Earl Spencer’s new book claims Charles whispered a chilling promise to forget Diana, sparking a swift palace reply as royals embark on official trips.
Earlier this month, a memoir titled Swan Song: Diana, My Sister surfaced, authored by Earl Spencer, the brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. In a striking excerpt, the Earl alleges that, mere days after the 1997 crash in Paris, Prince Charles—then the Prince of Wales—confided, “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” The revelation has ignited a media firestorm and forced Buckingham Palace to break its usual silence, issuing a carefully worded statement that hinted at the lingering fog of grief that can distort recollection.
Memoir allegations and the palace’s reaction
The claim centers on a heated telephone exchange recorded in the memoir. According to Spencer, he warned Charles that Diana would not have wanted her sons, William (then 15) and Harry (then 12), to walk in her funeral procession.
When a senior aide to the Queen reportedly insisted the boys would participate, Spencer retorted, “that’s not going to happen.” Minutes later, Charles allegedly called, expressing frustration and, as the book asserts, delivering the chilling line about forgetting Diana. The palace’s response emphasized that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory,” underscoring the difficulty of separating fact from emotion after more than two decades.
Royal family’s public itinerary amid controversy
While the memoir dominates headlines, senior members of the monarchy are proceeding with a packed schedule of official duties. In Scotland, the Prince and Princess of Wales—also the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay—are set to make their first visit to the Isle of Bute, stopping in the town of Rothesay that shares their title. Their Scottish tour follows earlier trips to the Isles of Mull and Iona last year, reflecting a continued effort to maintain a presence in the region.
AI summit at Dumfries House
Simultaneously, King Charles is slated to address leaders from the world’s foremost artificial-intelligence firms—Nvidia, Anthropic and OpenAI—at a summit held at Dumfries House. In his remarks, the monarch is expected to argue that emerging technology must serve “humanity, community and the natural world.” This gathering highlights the royal family’s attempt to balance tradition with contemporary global issues, even as the memoir controversy unfolds.
Beyond the United Kingdom, the Duchess of Edinburgh will travel to Zambia, aiming to strengthen ties between the two nations. Meanwhile, the Princess Royal is scheduled to inaugurate a new History Centre at the German Military Cemetery in Staffordshire, reflecting the family’s ongoing commitment to commemorative and diplomatic engagements.
Additional intrigue surrounds the book’s publication logistics: four copies of the Dutch-language edition were reportedly taken from a delivery truck en route to a warehouse in the Netherlands. The memoir is set for worldwide release next Tuesday by Penguin Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Random House, and is expected to generate further scrutiny of the royal narrative surrounding Diana’s death and its aftermath.
