The Royals with Roya and Kate - Earl Spencer, King Charles and the battle for Diana's legacy

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Did King Charles really tell Earl Spencer that Diana would soon be forgotten? In his new memoir, Swan Song, Diana’s brother makes a series of explosive claims about the King’s behaviour following her death — prompting a swift and unusually personal response from Buckingham Palace.Roya Nikkhah and Kate Mansey are joined by Andrew Morton, author of Diana: Her True Story, to examine Spencer’s disputed account and ask whether the Palace scored a “colossal own goal” by responding. He also reveals where Spencer’s version conflicts with Diana's own account, and explains why he believes the memoir is an attempt to take control of her story ahead of the 30th anniversary of her death.They also discuss William’s reported “multigenerational fury”, Harry’s relationship with the Spencer family and whether the book honours Earl Spencer’s pledge to protect Diana’s sons — or risks them reliving their grief.If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to press follow at the top of your podcast app.Who should have the final say over Diana’s story? Get in touch: [e-mail] us on YouTube.Read more: Hypocrite Spencer is peddling Diana's privacy, say King's alliesFurther listening: Catherine, Meghan, Camilla, Diana — the price of marrying a princeProducer: Robert WallaceVideo Producer: Eve ChadbournExecutive Producer: Priyanka DeladiaImage: Getty Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Royals, the podcast where we discuss what happens behind the palace walls and why it matters. I'm Kate Mansy. And I'm Royne Nicar. Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough. Those are the extraordinary words. Al Spencer claims King Charles said in the days following the death of his sister, Princess Diana. And his new memoir, Swan Song, reignites one of the monarchy's most painful periods. The response from the palace was immediate and unprecedented,

suggesting Spencer's grief may have clouded reason, affected judgment and coloured memory. But Spencer insists he is telling the truth. The claims have triggered a rare and very public clash between House Spencer and House Windsor. At stake, not just a family feud, but the reputation of the king himself. So why has Spencer chosen to make these allegations

now. Was the palace right to respond or has it simply amplified his claims? And is Diana's brother protecting her legacy or reopening old wounds? Well, to make sense of this extraordinary moment, we're joined by guests who knows the Diana story better than anyone. Andrew Morton is the journalist and author of Diana, her true story, the landmark biography produced with the late Princess of Wales's secret cooperation. Andrew, welcome to the Royals. Thanks for joining us. Nice to see you.

What a week we have been having. My goodness me. Kate, the memoir has just exploded, I think, onto everyone's consciousness. Let's just bring ourselves up to speed with what we know it's hit the shells, but we have seen it trailed for the past week, serialized in the Daily Mail with bombshell after bombshell, almost every day backed up by a new interview that Charles Spencer has given. there have been some extraordinary claims about King Charles, as he was the Prince of Wales, his reaction to Diana's death, his reaction to her during her life. Extraordinary response in the palace, doubling down by Charles Spencer.

What have you made of it all? I mean, another week where you and I are kind of looking left, right, left, right to figure out what's going to come next. Going back to Spencer's claims, I think, those damaging claims that came out, first of all, we had this tiny, little extract before it was serialised in the Daily Mail. Spencer's basically claimed so many things. He says he doesn't want to write a salacious book. He's not a salacious writer, he says, but there's so much royal gossip and dredging up at the past. The most damaging claims, really at the heart of it, being two telephone calls, he says that the then-Prince Charles made to him in the days after Diana's death. Spencer says that he was out in his home in Cape Town,

the night that Diana died, he was having phone calls through the night from his sister with various updates until they learn the tragic news that his sister had died. Then we get his account of things, which has not been corroborated by the palace, in which he says that Charles made an angry phone call to him in the subsequent days. He says that he ranted down the phone to him. He said that he was angry and that essentially, as you read out in the intro there, rest assured, we'll forget her soon. There are some extraordinary claims.

Andrew, when you first started seeing these claims, these newslines, these quotes, these allegations from Charles Spencer dropping from the book, what was your initial reaction? First of all about some of the content and the facts that he says he's put in, and secondly, the response. Well, let's start with the general overview. I mean, this book is Diana, his true story. It's very much Charles Spencer writing a love note to his sister.

And not everything that he says has been corroborated by not only just other facts, but also the fact that he's contradicted himself. So there's a degree of wariness when it comes to what he's written. I think that looking at what King Charles did, his response was typical of the man, got his private secretary to write a kind of a half-baked, response about the allegations in the book. Well, let's just pause there, Andrew, because that response was key, wasn't it?

So rewind the first snippets we have about the book, even before the first serialisation drops, that damaging allegation within just barely over an hour, we had the palace, didn't we, hitting back with that statement, Andrew, that you referred to. A palace spokesperson said, 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. So it was a sort of variation of recollections may vary, the late Queen's response, wasn't it, to Harry and Megan's claims in the Oprah Winfrey Show.

From your initial reaction there, you didn't think that was either a very good idea or very well worded. What's your response? Prince Charles's private secretary was essentially, it seemed to me writing to an audience of one, and that's King Charles. The response was way too quick. I write in this issue of the Sunday Times how if the Queen was involved,

they'd have waited, let the ball come onto the baton, and then they would have done something about it, in a way by responding within 50 minutes or so. They were way too hasty. So you think it felt rushed? I felt it felt really rushed. I mean, they admitted themselves that they don't normally comment on books. And it wasn't even the book that they were talking about. It was just a serialisation. So I think that they scored a colossal own goal. And it was something that they could have avoided. Let the thing play out. So Roya, Andrews essentially saying the never complain, never explain rule served the queen quite well. What do you make of it? Do you think this was the right move at the right time? I think it would have been difficult, given the players involved, to not say something relatively soon. Because that is such a huge allegation.

The players involved, now do you think, what are you talking about the king and his reaction? I'm talking about the king and Charles Anderson's, but also about, you know, you've got Charles and Dan's son still alive. You let that run, an allegation that Charles effectively said, we will forget you, William and Harry's dead mother. I think it's enormous and it paints the king in a certain light. I thought the statement was quite clever in that it, I mean, they clearly wanted to undermine Charles Spencer's credibility and I thought it did because it cast doubt. I think Andrew makes an interesting point in terms of sort of the speed, but I don't know if they hadn't said anything and just left it to other people, it then looks like they're hiding behind the wall of silence and actually they're going to let that fly. And I think that might have been quite dangerous. I think that PR thing where you just know you've got a week's worth of front pages coming down the line.

That was the first snippet. then we had all the extracts and they knew there was going to be TV coming. I think they had to sort of get out in front of it and say something. What they did was to just cast doubt on anything that came after. So it was sort of setting out their position. They weren't going to take it lying down. Do you think El Spencer expected that? Because then the barrage of it all as well,

it wasn't just that one statement from the palace. But as you've written, the allies around the king really rallied round. And it was this kind of army gathering. in the war of the Spencers versus the Windsors. What were people saying privately in support of King Charles? Well, I mean, I think the palace are probably right to put out just one on the record statement, but speaking to people who were with the king all of last week

and people who know the king very well and his thoughts on this issue, you know, they didn't hold back in terms of what they think about what Charles Spencer is saying. There was some pretty fruity language used to me, which we ran in the Sunday times at the weekend of people, close to the king, effectively calling Charles Spencer, you know, a hypocrite, suggesting that

a lot of what he wrote was not correct. I mean, using phrases like, Charles Spencer says he's telling Diana's truth and he's doing this to set the record straight. The phrase that was used to me was, that's like an arsonist giving you a fire hose. A constant refrain was, why not just let her memory rest in peace, which I think is something that's been repeated by a lot of people, also people who knew Diana. But Charles Spencer has doubled down, hasn't he? He's double. He's double down and he has said, well, that is what the king said to me. Andrew, can I ask, you are someone who had extraordinary access to an archive of material which you listened to.

You were immersed in her world through her own voice when you were effectively researching and writing that book. Hearing these allegations come out, given that you knew so much about what Diana was going through at that time, does any of this ring true to you? Because it seems unlikely that Charles Spencer has fabricated in a entire book. I mean, let's be honest, there will be some elements of truth in a lot of what he's had to say. There's some elements which I'm slightly baffled about, quite frankly. Charles Spencer's written quite copiously about how she had a very happy childhood. Well, when I spoke to him in a

taped interview, he said that she had an unhappy childhood. And Diana herself said that her childhood was unhappy and went on to elaborate it. So these are the kind of issues that I take issue with. That's really interesting, Andrew. Why do you think he's trying to change the narrative around her childhood? Well, I think he's trying to control the narrative about her life. And remember, this is her story. It's not Charles's story. And so she told me about her unhappiness as a child, the relationship she had with her mother and her father,

the things that went on, the general kind of gloom and so on. Charles has written a very different kind of take on it, even though when I interviewed him for Diana Her True Story book, he was pretty negative as well about his child. It's like a reshaping of the narrative. It's a reshaping of the narrative, very much so. Now, at the same time, when we're talking about the funeral week, that showed the establishment, the monarchy Downing Street,

red in tooth and claw. It wasn't just a fight between Spencer and Windsor. It was a fight between the Prince of Wales, then Prince Charles, and the Queen. So Charles Spencer, for part of that seminal week, was on a plane from Cape Town, but there were still rows and battles going on that he wasn't involved in. And I think it's important that he's written what he's written because this was a really important time for the British nation. And it showed, as it were, the victory of the trembling lower lip as opposed to the stiff upper lip. You mean, you talk about it being

Earl Spencer's love letter to his sister, but it also feels this is him deciding that she loved Dorthor. I mean, in your book, Andrew, you talked about the fact that she found it quite creepy, that she felt that the eyes on the pictures of her ancestors on the walls were kind of following her round. But in his version of events, she loved Dorthor, had happy memories there, and, you know, that's why he decided to bring Diana's coffin back and bury it there. Why is he trying to reshape that? Is it about control? Is it about him saying she belongs to the Spencer family and not the royal family?

Well, absolutely. I mean, she's a Spencer. The Spencers have been around for many hundreds of years, and they always used to joke about the Germans, the royal family. Well, that's it, isn't it? And I think that gets the heart of the telephone call, because what Spencer misses out in his version of events is what he says that leads up to that angry response from Prince Charles. And was it about the kind of Spencer's, we go back a long way, you know, Diana's a Spencer? And then he says, you know, well, we're royal that trumps it. And that leads to that alleged response saying, rest assured, we'll forget about her soon enough. It feels like this is at the heart of that disagreement about battling for status and titles. Yeah, I don't think when you look at it in the round that anybody's going to disagree with the fact that the two Charlesers didn't like each other, didn't get on. And I don't think anybody was going to disagree with the fact that they had phone calls. In fact, I was reading a book last night, published in 2012, no less, saying that they had a bitter conversation and Spencer put the phone down on Prince Charles.

So this has been around for a while. Andrew, what do you make of the timing of this? Because we are a year away, effectively, from the 30th anniversary of Diana's death, where there will be tons of films, documentaries, books, written, commemorations. it's suggested in Charles Spencer's book that Prince Harry is working on or is in talks to make a documentary about her. Why do you think Charles Spencer has gone with this now? He has said, well, I'm in my 60s.

Both my parents are in their 60s. I'm aware of mortality. But what do you think? I would go with Spencer on this. I mean, the last time I spoke to him, we talked about taking a trip down memory lane before we got too old. And he agreed with that.

And the fact that he's written a memoir about his school days, he's now written Diana's memoir, is a historian himself of some note. And I think that that's what he wants to do, control the narrative, so that when there's this outpouring of documentaries and other material about Diana on the 30th, they'll have to navigate around what he's written. So he's trying to take control of the narrative. And as I've mentioned, some of it leaves me scratching my head for the simple reason that he said to me, you know, that they had an unhandlems.

happy childhood. Diana said that. And now he's saying it was a happy childhood. These are the building blocks of a biographical narrative. Coming up. Andrew, you knew Princess Diana very well. What would she have made of this book, do you think? Andrew, you knew both Princess Diana and L Spencer, Princess Anna very well. What would she have made of this book, do you think? Well, at that time, the divorce was finished with signed sealed and delivered. The relationship between Charles and Diana was a lot warmer and more companionable than it had ever been during their married days. So on the one hand, she'd be glad to see somebody supporting her champion in her life. And she would have, if not been shouting from the rafters, at least indicating her support.

And what about the princes, William and Harry? it's unclear that they've seen the allegations before they went out. Certainly the king didn't. What would their reaction be? Because this is a painful memory for both of them. They were just 15 and 12 when they walked behind their mother's coffin at her funeral. How will the princes take this, do you think? I mean, he really goes there in that book, doesn't he?

Well, let's face it, the princes have had to put up an awful lot from what their parents have said. Jonathan Dimbleby, for example, encouraging the then-prinians. Charles to admit his adultery on primetime TV. Diana herself talking about James Hewitt, her lover. So the middle-aged men now, I was going to say the boys, have had these kind of revelations from their parents continuously. So I don't think this is going to change very much at all. They know their truth. Earl Spencer knows his truth and King Charles knows his truth. And Roya, what do you think about that? I mean, we're living in the here and now, reporting on what's going on now. We see this riff, don't we, between Harry and William and Earl Spencer was questioned

about that in the BBC interview. Do you think this will just run and run? Will the trauma ever pass? It will run and run because, you know, Charles Spencer is speaking his truth now. Next year, we're almost certainly going to have Harry speaking his truth about Diana. How will William choose to market navigating all of this? It's a good question. You know, I think the response of the two brothers is interesting. Charles Pence has been asked about it in all the interviews. He has said what's in the book won't be a surprise to them, which is not the same as saying I told them, but it's like, you know, they'll have heard this stuff before, either from their mother or from me in private conversations. But someone who knows what William thinks about it last week said to me,

he used that phrase, multi-generational fury, not just for himself. And I think anger that's come down from the king, because of course this is his father being absolutely annihilated in the book. But also Charles Spencer, who says he respects the monarchy and is for a monarchy, a more modern monarchy, he says, he is damaging to an extent. He's throwing stones at an institution that William is going to one day, possibly soonish, lead. And, you know, it is reopening the most painful of old family wounds, which I'm sure that probably William and Harry would have hoped, would have not healed but closed by now and reopening them in that way

and seeing it play out when the king is still around and his son Prince George has to read all of this and is probably aware of all of it I think I know that has made William pretty cross but they have a very different relationship William is not close to El Spencer Harry is closer to El Spencer and has sought to strengthen those bonds

and those ties with his other side of the family We saw him staying at Althor, didn't we, this summer, because Megan put those pictures of the family playing there, going to visit the grave, presumably, because they were walking along the tree-line path with flowers. I mean, looking back, Andrew, to the eulogy that Al Spencer did at Diana's funeral, I mean, he points to that as his defence of Diana, his claims about Prince Charles.

It's like his rebuttal to the king, isn't it? He's saying, well, yeah, his rebuttal is it will never extinguish Diana's memory, but also sort of saying that the blood family ties with her sons would matter. How do you read that? Well, you're absolutely right. The eulogy is the centrepiece of the book and his deconstruction of the eulogy and how it affects the various relationships, Charles and so on. Again, it's an essential part of the book.

And I feel that Charles Spencer is writing and speaking. from the heart, speaking his truth, but it's not necessarily the truth of other players in this drama. And what he's done is reshape the narrative so that it's very much seen as a Spencer narrative. And you talk about Lily and Archie being at Althorpe the other day. Remember, the Queen wanted Diana buried at Frogmore, the traditional burial places for members of the Royal Family.

Charles Spencer objected to that and got his way. And so Diana, possible future queen, is buried not on royal ground, but on Spencer ground. I mean, Andrew, I'm interested in the eulogy, which he continues to come back to in the book. It is really the centrepiece of the book and the justification for a lot of the truth he feels about Diana. One of the most memorable lines in Charles Spencer's eulogy was this notion that instead of William and Harry, these young princes just 15 and 12 then, being immersed in duty and tradition, royal youths, tradition that he vowed, he pledged to protect them and let their souls sing as Diane had planned. Do you think he has done that? Has he been true to that pledge? Does this book help that or not?

No, of course, the book doesn't help it at all. How does it help them to sing openly? And given the fact that he's talking about the fact that his father kind of rejoiced at the death of their mother is pernicious. For anybody, that hurts. We've talked about the fact that the young men, the middle-aged men, know so much about what went on in their parents' lives, that this won't come as a total surprise. But nonetheless, it is something which they've got to deal with. But Roya, as journalist, we can't really ignore the fact that this is going to be a hugely successful bombshell publishing phenomenon. No doubt. I mean, he's going to get millions of pounds from this book. He says it's his final say on the matter. It's his swan song. But already,

you know, we've seen a barrage of television interviews. There's loads more to come. We understand that he's going to be in the US giving interviews and panel shows and discussions. So although it's his final word on the matter in the book, he's going to be doing a lot of publicity around that book. You know, cynics would say he's in it for the money. Well, it's certainly what a lot of people said to me last week, allies of the king, other people who actually, you know,

people who aren't necessarily fans of the king still felt pretty sorry with the king. I think I'm very interested in the late Queen's role here because I can remember writing a story in 2022, I think, which was the year that Prince Harry's memoir, spare, was supposed to come out. And it was put out by the publishers, and now it's in the press release. And I remember we rang the publishers as this book failed to appear, fail to appear.

And I ran the story because I knew that Harry was not going to run that book while the Queen was still alive. Having said that he did Oprah Winfrey, didn't he? He did. He did. He did. He did. He was damaging enough.

So maybe he thought... I think there's something beyond in the book that it would have irreparably damaged his relationship with her. I don't think Charles Spencer would have published this book while the Queen was still alive either. The fact that he's chosen to do it with a new monarch on the throne is interesting to me. I mean, people have been talking about it, haven't they, for years? I mean, people close to the royal family that Charles Spencer always planned to have his final word about what Charles had said to him around Diana's death.

And I've had all sorts of variations in this thing. theme. But I suppose it's how these claims will affect the monarchy, how they affect the institution. And we've had some UGov polling about the extraordinary headlines that have dominated the past week. YouGov asked the public whether Spencer's allegations that Charles said Diana would be forgotten was true or not. I'm talking about whether he actually said it. 31% believed that he had. 36% believed that it probably was false and 33% don't know. So it's quite an even sort of split. But by and large, you either don't know or you don't believe he said it.

And that falls back onto El Spencer, who today has been forced to apologise for one of the facts as he's put in his book about peers Morgan and a conversation he had with him. So the more and more chipping away at the credibility of the book, I think will give ballast to those allies of the King who've been rallying round in support of him. That's why I suggest the official statement was way too premature. Let some distance grow between the serialisation. How can you really make a judgment on the book when you've not read it? And there are some pretty blockbuster elements coming down the pipeline. Angela Kelly, the Queen's dresser for many, many years, will give an insight into the workings

of Buckingham Palace. There's the official biographer who's been chosen. anarchy. What will she make of this? And presumably she will want to speak to King Charles about the whole narrative now. In terms of, you know, the impact on the institution, the monarchy, how the royal family have handled this episode, it does set up the question for how they're going to handle the anniversary next year. Because next year, arguably, is going to be a longer commemoration. You know, I'm sure if Harry's making a film, there'll be some

bombshells and that. Everyone will come out and have their say about remembering Diana. How they've handled this, I think, will shape probably how they manage, really manage that anniversary next year because they're going to have to manage it somehow. How do you think on the whole,

Andrew, I know that you think that the statement was rushed out a little bit too soon, but do you think it will have a negative impact in terms of reputational on the king and the institution as whole, or have most people in this decades-long saga between the War of the Wales as it was down on, had they already made up their minds about which side they fall on? Yeah, well, let's face it, we're talking essentially about stuff that happened 30 years ago.

Everybody at that time came down on one side or the other or the raw family or not, and masses of new material that's been uncovered every so often. And this is another huge tranche of fresh material. We've known about the row between Spencer and Charles for many, many years. What's contained in this book is old news. So it's not going to change the dial when it comes to the monarchy. People know roughly the story. Whatever people believe or don't believe,

it's certainly going to be a very good day, week, few months for Charles Spencer. Day one, and it already feels like we've been talking about it for a long time. Well, that's all from us for this week. A huge thank you to our guest, Andrew Morton, for joining us. Thank you very much. And a reminder, you continue to follow all the latest developments in this story by subscribing to the times.com. And we'd love to hear what you think.

Has Elspenser defended Diana's legacy or reopened wounds that should have stayed closed? Email your thoughts and questions to the royals at the times.com.uk. and we may feature them in a future episode. And don't forget to like, rate and follow the Royals on your podcast app or join us on YouTube by subscribing to the Times Royals channel. Thank you for joining us on The Royals and we'll see you next week.