Charles Spencer Claims Princess Diana Had One Final Wish for Her Funeral — and the Palace Rejected It
The Earl wrote that no one from the royal family was communicating or clarifying things on a personal level about the funeral.
Charles Spencer's exclusive excerpts from this memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, dedicated to Princess Diana, have been obtained by the Daily Mail. Spencer has detailed the events on the night the Princess of Wales suffered a tragic car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel along the Seine River in Paris. Following this, she was taken to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, where, despite being administered emergency treatment, she was declared dead. It is a known fact that an immensely grief-stricken King Charles had flown over to France to bring her back and eventually honored her legacy with a fitting royal funeral. However, Spencer has revealed a version that has never been heard before.
Spencer has claimed in his book that he initially was put in charge of the funeral arrangements, but Charles hijacked his plans. "I was chosen to be the point of contact for my family when it came to Diana’s funeral arrangements. Once it was correctly decided, after my family appreciated the public need for it, that Diana’s service should be a full-blown national ceremony, Buckingham Palace and Prince Charles’s offices felt entitled to take the lead," he wrote.
According to the Earl, his late sister continued to be perceived as a member of the royal family by Buckingham Palace, even after her death. He further labeled the actions of the monarchy as arrogance and entitlement. Meanwhile, Diana had a particular final wish which her siblings knew from the beginning; however, when Spencer requested that it be fulfilled, he was flat-out turned down by the royal family.
Spencer wrote: "My sisters knew that Diana had always wanted Mozart’s Requiem to be played for her, after her death. But when I passed this on, it was rejected as a possibility: ‘No part of a requiem can be played at a Church of England funeral,’ I was told." The Earl revealed that he later discovered some falsehoods communicated by the authorities during that period.
Concurrently, significant tensions existed between the Queen's team at Buckingham Palace and Charles's team at St James's Palace, stemming from Charles's frustrations at still awaiting his turn to reign. This affected the funeral arrangements since the Earl further wrote that no one from the royal family was communicating or clarifying things on a personal level. "As was usual, such a delicate and personal interaction was farmed out to a courtier," he highlighted in the book.
The Earl revealed that Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm Ross, Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, was put in charge by the palace to oversee the arrangements and coordinate with him. Perhaps the most shocking bit written in the book is when the late princess's brother alleged that many from the royal family were pleased about the Princess of Wales ' death. "There were others in the Palace, I already knew, who were relieved – indeed, pleased – that she had gone," he concluded.
