Diana’s brother is right to be furious with Charles over Harry and William

September 21, 2026 — 11:45am

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Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana but still it makes headlines. The latest furore is about her brother Charles Spencer – he of the Westminster Abbey eulogy – who has written a new book called Swan Song: Diana, My Sister. It has inevitably been leaked and the big reveal is a heated conversation (actually it sounds more like a full-blown row) between Spencer and the then-Prince Charles over whether or not the young princes, William and Harry, should walk behind their mother’s funeral cortege.

The book says that, during the row, Spencer said the idea was “barbaric” while the King said he had walked behind the gun carriage at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral and that it was tradition. Spencer apparently riposted that Charles had been 30 when Mountbatten died (in 1979) and it wasn’t the same. And the King “went nuts”. Touché.

I have to say I agree with Spencer. Whatever you think of Princess Diana’s brother (and he’s certainly a colourful piece of work with many alleging he has written this book to raise cash for his latest divorce) he was right about the boys. What empathy-free monsters ever thought it was appropriate for children of 15 and 12 to have to walk so publicly, so far, in the glare of the entire global media, when their beloved........

© Brisbane Times