King Charles Responds to Charles Spencer's Claims About Diana
Left 67%
Center 0%
Right 33%
2 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
In September, Buckingham Palace issued a rare statement after Charles Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, alleged in excerpts from his forthcoming memoir "Swan Song: Diana, My Sister" that then-Prince Charles, in the days after Diana's death, told him, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough." Spencer writes that the remark came during a heated phone argument over whether Princes William, then 15, and Harry, then 12, should walk behind their mother's coffin; Diana had died at age 36 in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997, and the boys did take part in that funeral procession. A palace spokesperson said that while the palace does not comment on books as a matter of principle, "His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss." The palace had not issued a comparable public comment after Prince Harry's 2023 memoir "Spare." The Daily Mail published the excerpt; Spencer's book was scheduled for release later that month.
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 3 articles
2 of 3 articles cite a named source for the story. It started with unnamed sources; a named source appeared within the hour. Buckingham Palace denied part of it on the record.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 3
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Charles Spencer and Buckingham Palace spokesperson
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 3
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: book excerpt
- Credits another outlet 0 of 3
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 3
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- On-record denial 2
- A named person or institution says the claim, or part of it, is not true. It is on the record — someone signed their name to it — but it is not confirmation, so it never counts toward On the record. Criticizing or dissenting from a decision is not a denial. The count is how many people or institutions deny it; each is listed with the first article that carried the denial. Here: Buckingham Palace (ABC News, Sep 16, 21:48 UTC); Buckingham Palace (NBC News, Sep 17, 10:40 UTC)
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 16, 21:48 UTC by ABC News, with no named source. First named source within the hour, from Fox News. First document within the hour, from Fox News (book excerpt).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage omits that the funeral dispute was already on the record from inside the royal family. Right-leaning coverage notes that Harry's memoir had already described Spencer objecting to the princes walking behind the coffin. Fox News includes Harry's recollection that Spencer "raised hell" over that plan. Without that, the excerpt reads as a first account of a private clash rather than a new quote tied to a fight already published.
Left-leaning coverage also recasts the palace reply as a denial of Spencer's story. Right-leaning coverage does not. NBC News calls the comment a "forceful denial," though the statement never says Charles did not speak those words and instead suggests grief can color memory.
None of the coverage asks whether anyone else heard the 1997 phone call or whether Spencer kept a contemporaneous note of Charles's alleged words.
Bottom line
Only Fox News notes that Harry already wrote of Spencer fighting the coffin walk, so left-leaning readers get the palace memory rebuke as if that fight had never been described in print.
The receipts — 3 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Harry's memoir Spare describes Spencer objecting to the princes walking behind the coffin, saying he raised hell and called the plan barbaric
- Spencer told BBC Radio 4 in 2017 that having the boys walk behind the coffin was bizarre and cruel and that he still has nightmares about it
- The royal family was criticized in 1997 for appearing slow to react to public grief after Diana's death
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets treated the palace reply as exceptional and aggressive. ABC News called it a rare rebuttal of a book claim; NBC News described a "fiery response" and an "unusually forceful denial," contrasting it with the palace's silence after "Spare." A Telegraph correspondent quoted by NBC said the palace may have been trying to "get on the front foot" ahead of further "incendiary claims" in the memoir. NBC also placed the statement in a line with Queen Elizabeth II's 2021 remark that "Recollections may vary" after Harry and Meghan alleged racism in the family, and recalled 1997 criticism that the royal family appeared slow to meet public grief for a woman posthumously dubbed the "people's princess."
The Right View
Fox News framed the palace comment as an unusual response rather than a fiery denial, quoting Spencer's account of a "stream of anger" and "pent-up contempt for Diana" at length. It linked the allegation to Spencer's 2017 BBC interview, in which he called having the boys walk behind the coffin "bizarre and cruel" and "the most horrifying half an hour of my life," and to Harry's "Spare," which said Spencer "raised hell" and called the plan "barbaric." The outlet also noted that Charles and Diana had finalized their divorce in August 1996, a year before her death, and that the memoir was set for release on September 22.
Our Take (balanced)
Left-leaning coverage's strongest argument is institutional: the palace almost never comments on books, so a statement that Spencer's grief can "cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory" functions as a high-level rebuke, which NBC presented as a denial and as a sign this claim was treated as more dangerous than those in "Spare." Right-leaning coverage's strongest argument is corroboration of the surrounding fight: Spencer condemned the coffin walk as "bizarre and cruel" in 2017, and Harry independently wrote that Spencer "raised hell" over it, so the quarrel itself is not a late invention even if the specific "forget her soon enough" line remains uncorroborated. The central unresolved tension is whether Charles uttered that sentence on the 1997 call—an issue neither excerpt nor palace statement can close, because there is no contemporaneous record and the palace questioned the rememberer's memory rather than denying the quotation outright.
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