Charles Spencer Claims King Charles Sounded ‘Giddily Elated’ After Diana’s Death

Nearly three decades after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, her brother has returned to the most painful days of the royal family’s modern history with an extraordinary account of the King’s behaviour in the hours after she died. In his forthcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Charles Spencer alleges that the then Prince Charles sounded “giddily elated” when the two men spoke following Diana’s death in Paris on 31 August 1997. “Unlike my other callers, who were stunned, barely able to articulate their condolences and offers of help, he sounded giddily elated, like a lottery winner,” Spencer writes.

It is a striking recollection, made more consequential by the fact that it comes not from a royal biographer or anonymous courtier, but from Diana’s younger brother, who stood beside her sons at Westminster Abbey six days later and delivered one of the defining speeches of her funeral. Looking back on the conversation, he suggests that Charles’s reaction may have reflected the knowledge that Diana’s death removed an obstacle to a future marriage with Camilla Parker Bowles. That interpretation is Spencer’s own and has not been independently established.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Princess Diana Exhibition (@princessdianaexhibition) The memoir, which will be published by Penguin on 22 September, arrives as the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death approaches in 2027. Spencer has said he decided to write the book after years of being asked to revisit his sister’s life and because, in his view, some accounts of her have hardened into accepted history despite being untrue. What might otherwise have been treated as another instalment in the vast Diana publishing industry has already prompted something considerably rarer: a public intervention from Buckingham Palace.

Earlier excerpts from the book contained Spencer’s account of a heated disagreement with Charles over whether the 15-year-old William and 12-year-old Harry should walk behind their mother’s coffin. Spencer alleges that during the exchange Charles told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” “While we do 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.” ~ Buckingham Palace Buck…