The royal family will be shocked again by the book "Swan Swan: Diana, My Sister", in which the princess's brother, Charles Spencer, reveals unknown facts.
The book reveals the current king's disagreement with Earl Spencer over Diana's funeral, as well as the phone conversation the two had, where the then-prince said a few days after the fatal car accident: "Rest assured, we will forget it very soon," according to the Daily Mail.
Charles Spencer writes that he insisted that Diana would not want her sons, aged 15 and 12, to be subjected to such a public ordeal, walking behind their mother's coffin. At that point, according to the book, Charles questioned the Spencer family's sense of duty and said that his ex-wife would soon be forgotten.
According to the princess's brother, Charles' comments reflected "his contempt for Diana and his horror that the world had been so shocked by her death." Spencer has stated that he wrote the book to correct "inaccuracies" that had been said about his sister.
On September 6, 1997, six days after Diana's death, Earl Spencer delivered the famous eulogy at her funeral, which was later described as one of the best speeches of the 20th century.
His moving speech at Westminster Abbey came after he walked alongside William, Harry, Charles and Philip behind Diana's coffin during the funeral procession through central London, which was broadcast to 2.5 billion people worldwide.
In his book, Spencer writes that when one of Queen Elizabeth's top aides told him a few days before the funeral that William and Harry would be in the procession, he replied: "That's not going to happen."
However, a few minutes later, he received a call from Prince Charles, who insisted that he too had walked at the funeral of his uncle, Lord Mountbatten.
The book describes how Charles was "rescued" when Earl Spencer pointed out that the prince was 30 at the time of Lord Mountbatten's funeral in 1979.
“Prince Charles continued to express his anger, without my interrupting him. Then he stopped. I assumed the pause signified an attempt to regain control of himself, but then he exploded into the phone with what I always thought was his suppressed contempt for Diana and his horror at the fact that the world had been so shaken by her death. “Be assured,” he whispered, “we will soon forget it!”
Charles Spencer describes being "shocked" by the statements, which took him a few seconds to respond to. "'I can't believe you just said that,' I said in a harsh tone, before hanging up the phone," he writes. ©LAPSI.al
