This article was originally published on Crafting Your Home. A human contributor also wrote and edited the post.
The post Charles Spencer Finally Answers Whether He Is Team William or Team Harry, and His Answer Is Both first appeared on Crafting Your Home
Princess Diana’s brother has answered a question that royal watchers have been asking for years. In a BBC interview released in full on Sunday, Sept. 20, Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer, was asked where he stands in the long estrangement between his nephews, Prince William and Prince Harry, and he declined to take one side.
The 62-year-old was speaking to promote his new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which reaches stores on Tuesday, Sept. 22, according to People.
His answer landed at a tense moment, because the book has already set off a very public dispute with his former brother-in-law, King Charles, and that dispute now hangs over everything Spencer says about the family.
The interview also arrives at a delicate point in the wider royal story, since Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, recently returned to the United Kingdom with their children.
William, 44, and Harry, 42, reportedly remain estranged, while Harry and the King have taken small steps toward each other. Below is a full account of what Spencer said, what his book claims, how Buckingham Palace has responded, and where each family member stands as the book’s release date approaches.
What Spencer Said About William and Harry
Spencer told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that he understands why people assume he favors Harry. He said there is “a perception in the media” that he is on Harry’s side, as reported by People, and then he corrected it.
In comments carried by Just Jared, Spencer said he is on the side of his “deceased sister’s sons, both of them,” and that he would be equally there for either nephew if they wanted anything.
He described his role as a benign figure who never gets involved in one camp or the other, adding the words “I hope” to soften the claim.
Spencer did not stop at declaring his neutrality. He acknowledged that many reasons on both sides brought the brothers to this point, and he said he hopes the situation will one day be resolved.
He was also open about the limits of what he knows, saying he does not know all of it and certainly not the finer details of what has been done.
For that reason, he said, he would “feel intrusive” if he said more than the obvious point that a mother would want her two sons to be happy together and to love each other. It was a careful answer from a man who has spent the week in the middle of a royal firestorm of his own making.
The Book That Has Already Rattled the Palace
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister was making headlines before Spencer sat down with the BBC. Excerpts published this week include his claim that King Charles launched into a “stream of anger” over the phone after Spencer argued that Diana would not have wanted William and Harry to walk behind her coffin, according to CNN.
Spencer also writes that the King said “we’ll forget her soon enough,” a claim that CNN reports Buckingham Palace firmly rejected.
Another passage, noted by People, has Spencer describing the King as sounding “giddily elated” during a phone call in the hours after Diana’s death. These are Spencer’s allegations, and none have been independently confirmed.
The Palace responded in unusually direct terms. NBC News reports that a statement released Wednesday said the Palace does not comment on books as a matter of principle, but that the King is mindful that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason.”
The statement went on to say that grief can also affect judgment and color memory, even many years after a loss. Spencer answered that in his BBC interview, insisting to Kuenssberg that “those are exactly the words he said,” according to Hello.
He added that he has only ever had two calls on the line with the King, that he was hyper alert to what was being said, and that he questioned whether the Palace’s wording meant the King was furious or embarrassed.
Spencer also linked the past to the present. In the same BBC interview, according to CNN, he said his sister was very sensitive to criticism and called it a pity to see “echoes of that now” in the way the media treats Harry and Meghan.
He stressed that he is not there to speak for the couple, but he described the daily criticism that people in that position face as a cancerous influence on their lives.
His message, in effect, was that the public should learn from what Diana went through, and it echoes the pledge he made in his 1997 funeral eulogy to protect her sons, whom he called “blood family,” as CNN recalled this week.
In a separate interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Spencer went further on the brothers’ relationship.
Asked whether Harry’s current difficulties with the royal family and the press could be connected to what he experienced after his mother’s death, Spencer said he wonders how much the situation between Harry and William is tied to that very sad time.
He said Harry was so young and that “a gentler, more understanding treatment of his grief” might have helped everyone find a happier course.
Just Jared, which reported the CBS exchange, also noted that Spencer was asked what kind of queen Diana might have been and said she would have been an amazing one.
Where William, Harry and the King Stand Today
The brothers themselves have not closed the gap. People reports that while William and Harry remain estranged, there have been steps toward reconciliation between Harry and the King, and Just Jared says William and Harry have not had direct contact even though Harry has now returned to the United Kingdom with Meghan and their children.
Earlier this month, a royal historian described the relationship as having moved from a “hot war” to a “very, very cold war,” according to Just Jared. That description comes from one historian’s assessment, and neither prince has commented on it publicly.
The path between Harry and his father has been more visible. Buckingham Palace confirmed that King Charles and Queen Camilla met with the Sussexes at Highgrove House on July 10, as Fox News reported, and CNN says it was the first time the 77-year-old monarch had been reunited with his grandchildren in four years.
The family also spent time with Harry’s mother’s side at Althorp House, the Spencer family estate, according to CNN. The Sussexes then arrived back in the U.K. on Aug. 26, six years after they stepped back from royal life, and CNN reported that the King was told of the move earlier that month, as were William and Catherine, Princess of Wales.
Since that arrival, People reports, King Charles and Harry have spoken at least once, but the two have not seen each other.
That leaves the family in an awkward position with Spencer’s book about to go on sale, because the same relatives who are trying to find a way back to each other are now dealing with a very public argument over what was said in the days after Diana’s death.
CNN noted that commentators have pointed out the impact such revelations could have on William and Harry as they navigate their own difficult relationship.
What the book will change, if anything, is not something the available reporting can answer, and Spencer’s own position is clear: he is standing with both of his sister’s sons.
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