Prince Harry was made well aware of his uncle Charles Spencer’s bombshell claims about Princess Diana’s death in his new book ahead of its upcoming publication, multiple sources confirm to Page Six.
“Harry knew what was in the book – it didn’t come as a shock,” said one source in the know.
Indeed, we’re told the renegade royal discussed the book, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister” – which is out next Tuesday in both the UK and the US – with his uncle during his visit to the Spencer ancestral estate, Althorp, back in July when Harry brought Meghan Markle and their kids to see his mother’s burial site.
The book is set to open up long-closed wounds about Charles and Diana’s troubled marriage that was plagued by infidelity and ended in divorce in August 1996.
In his memoir, Spencer, who was Diana’s youngest sibling, makes the explosive claim that King Charles told him “Rest assured, we’ll forget Diana soon enough” in a phone call days after her death aged 36 in a Paris car crash in August 1997.
The 62-year-old earl writes of how he fought with Charles, 77, over the decision to allow Prince William and Prince Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to walk in their mother’s funeral procession.
According to the Daily Mail, Charles said he insisted to the former Prince of Wales that Diana would never have wanted her young sons to endure such a public ordeal.
Charles, it’s claimed, then questioned the Spencer family’s sense of duty before saying his ex-wife, whose death sparked a global outpouring of grief, would soon be forgotten.
Earl Spencer says the comments “unleashed” by the King almost 30 years ago reflected “his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death.”
Harry, who celebrated his 42nd birthday this week, has made it no secret that walking behind his mother’s coffin has haunted him ever since. He told Oprah Winfrey on their he Apple TV+ docuseries, “The Me You Can’t See” back in 2021, “For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses’ hooves going along the Mall.
“It was like I was outside of my body, just walking along, doing what was expected of me, showing one-tenth of the emotion that everyone was showing.”
“No child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances,” he has added. In his own memoir, the divisive 2023 bestseller “Spare,” Harry wrote that his uncle called the move “barbaric”.
Harry, who is now living back in the UK with Markle and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, has remained close to Diana’s younger brother.
He is also close to Diana’s other siblings. Her sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, who were at both of his children’s christenings.
His estranged brother, Prince William, however, has kept his relationship with the Spencer clan more private and out of the public eye.
In a statement obtained by Page Six, Buckingham Palace 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.”
In a blistering speech at Diana’s funeral, Earl Spencer vowed to protect her sons, telling the world, “We, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men”
Announcing his book in August, Spencer said he was prompted to write the memoir after being “inundated” with requests for interviews about Diana amid the looming 30th anniversary of her death, next year.
“This has convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories, once and for all, rather than having the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time,” he said.
“The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective, just as I attempted to do when speaking at her funeral. As with my eulogy, I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way.
“I hope this book will be of interest to the many who still cherish the memory of Diana when she was alive, and I would be delighted if those too young to remember her in her heyday feel — after reading this — that they ‘get’ who she really was: a one-off, dynamic character, full of love, charisma and self-doubt, who gave life a hell of a go, and left the world a far better place, despite exiting the stage while still so young.”
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