Royal row between King Charles and Earl Spencer 3

[Viviennemary]

A new thread and book not even published till Tuesday. I checked on Amazon and its only 12th on the non fiction bestseller list. Doesn't show Earl Spencer in a very good light imho.

We have the context that it was an argument. We don’t know exactly what Charles R was referring to though if and when he said those words. Charles S may well have misconstrued them. Do you accept that this is possible given the heightened emotions?

He did do it. It struck me because I do wonder why these people sell gossip like this.

I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, did I?

I'm an American. I don't get paid to post on MN. I do wonder about some other posters.

One of the journalists you are talking about, Richard Kay, wrote in the newspaper on Sunday that in the week between her death and funeral, Charles Spencer said he and Prince Charles had had a ‘furious row’. It was ‘about the boys’, but Spencer was reluctant to go further. Spencer added: ‘He has been utterly pathetic'".

That’s not corroboration of the words allegedly used by Charles, and Richard Kay actually suggests he wasn’t told any specifics.

Second, there was a lot of misinformation that has been put out there about Diana in the meantime that he wanted to correct.

Hopefully the book will go some way to address any misinformation he believes is out there about Diana, but so far the two serialisations have done nothing of the sort.

In the interview he said nothing about "misinformation"

They are Richard Kay and A N Wilson who say what CS says now about his conversation with the then Prince of Wales aligns with what he told them around the time of Diana’s funeral.

A publisher such as Penguin would make sure that anyone accusing the King of such an awful statement would have solid corroboration before publishing.

So...the journalists are repeating Spencer's claims.... from Spencer himself?
Ok.

I didn't mention a lawsuit over Diana's possessions?
Just that CS lost an income stream when he could no longer charge visitors to have a look at her stuff, nor take it on tour to America, as he had done previously. He reportedly made several million that way. Presumably this is somehow all in line with his vow never to profit from his sister.

You singled out the word .
Why?

Then that is what he should have written in his factual book. He didn’t. That’s the point people are making that you keep arguing against.

His statement that not having HRH meant she couldn’t be buried there, at the point that the Queen had suggested it, is incorrect.

Diana wouldn’t have been the first non-royal to be buried there (nor the last).

Details are important in books that claim to be historically accurate references.

Charles Spencer says he wasn't upset by the palace's "condescending" respose. That's the word - condescending. Yes the palace are good at condescension. That's their job I suppose.

Yes nothing going against the king gets published without a lot of fact checking.
And yes I know the story Spencers father told him about being an equery doesn't match up with timeline. But it's a family story, not something Charles Spencer was a witness to.
And people summarise in interviews, rather than use exact words. He will have notes he used for the book.

Because I thought it was unusual and not one that most people would have to hand. Is that ok with you? Or are you trying to say that I am inferring something (I am not!) Funny that you can’t do that with regard to what Charles S has said 🤷‍♀️

He didn’t use that word but he referred many times to historical accuracy and verification of the claims in his book regarding Princess Diana's life and the events surrounding her death and he felt it was his duty to act as an eyewitness to history. He and LK also touched on how Diana’s true character comes through in the book and what a great sense of humour she had and how much fun she was; the inference being that other accounts didn’t communicate this accurately.

YY and the timeline does match up about Johnnie Spencer’s time as an equerry as the then Princess Elizabeth wrote letters to Johnnie when he was away serving in the Second World War before he was made an equerry to her after her marriage. QE2 and Johnnie had been friends since way back when and there was talk of him being considered as a suitor for Elizabeth at one point.

A publisher such as Penguin would make sure that anyone accusing the King of such an awful statement would have solid corroboration before publishing.

A publisher like Penguin would also have been advised by their legal team that the chances of the King suing Charles Spencer for defamation based on an account of a “he said/she said’ nearly 30 years ago was a very low risk indeed. Publishers deal in the risk of liability, they are not omniscient.

Are you suggesting that CS made these claims up thirty years ago, told two respected journalists, and then sat on them until now? Why would he do that?

What this proves is that CS did not just make them up for the purposes of this book, which is what people are accusing him of doing.

The words were
‘WE will forget her soon enough ‘

WE

Huge difference .
Have you watched the whole interview ?

I noticed there was an attempt the other day to spin it as ‘they’
Watch the interview .

I'm suggesting that it only proves Spencer claimed it previously, not that it happened in the way it did? We just don't know.

I doubt it. It’s likely everything that King Charles and CS communicated about on the subject of the plans for Diana’s funeral would have been recorded at the Palace end. Penguin wouldn’t risk publishing of there was any chance that palace records contradicted CS.

Yep! The lengths people will go to try and make out that this wasn’t what was said are getting laughable now tbh! Perhaps Prince Charles meant this or that or whatever?

Everything was done to erase Diana’s memory from the palace after her death. I believe what he said was a threat which was then carried out.

Well, again, it’s the old context and interpretation thing isn’t it? He could have been talking about the way people in this Country were behaving at the time and including himself in that. I know you don’t seem to accept that people move on from the passing good a loved one and you have to be sombre all the time, but life isn’t like that. He could have meant that his too was passing phase of grief and hysteria for the whole country. I don’t know. But it is entirely possible that is what he meant. Or that Charles S misheard. Any number of possibilities. Given that Charles R objectively looked shell shocked by what had happened, it may be that Charles S is mistaken. Don’t you agree?

A ceremonial funeral was erasing her?? Okaaay.