Spare and Swan Song

Swan Song: Diana, My Sister

The memoir levels a genuinely shocking charge against King Charles, claiming that he sounded giddily elated, almost like a lottery winner, in the phone calls directly following Diana’s fatal car crash in Paris. Charles Spencer recalls a fiercely bitter argument over the funeral procession where the King allegedly went nuts, launching into a furious, rude tirade about the Spencer family’s supposed lack of duty. According to the book, the King completely unmasked his pent-up contempt during that phone call by coldly hissing that the family shouldn’t worry because the world would forget Diana soon enough. Buckingham Palace issued a rare public statement , on behalf of the King, disputing the claims. While maintaining a policy of not normally commenting on books, the statement noted that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud memory” Earl Spencer hit back, stating he felt “gaslit” by the King’s response and doubling down on his account of the conversation. Earl Spencer’s error about Piers Morgan have laid claim that other errors, like the telephone conversation with King Charles may have also included ‘errors’. 

In the memoir Swan Song Earl Spencer explicitly claimed that Piers Morgan reacted with surly annoyance during a 1997 telephone call disinviting him from Princess Diana’s funeral due to residual guilt. Spencer wrote that Morgan snarled before hanging up, attributing this bitter reaction to Morgan’s supposed role as the editor responsible for previously publishing highly intrusive, covertly taken paparazzi photographs of Princess Diana exercising in a leotard at a gym. The core of this claim tied Morgan directly to that specific, controversial media breach of Diana’s privacy as the justification for why he was barred from the funeral. However, the entire premise proved false because those exact images were published by the Sunday Mirror in November 1993, two full years before Morgan actually assumed his editorial role at the Daily Mirror. Piers is suing Earl Spencer as he wants all the books with this error in removed from the shelves and monetary compensation, which he intends to give to the ‘King’s Trust’. This must feel like a slap in the face for the Earl Spencer.

The text also pulls back the curtain on the very dawn of their marriage, detailing how Charles bluntly told Diana the day before their massive royal wedding that he was happy to marry her but did not actually love her.

The Earl claims that Queen Elizabeth II initially reacted to the catastrophic news of the Paris crash with a tetchy, cold irritation, immediately snapping to ask what trouble Diana was up to now. The memoir takes sharp aim at the systemic cruelty of the palace machine, accusing the royal establishment of actively taking delight in Diana’s demotion and stripping of her royal status. Spencer details how royal courtiers deliberately sidelined and excluded the Spencer family from crucial funeral arrangements while blocking their request to play Mozart’s Requiem. He portrays a toxic environment inside the royal palaces, alleging that extended family members like Princess Margaret rigidly refused to bow to Diana, while Princess Michael of Kent aggressively demanded curtsies following her demotion.

Spencer fiercely condemns the royal institution for completely abandoning Diana during her darkest moments, leaving her isolated and entirely defenceless against the onslaught of a barbaric press. The book voices deep, enduring anger over the complete absence of comforting care or physical affection shown by the royals toward young Prince Harry as he navigated his mother’s devastating funeral. Ultimately, the memoir accuses the entire Windsor apparatus of deliberately executing a calculating, long-term PR strategy to systematically wipe Diana from the national memory just to shield their own reputations, just like Prince Harry accused Queen Camilla of using him as a human shield to protect and rehabilitate her own damaged public reputation.

I think the large proportion of the population are seeing these two books as a relentless commercialisation of Princess Diana’s memory. They have between them effectively transformed her tragic passing into an eternal cash cow, engineered to generate profits for these estranged family members who weaponise their past royal ties. By aggressively trading on forty-year-old childhood grudges, intimate text messages, and highly confidential phone calls, these tell-all’s systematically strip away the unique mystique and historic reverence that once defined the British monarchy. What was formerly a dignified institution safely protected by a strict wall of absolute silence has now been dragged down into a petty, public slanging match, operating on the exact same level as modern, disposable celebrity tabloid drama. Ultimately, ultra-wealthy elites trading bitter blows over twenty-year-old private conversations feels completely trivial and wildly out of touch to a global public currently grappling with severe, real-world socio-economic struggles with many not being able to afford their household bills due to rising costs of utilities and food to say the least.

Had they written these books and gave the money to charity, the general public may have shown some empathy but the fact that they have written them and received a massive fee,  goes against the grain with most of us. Harry did donate roughly 9.3% of his reported 16 million to charity. But has kept the bulk of it plus after sales of the advance for himself. It must also be said that people give to charity to lower the cost of the taxes they have to pay in earnings, so many choose to give it charity, which bumps up their status rather than giving it to the Government. If you are giving money to charity, do it privately without wanting the recognition from the public for doing so like most people do. A YouGov poll revealed that 41% of people believed that Harry wrote Spare to make money compared to 21% who believed that Harry wanted to tell his story. Harry did lose his security when he left the Royal Family to go it alone on his ‘Freedom Flight’ as he termed it, to start a new life away from the Press. Since they left, they have immersed themselves in the press and people are too aware of this.

Many people feel that Earl Spencer was encouraged to write Swan Song due to the vast amount of money Harry made in trying to disgrace his family. If you are mentioning someone so high profile as the King you are going to get readers and readers buy the books that earn them the cash. However, Earl Spencer is a very wealthy man, so money is unlikely to be his true motive and therefore more of the general public have much empathy towards him than Harry and Meghan. A BBC news article revealed that 36% of the British public believe that the story of the telephone call about the world will soon forget about Diana were untrue compared to 31% who think those words were true, 33% were unsure. Has Earl Spencer held onto the pain of his sister’s loss. I remember his live speech at Princess Diana’s funeral and I was just as shocked at that speech as I was upon hearing about Diana’s death. It started as an extremely heartfelt speech about love and loss before it grew with a sense of anger and resentment. It was like a bolt of lightning aimed towards the senior members of the Royal Family. You could sense the tense atmosphere and I was only watching it on the TV. It must have been so uncomfortable for all involved especially when a rapturous applause broke out at the end. People were very saddened by Diana’s death and I think the applause was more to do with the way he handled the whole speech. It was delivered with a remarkably controlled, unwavering, and articulate tone a slow, deliberate, and fiercely precise rhythm throughout the speech without cracking under the immense pressure or breaking down in tears. His voice carried an underlying, intense power that projected directly into the abbey’s microphones, creating what he later described as a deliberate “rallying call” to the public.  

I truly believe that Charles Spencer hasn’t let go of the past and is still hurting and lashing out – 30 years later. Lots of people have problems with their in-laws when a marriage breaks down and we can all relate to this as our brother and sisters may have had broken marriages and we have heard all the unkind things that people have said, especially in-laws as people often do take sides. We still sympathise with all their pain as we did when we heard about Charles and Diana breaking up although to many of us it came as no surprise as they both looked unhappy much of the time, in the press. We understand Earl Spencer’s pain of losing his sister at just 36 years old, just like we do with Prince Harry and William when they lost their mother. But there comes a time when you just have to let go of the past and move on and it seems that Prince Harry and Charles Spencer have not. Although these books make good reading for many, the fact that they are ‘washing their dirty linen in public’ – for a fee does not make them look good in the eyes of the public despite the money rolling in from sales! Publishers expect something shocking to print about for the hefty upfront fees they give to well-known authors for ‘an exclusive’. The more shocking the details, the more it warrants paying the big fee. Therefore, you have to ask yourself – did they mould the story to beef it up for the publishers to make it sound much more dramatic than it actually was? Why try to embarrass Kind Charles 30 years later? Did Harry and Meghan think that they could shame the King to make him stand down? Were they trying to do the same to William so the next King would be Prince George? Or, where they trying to bring down the Monarchy completely as they knew they would never again become a part of it? Harry went on ITV and said he had to cut Spare down from 800 pages to 400 saying “It could have been two books, put it that way.” Most people thought this sounded like a threat to give in to his security demands. Was Harry threatening to publish Spare 2 by inferring he will do more damage to the family if he doesn’t get State funded security at home and abroad for himself and his wife and children? Should Charles give in to the demands? I think not! It’s no wonder that the Royal Family do not want them anywhere near earshot of their private family conversations ever again as all the trust has gone. A further book by Prince Harry or Meghan will undoubtedly put the nail in the coffin with his family and the public along with their reputations.

in July 2026, a poll revealed that 68% of the public think that King Charles is doing a great job which shows his popularity. This figure is the highest it has been on the Royal Family Favourability Trackers. It also revealed that 74%-76% of the public think that the Prince and Princess of Wales are doing a great job, which shows just how popular they are with the great British public and that Harry’s spare has enabled them to increase in popularity as prior to the book it was around 69%. These two books have enabled the King to become even more popular with the general public whilst Prince Harry, the once lovable son of the King has revealed himself to be a very immature man who has been puppeteered by his wife Meghan in refusing to let go of the past and let his mother rest in peace. They need to stop profiting from her death. Many people in the press, TV and social media believed that Meghan was pulling Prince Harry’s strings by telling him what to do and say, including Lady Colin Campbell. The two books have revealed that the Royal Family have similar problems to us all but are played out in view of the world, much to their misfortune, whereas ours are kept mainly private matters as they should be. Airing your grievances in public to get what you want or to exact revenge can only be detrimental to the storytellers as most people will take pity on the ones that are being written about especially when they tell it on TV which is then beamed around the world. Our family problems are never spilt and digested on that scale. But, whilst there are millions to be made for airing your dirty laundry in public, these two books will probably not be the last we hear about the Royal Family’s struggles and squabbles from either or both of them.