Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch has backed the King amid a row between the monarch and Princess Diana‘s brother, Earl Charles Spencer.
The Earl’s searing memoir – being exclusively serialised by the Daily Mail – has sparked anger in royal circles after he claimed King Charles III told him in the days after his sister’s death that ‘we will forget her soon enough’.
It prompted Buckingham Palace to issue an unprecedented statement, with royal aides questioning the veracity of his account and suggesting that grief can ‘cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory’.
Now the Tory leader has come out strongly in support of the King. Speaking in an interview with BBC Newsnight which will be aired tonight, Ms Badenoch said: ‘I have a side and it’s always on the side of His Majesty.’
Writing in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, the Earl, 62, also claimed her late majesty Queen Elizabeth II offered to return the Princess’s HRH title after her death.
But it was the phone call Earl Spencer said took place between himself and Charles, in which the then-Prince of Wales is alleged to have lost his temper and ‘hissed’ the jibe about Diana’s memory, that has divided the nation.
Referring to the statement issued by a Palace spokesperson on Wednesday in response to Spencer’s claims, Ms Badenoch told the BBC: ‘I would reiterate exactly what it was that the King himself had said or certainly Buckingham Palace said on his behalf.’
Royal watchers were stunned by the Palace’s highly unusual response to Earl Spencer’s book.
Charles and Diana are seen visiting Venice during their trip to Italy in May 1985
The Earl, Diana and Charles at the Earl’s 21st birthday party in 1985 at the Mirabelle restaurant in London
Speaking in an interview with BBC Newsnight which will be aired tonight, Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch said: ‘I have a side and it’s always on the side of His Majesty’
The front cover of Charles Spencer’s book ‘Swan Song, Diana: My Sister’
The 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.’
The statement is reminiscent of the late Queen’s famous ‘recollections may vary’ retort to Harry and Meghan’s accusations of racism.
It was issued in response to claims of an argument between Charles and his brother-in-law after a decision, opposed by Diana’s brother, that Prince William and Prince Harry, then aged 15 and 12, would walk in their mother’s funeral procession.
The earl says he insisted to the then Prince of Wales that Diana would not have wanted her young sons to endure such a public ordeal.
It is claimed Charles then questioned the Spencer family’s sense of duty before saying his former wife, whose death sparked a global outpouring of grief, would soon be forgotten.
Royal aides are said to be horrified by the allegations, and have said they are the opposite to the temperament of the man who now sits on the throne.
Asked about the revelations by Newsnight’s Matt Chorley on Friday, Ms Badenoch said: ‘It’s always very difficult for me to talk about the royal family. The king is my boss, now I’m the leader of His Majesty’s loyal opposition.’
She continued: ‘I have a side and it’s always on the side of His Majesty. I would reiterate exactly what it was that the King himself had said or certainly Buckingham Palace said on his behalf.
Earl Spencer, Prince William, Prince Harry and then Prince Charles stand outside Westminster Abbey on the day of Princess Diana’s funeral
‘I think it’s, you know, it’s coming up to 30 years. It’s very painful to lose a close member of the family but a lot of people also experienced that loss including His Majesty and the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry as well.’
The book includes a string of further extraordinary claims about Diana’s failed marriage to Charles and the tumultuous aftermath of her tragic death in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
The revelations are set to plunge Buckingham Palace into a fresh storm just weeks after the return of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children to the UK from California.
On September 6, 1997, six days after Diana’s death, Earl Spencer delivered a defiant eulogy at her funeral that was later named one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century.
His raw oration in Westminster Abbey was delivered after he walked alongside William and Harry, as well as Prince Charles and Prince Philip, behind Diana’s coffin in a funeral procession through central London.
He wrote in the memoir how he had originally told Charles of the decision for his children to walk in the procession: ‘That’s not going to happen’.
The now-King is said to have responded by pointing out he had walked behind the coffin of Lord Mountbatten at his funeral in 1979.
But Earl Spencer said Charles ‘went nuts’ after the earl pointed out that the prince had been 30 at the time, and Lord Mountbatten was not his father.
In one of the book’s most extraordinary passages, Earl Spencer writes: ‘Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped.
‘I assumed the pause signalled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death. “Rest assured,” he hissed, “we’ll forget her soon enough!’.'”
Earl Spencer said that he was ‘so stunned’ by the alleged remarks that he took a few seconds to reply.
‘”I can’t believe you just said that,” I said flatly, before hanging up,’ he writes.
