Grief, grudge, or greed? Inside Earl Spencer’s attack on the King

The Telegraph It's the War of the Charleses as Earl Spencer takes aim at the King with a vitriolic attack in his new memoir about the late Princess Diana. As we await more exotic allegations, is his memoir motivated by grief, grudge or greed? And do we believe a word he says? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominey. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Can we first discuss the wisdom of abandoning the never complain, never explain mantra of the late Queen and jumping on this story in, may I say, a rather Sussex-esque way? I don't think they have. I think they had to say something. I'm a great believer in the never complain approach. But they are basically saying Spencer is bonkers, aren't they? They're saying cloud reason, effect judgment and colour memory. That's when you get the men in white coats coming for you and putting you in a nice cell with. Cushions all around you. Jacob, you, the Somerset Yeoman, me, the middle class posho, we're back together and there's been quite a lot of reaction to just how posh we both are. There was a poll on our YouTube communities page. Who's posher, Camilla Tominey or Jacob Rees-Mogg? 1,200 people voted. 90% in your favour. This poll was run by the Kim Jong-un Institute and therefore it came out with a particularly skewed result. Camilla is posh. But, oh, you won't like that. Christ, Jacob is the personification of the class system, says Axel Doley. We don't like to take the Lord's name in vain there. I do apologise, Jacob, my fellow Catholic. I think they're both perfectly charming in their better moments. But Mr Mogular, I love that, certainly possesses the more classical edge. Going up against Mog in a posh-off is a bit like challenging Michael Jordan to a game of basketball. Good point. Camilla is posh, but Jacob is posher. If that word exists in the language, or may I say Jacob is superlative? Oh, I like Doctor196903. Do you think that means that Doctor was born in March 1969 and therefore two months before me? Or am I just reading things into numbers that don't exist? But I'm worried now that he's going to be a victim of cyber fraud. Noel Gallagher, your old friend in Oasis, you know, I did mention it was the Gallagher brothers that formed that esteemed band of the 90s. You did. I've been thoroughly educated in the last couple of days. Have you been listening to their albums? No. No, I haven't. But I've been listening to your beautiful singing, which was much maligned by some cruel listeners. Can I confirm that I will never be singing on the Daily Tee again? Anyway, Noel, who is friends with Rachel Johnson, also of this parish, noticed that we were discussing Oasis, sent her a message saying, finally we have arrived, and say hi to Camilla, which I'm really happy with. Well, I'm very flattered. I would have thought that Mr. Gallagher would have been completely entitled to say, and who is Jacob Rees-Mogg? Well, quite. He might not be on his radar. Indeed. Indeed. Why should he know who some obscure ex-politician is? Well, because he's a Daily Tee-er. So I'm flattered. It's very kind of him. Because he's a Daily Tee-er, like all of our listeners and our viewers, he's a very well-rounded individual. And has excellent taste, clearly. Great breadth of knowledge. Yes, and I feel very guilty for not knowing more about his music. Well, do you know there's one person who is posher than you? Yes. And that's India McTaggart. That's not true. That can't be true. Who literally, her Instagram reel is like something out of The Only Way Is Monaco. You have never known. Have you been stalking me, Camilla? Yeah, you've never known a woman more sophisticated and more well-connected than our Royal Correspondent and Entertainment Correspondent. Even more well-connected than you. Seriously. My goodness, I'm completely out of. She is the picture of English rose refinement. I'm going to go inside, yes. We have never had anyone more glamorous in this studio than India McTaggart. And India is well-connected and so knows things, and therefore we must get into this extraordinary Charles versus Charles. It's the ginger versus the Windsor. I think. We call him the king. I know you're a Royal Correspondent of old, but really. Can we caveat this podcast? I think you're on first-name terms with our sovereign lord. Can we caveat. Look, I'm called Camilla, so I'm practically related. The queen. We're going to caveat this entire podcast by reminding everyone that you can take Sir Jacob out of the Privy Council, but you can never take Sir Jacob out of the Privy Council. And at all times, his loyalty will be to the crown. We're going to just preface. Of course it is, yes. So whatever is said against the king, you won't believe a bloody. A bloody word of it. I'm the king's loyal and obedient subject and servant. Of course I do. And I was the debated minister of his late mother and briefly of him. So of course I support the crown. MacTaggart, as I love to call you. Yes. Can you please lay out the case here? What has happened? This is extraordinary, isn't it? It is extraordinary, yes. So we had the first taster of Earl Spence's new memoir to mark 30 years since Diana's death. Swan Song. Swan Song, exactly. Told from his perspective, obviously, to correct some untruths about what has been reported about his sister, he claims, when he announced the book happened. And he has. It's being serialized in the Daily Mail. So the Daily Mail yesterday released the first sort of tidbit, which was pretty, pretty vitriolic and ruffled some feathers in the palace, understandably. So the main allegation was that during this fight that they were having ahead of the funeral. The king allegedly told Earl Spencer, rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough. And the way that Earl Spencer wrote this in the book, the language he used saying the king hissed that, obviously then the Prince of Wales, that he unleashed on him the anger, the contempt he had felt for Diana, the sort of pent-up contempt and the sort of horror at the outpouring of grief that the world was showing at the time. So these words, very inflammatory. And I think Buckingham Palace immediately also, because of who the author of this book is, of course, and his younger brother, knew they needed to respond. They needed to issue a rebuttal. And a palace source yesterday told me, this is the king's version of the late queen's Recollections May Vary, which she released after the Sussex's Oprah interview. They released a statement very swiftly, which said, His Majesty understands that fraternal grief can cloud judgment and sort of alter memory. And it was very deftly done. Let's just read the full verbatim quote. Yes, read the full statement. 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. Now, listen, I think that the palace has done this because they are probably worried about more revelations to come. And as we know, that the next, the next instalment of this book is dropping at around 5pm today. We may be recording a bonus episode of The Daily Tea a little later, so look out for that. They're clearly trying to get ahead of this story by suggesting that Spencer has misremembered things, Jacob. But can we first discuss the wisdom of abandoning the never complain, never explain mantra of the late queen and jumping on this story in, may I say, a rather Sussex-esque way? Spencer makes the claim, normally you'd have just, a bit of time, let's just consider this, let's just weigh it up. The palace have jumped in there. They've poured fuel on the fire of this attempted book sale. But they are basically saying, Spencer, it's bonkers, aren't they? They're saying cloud reason, affect judgment, and colour memory. That's when you get the men in white coats coming for you and putting you in a nice cell with cushions all rounded. I mean, it's, they're not saying this is untrue. They're saying this chap is delusional. It's a really strong statement that has been put out by the palace against Spencer. But if he comes out with furthermore damning allegations, they've then covered themselves ahead. They are sowing the seed in the public's mind that this guy has gone a little mad and is misremembering everything. Let's think about who this chap is. What has he done? He is an intelligent man. He's written some perfectly decent history books. One on the killers of Charles I, as it happens. So he's not always on the side of those opposing the monarchy. But he's had a pretty interesting private life. Axiorial loyalty not being his strong point. There are reports that he's been on the Hoffman course, where you blame everything on your childhood and are always seeking to blame others. I don't know much about this. India, what? The Hoffman course, yes. Very famous. A few friends have done it. It is, as Jacob says, a deep dive into childhood trauma. Sorry, is this a posho thing? What's going on here? I don't know if it's a posho thing. I think it's just a psychotherapy thing. And it's a week long, I believe five or seven days long. And you go into therapy sessions, group therapy sessions, and you uncover childhood wounds and trauma. All right. We don't know whether he's taken the course or not, but let's just say this. Just as Diana was damaged by her childhood, which saw her mother walk out on the family to be replaced with a stepmother that she loved, which she apparently nicknamed Acid Rain, Rain Spencer. Similarly, Charles must have also been damaged by that difficult childhood. And when you refer to his private life, he has had four wives. I mean, that might be one or two too many. Well, it might be three too many, broadly speaking, from the point of view of a Catholic. But the royals can't talk, can they? I mean, are we going to say the same about Princess Anne or indeed the king himself? Twice married. We're not going to say anything rude about members of the royal family because that's bad form. we're going to focus on Spencer and whether or not he's delusional and whether He is always looking for other people to blame. So he wrote a story, a book about the school he was at. He looked to blame his life's misery, doesn't seem that miserable, life living at Altrop and having a bit of cash around. Perhaps he was short of cash. That's the other problem because he may have lots of assets, but no cash. And this book will make him a pound or two. But big houses cost a lot of money. It's a big dream. Well, okay, I'll get the world's smallest violin for him and his thousand acre problem. This may be a motivation, but the headmaster who he wasn't exactly complimentary about in one book, he dedicated his first book too. So it's all rather confused and muddled. What people are saying today, mostly, they're saying, well, actually, they're pointing to the complicated relationship he had with Diana. It wasn't always, you know, obviously now he's positioned himself very much as the custodian of her legacy. And of course- Well, that was established on the day of the eulogy. The eulogy, exactly. One of the greatest speeches- She was hunted. She was of the 20th century, vowing to protect her children. I mean, remember that day. Goodness me. India, were you alive? I was four or five months old. Oh, sorry. So you were paying close attention. Yeah, I love that. I was paying very close attention, glued to the TV. So he talks about her being the most hunted woman. She was named after the goddess of hunting. How appropriate. But it was the piece about William and Harry, wasn't it? And it was almost suggesting, actually, they need to be protected from the firm. So let's just read it out. My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this. A girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age. She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate. And I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. Some people could say that was aimed at the press. Some people could say that was aimed at the palace. We do have to acknowledge, as she, in her own words, did with Andrew Morton in his book, My True Story. She had a very difficult marriage. Her husband, the king, did have an affair behind her back. There was a third person in that marriage. She had an affair or two as well. Yes, Dickie Arbiter confirmed that with us on the radio. Royalty last week. Which, at the time, was still high treason. Just by the way, under the 1352 Treason Act. This is quite important. You would have sent her to the tower. No, no, but it's just a reminder that for her to have had an affair was high treason. All right, listen, we've got this thermo. That is important to bear that in mind, that everyone goes on about the king having an affair, but. Well, he shouldn't have had an affair, should he? Well, nobody should have affairs, but they both did. And it's important to remember that both of them did, and rather than to assume that she. That she was locked in a marriage doomed to fail with a man who was in love with someone else. So, I mean, you know, I have to say on that front, I do have a lot of sympathy for her. Listen, she was wrong. She was young, she was naive. She went into the marriage thinking that he was deeply in love with her, and he may have been deeply in love with her, but he was also deeply in love with Camilla Parker Bowles. I'm not sure that we know this. I mean, that was her. You can't possibly be claiming that Princess Diana was treated well throughout her marriage by her husband. Her marriage didn't work, but it takes two for a marriage not to work. I think it's. It's very unfair, purely to blame the king. What was the quote? Whatever love is on the. I know, but then that was a kind of throwaway remark. Like, we spoke to Dickie last week, who interviewed the couple, or was with the couple for tea, three days before they married in 1981, saying they were all over each other. Really? And deeply in love. I mean, it is possible for a man to love two people at the same time, I believe. Well, it's also possible that this stuff about the now queen prior to their marriage isn't actually true, and that is Diana, Princess of Wales, has been on the matter. Bear in mind, both of them in the 1990s were briefing the press the whole time. They were both feeding stories about each other. This was endlessly being gossiped about, and it's very difficult to know whose story is true. I think we've got pretty strong confirmation of the fact that. I don't think we have. Charles had a quite long-standing affair with Willa Barker-Bowles. He had had an affair with her earlier. And that he would like to have married her, and there was all this thing about, come on, you must marry a virgin. Yes, but this was years later. A virgin of aristocratic stock. This was years later. And she was married to. She wasn't going to wait around. She went off and married Andrew Parker-Bowles. We know how it ends. It ends in a love story. Charles and Camilla are now together, but we can't brush over the fact that Diana didn't have these recent marriages. I think we just don't know. I think we're trying to read into people's private lives things we simply cannot know. Well, it's an occupational hazard. What the king thought as he was getting married to Diana, Princess of Wales, and whether he was in love with anybody else or not. That was. That was her side of the story. There are three sides to every story. It was mine and the truth. Well, the obvious point about the eulogy, the quote that you just read out to us earlier, is that how is this protecting the boys? How is dredging up these old wounds 30 years later casting this light on their father? How is that protective of the mental well-being of the boys? Well, first of all, let's call them men. And India's absolutely right. Let's call them men. We do infantilize these two men who are in their 40s. You're right. They're not walking behind the coffin now. This happened because of a row over whether they should walk behind the coffin. Can I just clarify a couple of points with my former royal editor hat on? First of all, Harry gave interviews in which he suggested he didn't mind walking behind the coffin. He then gave subsequent interviews in which he said he did mind. We know that Charles was involved in the decision to walk behind the coffin, citing the fact that he had walked behind Mountbatten's coffin, admittedly at the age of 30. Not at 12 and 15. However, the person who was instrumental in encouraging William and Harry to walk behind that coffin was their grandfather, Philip, whom they respected enormously, to whom they were extremely close. We also now know that far from being unfeeling and not caring about these two as they were then boys, the Queen, Philip, and other members of the family were up in Balmoral tearing their hair out. There was even a story to suggest that Charles, who was so anguished by the news that Diana had died, that he walked off into the heather and literally started wailing, started crying. Okay, we can never know whether that was true or not. We also know, because Tina Brown wrote it in the Palace Chronicles, and she is quite a reliable chronicler of Diana in her final year because the women were close and they had lunch together very shortly before, unfortunately, Diana went off to Paris and was killed. Diana told Tina Brown that after the divorce was finalised in 1996, she and Charles were on very good terms, that she would go there to Kensington Palace and have tea with him, that they were happily co-parenting, and Brown claims that Diana told her over lunch she would go back to Charles in a heartbeat. So the idea that she then dies in 1997, Charles is plunged into absolute chaos and turmoil. He's got to tell his sons their beloved mother has died. He's got to take on his own responsibility by association with her death because she wouldn't be able to do that in Paris if they were still married, et cetera, et cetera. He's got to deal with the public outpouring of grief and this is the mother of his sons. He must have been distraught. I think the idea that he wasn't devastated is completely ridiculous. I mean, a source close to the King, the language they used with me yesterday was he was grief-stricken. He was paralysed with grief at the time and actually that he broke protocol many times to make sure she was remembered in the most high way possible and giving her the ceremonial, draping the royal standard over her coffin from Paris to London. We even got some testimony, I think, from doctors at the hospital that he had to identify the body, was in a mess in the. I mean, obviously. Obviously, yes. And this is. Like him or Logan the King, he's a very emotional person. He's a very empathetic person, yes. This is why he didn't get on with his parents who are much more stoic. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He was a lachrymose. He's prone to pain. He's emotional outpouring. He's, you know, a creative. He didn't like Gordonstoun because it was just a bit too horrible. He's a sensitive soul. The general consensus is these comments were not in his nature. This doesn't sound like him. Doesn't sound like him. Exactly. The idea that the king hisses, he may have a temper, but he doesn't hiss. Correct. I think he does have a temper. I think he's a complex character. I think he could probably be quite. George VI has a temper. I mean, that. Like his sons, like all these royals. These are tricky people to deal with. All people are. Yes. In some ways. In some ways. Other than me, of course. I'm very easygoing. Jacob, naturally, who's very uncomplicated. You're right about the how does this help his nephews? I mean, Harry has stayed at Althorp with Meghan last. Yeah, a couple of months ago. By that point, Spencer's already penned this book. What's this whole thing about a copy's been stolen from a van in Holland? Yeah, I mean, to your point of Harry being there and El Spencer having already penned this book, we are understanding that Harry did not know anything that was in this memoir and neither did Buckingham Palace. So it seems like that El Spencer has chosen not to brief anybody in either camp about that. And yes, four copies were stolen from a van in the Netherlands in the Dutch countryside while the driver went to bed. I thought that was merely PR for the book. Potentially. Whether it was stolen by some PR chap doing his bit to boost sales. I don't know. That didn't. Stolen by a man in his 70s wearing a crown. Yeah, quite. No, no, no. It wasn't stolen by the king, but. You know how people try and get publicity for their books. But I think he's got such a good point on the hypocrisy of Spencer that he pretends that he's very anti the press and this thing against the most hunted Diana. Well, what's he doing serializing this in the Daily Mail, which was one of the leading papers still is reporting on royal stories. If he hates it all so much, why is he supping with them? It's just the same as Duke of Sussex. To all end and to all's benefits. Yeah, she needs the cash. If you get married four times, I believe it's quite expensive. Alimony. Jacob. Right. Also, I've spoken to one of Spencer's childhood friends this morning who made the following fairly straightforward point. I mean, Charles Spencer is very well connected. He's got a huge social circle. He hosts this literary festival every year at Althorp, which is actually the idea of his second wife, Caroline Freud. Funny enough. But anyway, he took it on. And he's a bit of a gossip, I think, maybe. You know, he likes to exchange stories with friends, etc. The friend just expressed surprise that this is the first time this has come out in 30 years, even when at the time of her death, he was clearly ranting and raving. The royal family's reputation was at an all time low. The queen has to go on the telly and speak both as a queen and as your as a grandmother in order to reassure a nation. That's completely. You know, at a loss and literally weeping outside the gates of Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace. Why wouldn't it have come out then if Charles, the King Charles, had been so rude to his former brother-in-law? Well, or in gossipy conversations afterwards, the sort of thing you say to friends because you've got a royal story. People endlessly gossip about the royals. True. And also, why wouldn't it come out when Harry published Spare and talked quite extensively about this particular debate? That happened, claiming that Earl Spencer at the time had had an argument behind the scenes about whether they should walk behind the coffin and called it barbaric. So why not come out then to clarify? And, you know, it just feels like it's been withheld for a certain maybe potentially commercial purpose to use when or is that unfair of me to say? Also, the Spencer allegation is that Diana wouldn't have wanted her sons to have walked behind her coffin. It was then the Prince of Wales, now King Charles. King Charles, who decided she should have a full state funeral, which is actually, again, a state-style funeral, sorry, India, which, again, is against protocol. Actually, whenever you speak to anybody about Princess Diana, the one thing they do say is she had absolute respect for the institution of monarchy, all of its customs. She had huge respect for the late Queen Elizabeth II. And therefore, if it was deemed appropriate for her sons to walk behind a coffin, I'm not sure it's quite right to suggest she wouldn't. I think sometimes sort of touchy-feeliness is attached to Diana when she wasn't necessarily that kind of woman. If your mother dies in terrible circumstances, whatever age you are, surely you want to pay the highest tribute that you can. And what greater tribute could they pay to their mother than walking behind the coffin? And there is a sentimentality, I think, in current discussion about this that wasn't there in 1997, that people didn't think this was a weird thing to do then. We did a little bit, didn't we? I don't think we did. I don't remember anybody saying it was. I think they thought it was wonderful and showed that her boys were heading towards becoming men and that they were doing the right thing in the circumstances of the quasi-state funeral that she was being given. Weren't we looking upon it, as we do always with royal events, listen, you wouldn't expect to do it yourself. It's a bit like you don't schedule a meeting with your own father over tea at Clarence House. You just phone dad and say, hi, dad, can I come round later? That we looked at it and thought, well, I wouldn't choose to do that myself, but it's the royal way and therefore they should. And then we later reflected, or should they? Is there something at odds? Is this institution actually at times a little inhumane? That was the dialogue we had. I think Duke of Edinburgh was right about this, that it was the one thing they could do that paid tribute to their mother publicly. Gosh, I'm not sure about this. I wouldn't be so sure in characterising it. I mean, we can use the prince's own words. William has said it's the hardest thing he's ever had to do. I think to hear the wailing and to be in the global stage in that way, it's the people, it's the spectacle of it all. I understand what you're saying about the highest honour they could pay and them, of course, wanting to do that. And we know Harry didn't want William to do it alone. When that suggestion was thrown out, Harry said, absolutely not. I would want to do that with my brother. I wouldn't want to leave him stranded. And Harry's own words, they found it profoundly difficult. And I think we can all kind of understand why. It's a bit weird that you're seeing strangers wailing about a woman they've never met. But some things that are difficult are nonetheless the right thing to do. And I hope they look back on it with great pride that they did something that was their duty and was a tribute to their much-loved mother. I mean, this is the balance that they strike in the royal family, isn't it? The duty versus family, firm versus family. It's a difficult one sometimes. I think in that they came together. The duty was to do it, but also the tribute was to do it. Let's just reflect on what Telegraph readers think. AP writes, what a grubby exercise. Almost 30 years after Diana's death, Earl Spencer chooses to rake over one of the most traumatic periods in William and Harry's lives, publishing an incendiary allegation based on his recollection of a private telephone conversation that nobody else can verify. That's a good point. C. Helen says, Diana was. If Earl Spencer loved his sister as much as he proclaims, he needs to let her rest in peace and let her children and grandchildren respect the positives of her memory. She did some very good things. He should not drag 30-year-old history through the mud yet again. Steve Buckley writes, this is not a black and white situation with neither party coming out of it well. But the more Buckingham Palace intervenes, the worse the outcome will be for King Charles. Were we expecting more from King Charles? Our colleague Hannah Furness. Hannah Furness is at Dumfries' house right now. She is at Dumfries' right now on the AI engagement, which is very important on a separate note, that Charles is undertaking today with many of the leaders and business owners of these companies that may or may not decide our future. NVIDIA, Anthropic, OpenAI. So he's meeting with these tech bros as one of them declared that AI might kill us all in 10 years' time. Exactly. And don't forget, we have Harry out and about later as well. What's he up to in India, remind us? He's got Invictus events and World Child events this week. Is Megic going? We don't know yet. In some occasions, we're told she could turn up. Others were told that she will only make rare public appearances depending on the event. She might be stuck in traffic during the school run, the poor dear. Not anymore. There might still be little traffic on the school run. You never know. Right. So it's going to be very interesting to see how the palace deals with this now because we're going to have them all doing public engagements at the same time on British soil for the first time since 2020. And we've got, obviously. We're going to see the next bits of the serialization of Earl Spencer's memoir. So I think, as you said at the beginning of this recording, they could be seen to be getting on the front foot with this statement, getting ahead of things that may come. However, I think, as Jacob pointed out, they needed to issue a rebuttal to this because of who Earl Spencer is and because of how perilous that time was for the king. And we shouldn't forget, when we think about Dumfries House, that Lisa Nandy was having a tantrum yesterday because X wouldn't turn up to see her. Yes. The king gets all these very important people, not just to come to see him, but to go to a most inconvenient place to do so. It's very nice. It's tart and clad. I've been there. You get some great Dutchie Originals biscuits. Wonderful. But the convening power of the king, by virtue of being king in an ancient lineage, is very important. It does calm down. No, no, no. I'm a great believer in our constitutional system. I think it works with the king at the pinnacle. I am affectionately joshing you. I'm not sure if X is up at Dumfries House, by the way, but the others are. There's one thing guaranteed, India McTaggart. You, I, Hannah Furness and Victoria Ward will be working overtime today. And we may update this daily too. Let's just see what is next to drop in the Spencer versus Windsor saga. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.