Earl Spencer alleges King Charles said Diana would be forgotten

Earl Spencer alleges that King Charles told him "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough" during a heated phone call in the days following Princess Diana's death in 1997. The claim, detailed in Spencer's forthcoming memoir "Swan Song Diana, My Sister," has prompted an unusual public response from Buckingham Palace. The allegation centers on a dispute over funeral arrangements for Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. Spencer writes that he objected to plans for Princes William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to walk behind their mother's coffin during the funeral procession. He claims a senior palace aide informed him of the plan, prompting him to declare "that's not going to happen." According to Spencer's account, Charles called him minutes later. The then-Prince of Wales reminded Spencer that he had walked in the funeral procession for his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, 18 years earlier. Spencer says he pointed out that Charles was 30 at the time, unlike his young nephews. Spencer alleges Charles then "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.