Royal row between King Charles and Earl Spencer 2

[Viviennemary]

Buckingham Palace have said they won't be commenting further on the book. But I expect plenty of others will be and it's not even published yet so I started this second thread. I really liked Diana and thought she got treated shabbily by Charles. But really writing a book of gripes 30 years later is not on imho. I noticed on the news Harry declined to comment on it. Sensible decision for once.

@ViviennemaryI don’t have much time for the royals but like you agree that Diana was badly treated.

I think for this book to be published Charles Spencer must have some evidence to back up his claims. Whether that is volumes of past diaries or corroborating evidence from witnesses because without it the publisher wouldn’t risk the kickback from upsetting the king.

Earl Spencer is a historian. Thirty years is a good length of time to reflect on someone's life and write a more dispassionate and historical book.

I’ve read some of his stuff. I would trust him to be fairly even-handed about some of his subjects.

I don’t trust him to be unbiased on this subject! It’s a personal vendetta which he’s pursuing after 30+ years. It sounds too melodramatic to me (the hissing, the whatever it was elation etc, It’s no secret theres no love lost there but…

I couldn’t take seriously any criticism of KC from a sexual or marital perspective - Charles Spencer is an absolute bastard where his relationships are concerned! He really is on thin ice there.

And I just cannot get my head round taking this k8nd of revenge at this stage. His hated enemy KC) is probably terminally ill and has huge stresses to deal with just now. I mean - there are people I don’t like but I honestly wouldn’t kick someone when they’re so clearly already down - what an unmagnanimous thing to do.

Plus, KC is the HoS - so it’s not just two regular blokes settling old scores.

I think it's in poor taste.

Earl Spencer doesn't need the money and the King is ill. It's like a soap opera.

Don't care. The Earl wants money. Never trust money.

I wonder if PH will step up and issue a statement defending his father?

So do we think we’ve had the most incendiary bits from the book now?
If The Palace aren’t going to comment further, we’d have to presume KC isn’t going to be apoplectic with rage and feel the need to defend himself?

I don't think the earl is writing this book for money. I think he has wanted to write it for a while but has maybe held back while his brother in law was alive as he was private secretary to the queen. It may have caused family unhappiness via his brother in law, if he had published this book while he was alive.

@MurphysColeslaw I think there is more to come. Latest is that Diana believed Charles was in love with his valet.

Now that would be something but it won't happen, the whole stolen books and "revelations" is attention seeking publicity, just such a coincidence it was leaked at the same time HAM seek publicity and critise the royal family.

Christie’s held an Attic Sale of Art from Althorp in 2010. It raised over £21 million. The previous Earl sold £ squillions worth too. They are addicted to money and writing a book doesn’t remove a Rubens or a Reynolds. The former Earl and this one have had serial
marriage issues and always want money.

It’s easy enough to spill “your” beans and no one listened in to these phone conversations so who can verify what King Charles was like? I would be surprised if he was personally struck down with grief but he had the lives of 2 boys to consider and that must have been awful.

The funeral and Spencer’s eulogy was another problem and King Charles clearly made mistakes but QE ruled that particular roost.

Ultimately, it’s extra-ordinary bad manners and money grabbing. But maybe not unexpected. It’s very sad for William especially. Not sure what Harry makes of it as he does exactly the same. The Spencer gene runs through him. Other than he’s still married.

I have no idea if his claims are true or not but he has shown zero consideration for his nephews in dredging this up and makes him look like a tawdry money grabber.

Poor Diana, William and Harry is all I think.
Charles was a shit to her but I’m sick of idiotic men using her to make money. Her kids have enough going on. Why do this now?

That would be one way for him to rehabilitate himself….

Harry defend Charles? After he skewered Camilla? He probably agrees with the Earl!

I just don’t see how anything he has said can now be taken seriously given the glaring issue in his story about his father, QEII and Mountbatten.

Either his timeline is completely inaccurate, the story is made up or he’s embellished it completely.

His father can’t have been warned off QEII whilst he was equerry because Mountbatten was match-making with Philip, because while he was equerry QEII and Philip were already married.

If he can’t accurately relay a story with easily checked dates then how are we meant to trust his relaying of stories that are he-said/he-said?

I agree with pps. Whatever you think of KC and whatever the bad blood between the 2 Charleses, has he not thought about the effect on his nephews (and their children too now).

I think that people who do malicious and cruel things do come off worse…in the end. He’ll lose face, credibility and maybe even friends over this because it’s not a tribute to his long-dead sister so much as a nasty settling of scores.

Sensational at first, sure, but In the end - tacky.

Are you all paying for The Daily Mail thing then?
I’m completely in the dark as to what’s coming out

Someone copy & pasted it onto the last thread.

It's just not plausible to suggest that Charles would be 'elated' on the day that such a horrific thing happened to his sons.

This is an extract from the book, and I suspect it says more about Spencer than Windsor.

"Looking back now, I suspect the prince’s first reaction must have been to think more of how this event might free him to marry the woman he loved, rather than appreciating the loss of one he did not. It can be hard to feel too much sympathy for an ex-spouse, or those who care for them profoundly, after bitter divorce.”

That is not what is said in the book. Charles Spencer says his father was warned off when he was a courtier. He later became an equerry.
Charles actually says it happened years before his fa5her became an equerry.

The transcript shows it as he says “as an equerry” (which is a courtier position).

my father, a soldier and a courtier who years before, as an equerry, had had a romantic connection with the future Queen Elizabeth II, which was ended by Lord Mountbatten. He summoned my father and told him that any ambitions he had for securing her affections were out of the question.

Oh, so it’s just CS imagining how Charles was feeling!

That is SO annoying. I know someone who has a habit of telling other people “how they must feel”.

CS is a nasty creep.

He wasn’t a courtier at any point before Elizabeth was married. He was at university and then he was fighting in WW2.

The timeline shows that Elizabeth’s engagement was announced when she was 20. And reports for the time indicate that Philip and Elizabeth were fairly smitten with each other two years prior to that when he spent his war leave with the royal family at Christmas.

So the only time Johnny Spencer could have had any romantic ‘connection’ would have been before the future Queen was 18.

He was probably one of many aristocratic young men who fancied themselves a future consort but it’s very unlikely that ‘connection’ was anything serious with a 16-18 year old highly chaperoned future Queen.

"Looking back now..."

Spencer literally says that this is all a retrospective view and not necessarily what he thought at the time. It really does appear that the pain of fraternal grief can colour memory.

Also, bit hypocritical for someone who's had several divorces and marriages of his own to smear someone else for remarrying - and that a decade after getting divorced and almost a decade after his ex-wife died.