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.

‘No, that isn’t how we will do it,’ he said. Then, nodding towards me, he continued: ‘Charles is representing his sister and their family, so he will walk in the middle, with William and Harry either side of him, and you and I will be on the outside flanks.’
Prince Charles looked pained but capitulated to his father’s authority without a word.
Having progressed from her home at Kensington Palace, along Kensington High Street, and through Hyde Park, Diana’s coffin now arrived in front of us, on top of a gun carriage – a vehicle that struck me as being completely at odds with my sister’s inherent love of peace.
I was struck by the ghastly beauty of it all. White flowers were laid out on the coffin – lilies from my family and me, with a bouquet up front that particularly drew the eye. It showed the agonising word ‘Mummy’ on its card, in a young hand.
That, for me, remains the searing image of the day: a son’s silent, written cry of desolation, to a mother, gone.
I could not get over how tiny, and slight, and bereft Harry looked. Too small to be doing this, I thought, and wondered how on earth this heartbroken child could bear the ordeal of that moment, or how he could possibly be expected to deal with the agony that the day ahead would insist upon.
William, although doubtless suffering equally terribly, looked more self-possessed. He was the image of his mother then: tall and handsome and dignified. Although I cared deeply about what he must be going through, his greater composure and maturity made him my secondary concern that morning.
Before we set off, Prince Philip told us with continued quiet authority that we must march together, so that we did not look like we were simply out for a stroll. We must try to stay in step.
We should also look directly ahead at all times, with our heads bowed. While this would help to lend us a somewhat martial air, the advice was also practical: keeping our eyes front would help us sidestep what we were warned would be the inevitable scattering of horse droppings in our path.
What followed was the most harrowing experience of my life, far more so than reading my eulogy, and one that has been replayed for me in dozens of fitful nightmares since.
It was hellish, entering that tunnel of grief, particularly because we were unable to put a face to it by looking at the individuals in the crowd.
We were buffeted by the rawest of emotions on a terrible scale, for the longest time, and we could not process it. We could just feel it.
The five of us quickly picked up a rhythm that we struggled to stick to, as we headed into the horror.
It was those endless waves of emotion, crashing in at us from every side, that took their toll. Despite being so well-meaning, they constituted a form of mental torture.
There could be silence, apart from the sobs, for 100 yards or so, then a voice might wail mournfully, provoking a chorus of ‘We love you, Diana!’ while others shouted out messages of compassion and support for William and Harry.
Many sections of this endless, engrossed mass seemed caught up in a rippling grief that was very much alive, and dangerously contagious, sparking into life in a dozen dizzying directions, while remaining squarely focused on our pitiful parade.
What was Prince Charles actually doing there? I thought at one moment. This ex-husband, from a marriage that had collapsed so bitterly four years before and finally ended in divorce a year earlier, surely had no place at his ex’s funeral.
Supporting his sons was the reason given for his prominent place, but what were the boys doing there, anyway? It all seemed mad to me.
I was anxious that I could not look sideways to check how Harry was doing. But at one point I found us marching briefly out of sight, under a massive arch. Relieved that nobody could see us here, I quickly leant across to Harry, and gave him an encouraging hug.
‘Well done, Harry!’ I said. ‘You’re doing bloody brilliantly!’
We then carried on, five abreast, in sombre silent step before the world.
When we arrived at the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, eight strapping soldiers, chosen for the Princess of Wales from the Welsh Guards, stepped forward to take charge of the coffin.
Diana’s bespoke casket, thickly lined with lead, weighed her pall-bearers down to such a worrying degree that they buckled. For a moment I thought they might not manage the weight of it and could even let it crash to the ground.
But the guardsmen dug into their reserves and determinedly shouldered the burden.
I was shown to my place, next to my mother, in the North Lantern of the Abbey and looked round at my close family, who were white with desolation.
Beyond the coffin, in the South Lantern, sat the serried ranks of the Royal Family. I thought how some had supported her in life while others had taken delight in the demotion that had followed her divorce.
I saw the face of Princess Michael, whom Diana had considered her ‘nightmare neighbour’ at Kensington Palace. She had accosted my sister after she was deprived of her HRH title, and said, with feigned kindness: ‘Don’t worry, Diana – you only need to curtsy to me when we are in public!’
There was Princess Margaret, who had been a good ally of Diana till the Panorama interview had taken place. Margaret could never forgive what she viewed as an unforgivable act of treachery against the Royal Family and had chosen not to bow to Diana’s coffin when it had passed her that morning.
I could not help looking repeatedly at my nephews. I felt compelled to check how they were doing, but I did not want to catch their eye in case they felt they were being judged or stared at.
They had no privacy, sitting so near to their mother’s coffin, the world caring for them very much while devouring their every move.
I have just watched my eulogy, as I write this, having not seen it for more than quarter of a century.
I recall the walk to the pulpit, climbing the steps, and the fear that I would not get through the words on the sheets of loose paper I had unfurled from my pocket. I knew that if I stopped at any point, I would not be able to start again. Momentum would be the key.
When I got to my favourite line in the speech, ‘Perhaps the greatest irony about Diana’s life is this: that a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted woman of the modern age’, it was a relief finally to lay out the true horror of Diana’s ordeal, in language that begged to be noticed.
I remember registering the surprise in Westminster Abbey when I delivered such a startling thought. But then I felt all those around me settle, as they realised that my accusation was true, and fair, and appalling. How had we all let it happen?
By far the hardest part of my tribute to Diana came when delivering its last paragraphs. By that stage I had expended all my reserves – both of energy and self-control.
I was floundering fast, while aware that I was coming up hard against the most personal and affecting passage of my text:
‘William and Harry, we all care desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with sadness at

Perhaps he needs some cash. No price too high.

She needs to be careful in that case, as I said there was a court case and The Mail had to print a retraction.

Legitimate press or gutter press?

I'm still waiting for a 'revelation' that isn't hearsay, opinion, or C. Spencer's word against C.Windsor's.

Well that's a revealing bit of prose.

Poor little Harry, undermining William's equal grief, making Charles out to be uncaring compared to Philip, centreing himself in everything that was happening, yeah that's the writing of a man who is a reliable witness (sarcasm).

with sadness at the loss of a woman who was not even our mother. How great your suffering is, we cannot even imagine.’
I made the concluding points while barely able to speak. I was completely wrung out and had an almost irresistible urge to exit the gigantic place that pulsed with grief.
I felt increasingly claustrophobic. It took all of my remaining reserves to hold tight and remain in place.
Perhaps it was partly relief at having got through the eulogy. But it was mainly a delayed reaction to the devastation of losing my sibling.
I suspect that having the speech to think and worry about over the previous days had acted as a distraction – at least in part – from the astonishing, incomprehensible, fact that my youngest sister was dead.

Spencer delivers his address to the congregation inside Westminster Abbey
Finally we came to the end of the service, and I was ushered out of the Abbey with my family and driven to Euston railway station, where we would be travelling to Althorp on the Royal Train.
I had just boarded when I heard a voice behind me. It was my brother-in-law, Robert Fellowes – who, as well as being married to my sister Jane, happened to be the Queen’s Private Secretary.

My chief memory on the train journey to Althorp is of being concerned for the lack of obvious care for Harry… he needed Diana’s hugs, of course, and they would forever be denied him

‘Charles,’ he said, and then said many lovely things about my efforts in the Abbey. The moment had clearly got to him.
My chief memory of that train journey is of being concerned at the lack of obvious care for Harry, as he decompressed from the ghastliness of the morning.
He needed Diana’s hugs, of course, and they would forever be denied him. But instead of calm and nurture, he was allowed to spin out of control.
I have often looked back, reckoning that a more caring hand at such points as this would have helped him enormously in the future. Instead, he seemed so very alone in his despair and torment.
When we had gone some miles, Robert beckoned me to follow him into a quiet corner of the carriage. ‘I have just received a call from Her Majesty,’ he said, in the grave tone that he always adopted when talking about the Queen, ‘and she would like to offer Diana her HRH title back.’
I looked at him and tried to digest the significance of what was being suggested.
What would Diana want? I thought.
She had been dreadfully hurt by the removal of that title as she exited her marriage. It had seemed so petty and vindictive. While she was no longer to be married to one future king, she would always be mother to another.
After a moment, I felt that I knew in my bones how she would view this posthumous award: ‘That’s very kind of the Queen, of course. But what’s the point, Robert? Now? I mean – Diana’s dead.’
He nodded and looked down, then said: ‘I thought you might say that.’
I have wondered since whether mine was the correct reply. Maybe Diana would have seen some point in having HRH carved on her tombstone. More importantly, perhaps her sons would have valued this gesture from their paternal grandmother to their mother?
But I felt especially protective of Diana in that moment and had no doubt that the consolation prize was hollow, however well-meaning the Queen’s gesture.
The title should never have been removed during her life, in which case it would not have been necessary to offer it to her in death.

When the Queen had heard the first news of Diana’s being in a traffic accident, she had asked tetchily, ‘What is she up to now?’ This, before the seriousness of it all became clear.
After Diana’s death the Queen said she wanted Diana’s coffin to be placed in the royal burial ground at Frogmore, near Windsor Castle.

The Royal Burial Grounds at Frogmore, Windsor Castle, where some wanted Diana to be laid to rest
But my family was determined that Diana must come home to Althorp. We knew she would have wanted to do so. Besides, having had her HRH title removed as part of the package of humiliation handed to her at her divorce, almost a year to the day before her death, Diana was no longer eligible for royal Frogmore.
The removal of Diana’s title had hurt her. The loss was designed to emphasise to her, and the world, that her royal days were over.
She, who had been recognised around the world as such a singular asset to the Royal Family (apart from by some of that institution’s more jealous members) should, they believed, just accept that she had been returned to the ranks as a commoner.
At least this pettiness helped to save her from some meaningless burial plot in Frogmore.
Where to put my much-mourned sister so I could protect her for eternity? I decided that she could most easily be kept safe behind the walls that had given Althorp its privacy for hundreds of years.
The island in the Round Oval lake quickly struck me as the perfect spot. It was Diana’s favourite place in the grounds, and its water formed a ready-made moat.
Althorp’s two estate foresters, John and Nick, set about digging out the soil with pickaxe and shovel to create her grave, and the Bishop of Peterborough and his chaplain drove to Althorp to conduct a formal consecration, which was required to make this a place of Christian burial.

When Diana’s coffin finally reached Althorp’s park, the driver and protection officer carefully unpicked the pins holding the Royal Standard to the top of Diana’s coffin.

The hearse arrives at the gates of Althorp House
They then respectfully replaced it with a flag emblazoned with the Spencer crest – an emblem that Diana had always been so proud of. She had incorporated it in her own royal coat of arms, after her marriage.
My sisters and I had chosen the Reverend Victor Malan to be the priest at the committal. He was a long-standing family friend who had been vicar of All Saints, the main Protestant church in nearby Northampton.

Diana is buried on this island in the centre of the Round Oval lake at Althorp
He had known Diana since her early teens and was clearly very moved by her loss. He emanated kind, calm empathy, determined to do his best for her and our family on that darkest of days.
Knowing from what they had witnessed earlier on television that the coffin would be extraordinarily heavy, the pall-­bearers, from the Princess of Wales’s regiment, correctly took their time.
They crossed the pontoon bridge, which protested a little as they went, in a coordinated shuffle, rather than a march.
Apart from two members of her household staff and my then-girlfriend Josie, whom Diana had spent time with and liked, we in the funeral party were all related to Diana.
So I was surprised to spot a stranger on the island, in a dark suit. He seemed to be part of Prince Charles’s retinue.

Trying to be unobtrusive, he looked at me in a fluster before uttering the unforgettable line: ‘Please ignore ­me – I am a tree!’ He then pushed himself in behind a few straggly fronds hanging down from one of the island’s beeches.
He remained there, motionless, having failed quite spectacularly to achieve invisibility. He blinked more than a tree should.
Diana was lowered into the ground as the vicar offered his sentences of Christian comfort. Several of us threw in our flowers on top of the coffin.
Prince Charles plucked a single stem from my bouquet for Diana and let it drop on his ex-wife’s coffin. How very generous, I thought, angry now on Diana’s behalf, as she began to disappear under the soil.
But anger was very much a secondary emotion at such a moment of profound loss. The burial was both incredibly painful and utterly exquisite.

My Father talks about things that happened around the time my mother was dying and after she died that did not happened. He misremembers conversations and the reasons for decisions. Just because Charles S believes what he is saying the self centred focus of every clip so far indicates to me that he is very likely to be inaccurate.

NDAs as part of the divorce settlements?

I’ve zero interest in any one of them but he’s perfectly entitled to tell his story as he remembers it, we have freedom of speech (theoretically) If he’s lying for money then he’s a shit. But Charles was a shit so I just don’t care. Someone mentioned Charles being terminally ill and that it is water under the bridge. I personally don’t buy into that, if someone is a bad person then people should know. My opinion is that there will be exaggerated truths in the book. I won’t be reading it, I’ve encountered nastier things than what he has accused him of in real life so it’s not a surprise or titillating to me.

Indeed, Can you imagine the headlines if Charles W. had not walked behind the coffin? He'd have been accused of abandoning his sons in their hour of need and disrespecting Diana; someone would doubtless have tried to blame Camilla's influence ...

I can see both KC and Philip’s points here - protocol meant that her brother was the main mourner so needed to be in the middle.

On the other hand if I was KC I’d have wanted to have both my children near to be able to check on them.

And poor William - he barely gets a thought from Uncle Charles. Didn’t he need his mother’s hugs too?

In a few months no one will talk about this anymore. But at the moment it's a current issue between CS and KC3. Closed down by the Palace (they hope) but note that nothing was absolutely denied either.

Sordid times. A future King, his teenage bride, a mistress of long standing, a Queen who refused to allow KC3 to marry the woman he really wanted to, and honestly it's no wonder there are so many books written about the lot of them!

I am not sure that any of the Royal Family has much emotional intelligence anyway, and I include the late Queen and Prince Philip in that. Emotionally stunted I think, stiff upper lips planks of wood on all of them - IMO.

Agree totally. Also his speech at the funeral showed his anger of the treatment of her and the boys. I don't think he would have done that so publicly unless he had grounds to do it.

I’ve just seen Charles Spencer speak to Laura Kuensberg about this and he has reiterated very clearly indeed that he was telling the truth.

The extended interview is available for viewing on the Beeb on Sunday afternoon.

To all the people saying that Prince Charles wouldn’t have said what he did about Diana; perhaps not if he had been in a calm and rational state, but what Spencer explained further was that they had had the argument about the boys walking behind the coffin, this was followed by Charles questioning the Spencer family’s commitment to the event and making pointed comments about the Spencer family, I think Spencer replied, and it was at that point at which Prince Charles “went ballistic” and made the awful comment about Diana, very much in anger. And then Spencer put the phone down on him.

Charles Spencer said he has only spoken to Prince Charles on the phone twice in his life so they were very memorable conversations and although he didn’t make notes, he told other members of the family thereafter as the comment had been “so monstrous”.

I believe him. He wouldn’t double down on the national news unless he was serious about this. This isn’t just about selling a book imho. It’s understandable revenge.

I don’t understand why he’s saying that losing her HRH means Diana couldn’t be buried at the royal burial ground at Frogmore. There are non HRH’s buried there.

Most famously the Duchess of Windsor.

Also several who relinquished titles around WW1. The Marquess of Cambridge is one. He was formerly a Serene Highness.

So if the Queen was saying she could be buried there then it was possible as it has been done before, and since.

I think there's truth in it. The Royals hated her popularity and The Queen had to be advised from Tony Blair in how to handle things. The Royals always make a hash of things.

The picture of Harry in the article just breaks your heart.

Memory degrades as you get older it doesn't improve he has simply never given an inkling of any of this extra drama in the last 30 years he centers Harry over and over like he was the only one to really lose his parent that day which is par for the fucking course isn't it

As for diana allegedly claiming charles was in love with a man why is he making out his sister is deranged with jealousy like that

Not sure how he can defend his father when he was 12 years old and not part of the conversations.

Yeah - Charles Spencer’s interview is pretty convincing.

Same, the fact they actually responded as opposed to a source but didn't actually deny it is telling.

Suspect KC was pumped full of adrenaline the night D died. He had two children to worry about and knew this would be worldwide news

elated probably the wrong word. Shocked and confused! Yes

Diana's popularity was waining she was dating various Muslim men Britain was very VERY racist back then plus it had come out about her married lovers there was the ever present question over Harry's paternity the press were turning on her like rabid wolves she only became saint diana after her death Charles had nothing to gain by her death if she married someone else it would clear the way for him to marry camilla as it is he had to wait ten years to remarry

How can you get so much so wrong! The Queen wanted to keep the Princes at Balmoral but the baying mob, whipped up by the press, demanded they all return to London. T Blair forced the Queen to go along with this.

It was horrible, but it wasn’t the RF’s doing.