to think like that.
These stories about 'Charles and Camilla plotting to destroy Diana right from the start, and cruelly using her as a brood mare' - where do they come from? Someone's book, approved of by either Charles or Diana? Maddy Tupp's version? The Crown?

Sorry, I'm on the wrong thread.

In the book CS tells us PC told Diana he categorically didn’t love her although happy to marry her. So far crueller perhaps & certainly far less ambiguous than anything he said in the famed interview.

Good points, though!

But why say he didn’t love her before the wedding? As referenced in the book. Was he giving her a chance to back out? Almost certainly we don’t have the context.

CS also brings up the blonde on royal train incident & bracelet from Camilla. IF the blonde was Camilla - as CS implies - should Diana have turned a blind eye? Was it ok?

Well, that's CS claiming it. I don't know how true it was.

Charles and Diana were spectacularly mismatched. A 32 year old man, Cambridge educated, with all sorts of interests and some level of intellectualism, marrying a young woman who would be barely out of her teens and with very little education whose reading interests stopped at romantic fiction. It was a positively Victorian (or earlier) notion that they were suited because she was an aristocratic virgin.

The requirement that Charles's bride not have a "past" reduced the number of candidates considerably.

As many have said , I think no-one will ever know the truth when it comes down to " this is my remembering" and others disagree. I think CS probably has some salient points to make in his book , but he's somewhat messed up a bit with the things he didn't check which cast doubt.

I do think D features a lot less in the book that I would have thought , given the title and why he said he wrote it ( put the money to one side for a moment ) .

On reflection , I think CS is very proud of his heritage, Now the fact that is from being rich sheep farmers 100s of years ago - let's put that also to one side for a moment. That's the culture he grew up in and he's had (circa) 500 years of his father and grandfathers' being Earls'n'all and feeling the pressure to keep up the estate. I think he's proud of his Spencer heritage and I wonder this. Can anyone say ( I couldn't but happy with other opinions ) would the Spencers ever cross someone's radar had it not been for Diana? Yes if you like visiting country houses etc - but as much? I'm inclined to think given how much there is in the book about his Spencer ancestors and what they did , whether this is reclaiming Diana as a star in the firmament of the Spencers , rather than his sister. It's given him a platform to talk about various Lord Lieutenants of the Country - Grandma Fermoy's relatives , ancestors' military service etc. I think those who think this is more about CS and the Spencers ( not only this , his aversion to the press and at times the RF comes across very clearly ) have a point.

I think this is where the context is hugely important.

Theres a gulf of difference between “I don’t love you, but I’m happy to marry you… because this is how our families do things, and we get on well so hopefully we can make each other happy and hopefully love will grow like with my great grandparents ” and “I don’t love you, but I’m happy to marry you… because they won’t let me marry Camilla so I’ll have kids with you despite never loving you and I don’t care if you are unhappy”.

I think it would have made more sense if he had written it as a history of the Spencer’s and the royals. So featuring Diana rather than saying it was about Diana, because it really doesn’t feel like a book about her for me.

i wonder how his own book did in terms of his expectations, reactions and sales. I would wonder if that helped shaped how he dealt with this book in terms of its advertising and what he wanted it to be.

Indeed. And she had to be a protestant as well.

I find it interesting that Spencer got his book out a year early in terms of the 30th anniversary of Diana's death. It's almost as though he wanted to be the one to set the tone and the framework for the ensuing discussion. It appears that all he's achieved, however, is to damage both his own reputation and Diana's.

Agree but if the former (better) conversation it needed to be had much earlier on, not a day or two before the wedding. IF we believe CS it devastated her.

Interesting & did he rush it if so? A Very Private School (2024) was far, far superior IMO.

If he realised they were on different pages (which I doubt he would have) then it would have been better to have it earlier.

It is very dependent on believing CS right enough. I’m not really automatically believing things that contradict the Andrew Morton book as we know that came from Diana herself and this doesn’t really fit well with the narrative from that. In that Diana called her wedding day confusing and she obviously had her doubts but there was nothing as overt as this.

Absolutely, what could possibly go wrong…

I think things were beginning to change & by mid/late 80s attitudes were definitely beginning to shift. Did PC also lack some backbone here? Would Phillip have gone along with things if in love with someone else etc despite protocol?

I don't know if those things are true.

That railway carriage story, that Charles spent the night in a railway carriage with Camilla on the night before his wedding, has been about for years. I don't know if it's true.

Spot on, he’s incredibly proud of Spencer heritage. Even those in crypt (when someone decided to exhume all ancestors to cremate) had characteristic red hair. I expect a book just on his lineage would have a smaller audience.

CS says 3 months before but still
bad of course, if true. It seems there was something in it. I imagine (unfortunately) not uncommon in PC’s circles to have a fling with old flame (and mistress/mistresses later on) pre marriage.

Who knows? Certainly not Spencer. He was at boarding school.

I don't think I knew anything about the Spencers until the prince became engaged to Lady Diana Spencer. If I lived in Northants maybe I would have.
If you had said the name Spencer-Churchill to me I'd have said, " Oh, something to do with Winston Churchill." I think there was a link but off-hand I don't know it.

This is now another detail that, for me, casts doubt on CS’s writings as having looked about the Mirror reported Charles allegedly sneaking the mystery blond (at that time believed to be Diana) onto the train in November 1980. Which is way more than 3 months before the wedding, and in fact a week before they got engaged.