Although the book will only be released on September 22, the first excerpts published by the British newspaper Daily Mail have already caused a real storm.
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The book reveals a very tense and painful conversation with the current king Charles, and passions are further fueled by a mysterious incident related to these memoirs in the Netherlands.
Painful dispute and shocking words of then Prince Charles
In his memoirs, 62-year-old C. Spencer recalls the dramatic events of 1997 following the tragic death of his sister. The book openly discusses the tense situation of deciding whether Diana’s sons – then 15-year-old Prince William and 12-year-old Prince Harry – should walk behind their mother’s coffin during the funeral procession.
C. Spencer strongly opposed this. He was informed about the planned procession by a royal family representative, and shortly after he received a call from then Prince Charles, which quickly escalated into a conflict. As stated in the book, Prince Charles vented his anger for a while, and the former brother-in-law did not interrupt him.
At first, C. Spencer thought the sudden pause meant an attempt to control himself, but then Charles, according to the author, expressed long-held dissatisfaction with Diana and horror at how deeply her death shocked the whole world.
“Be sure,” he hissed, “we will forget her quickly enough,” – C. Spencer recalls the shocking words. According to him, this phrase stunned him so much that he could not utter a word for several seconds. Finally, he replied: “I can’t believe you just said that,” and hung up.
Rare Buckingham Palace reaction and the princes’ own stance
King Charles III rarely comments publicly on such stories, but this time Buckingham Palace responded by issuing an official statement: “While we do not generally comment on books, His Majesty understands that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud the mind, affect decisions, and alter memories in ways that others, even many years after a loss, may not understand.”
Meanwhile, Diana’s sons themselves have previously commented on the decision to walk behind the coffin. In the 2017 BBC documentary “Diana, 7 Days,” Prince William confirmed that it was a “joint and difficult family decision.”
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Prince Harry also recalled this day in his 2023 memoir “Spare” and confirmed that uncle Charles Spencer strongly opposed it, saying: “You cannot force these boys to walk behind their mother’s coffin! It’s barbaric.” Spencer himself has previously said that he found it simply horrible to let a small boy go through such a difficult ordeal.
A tribute to his sister and a detective-like book theft
“Swan Song: Diana, My Sister” is called C. Spencer’s most personal work, in which he talks about his late sister in detail and very openly. The author says that he was motivated to write the book by the huge interest in Diana approaching the 30th anniversary of her death.
“The purpose of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective, as I tried to do when giving a speech at her funeral. I want to speak on Diana’s behalf openly and positively. Essentially, it is a simple brother’s tribute to an extraordinary sister,” says C. Spencer.
Having read his memoirs aloud for three days and recorded an audiobook, he admitted experiencing many emotions: “When I finished the recording, I thought this is exactly what I wanted and needed to say. I think she would have agreed with every word.”
However, the upcoming book release was also shrouded in an unexpected intrigue. On September 15, it was reported that in the Netherlands, four copies of Spencer’s memoirs disappeared after a truck transporting the books to a warehouse and stopping overnight was broken into.
Although only a few copies were stolen, publishing sources call this incident “highly suspicious.” “Nothing like this has happened before. This will probably be the biggest book of the year, and its security was very tight,” a source told the Daily Mail.
Since all possible security measures were taken to prevent the book’s content from leaking before the official release, this unprecedented event is taken very seriously, and the theft is already being investigated by the Dutch police.
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