LONDON — Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer, has alleged in a forthcoming memoir that King Charles III made a dismissive remark about his former wife's memory in the days immediately following her fatal car crash in 1997, a claim Buckingham Palace has responded to without directly disputing.

The allegation appears in Spencer's book, "Swan Song: Diana, My Sister," scheduled for publication September 22 by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House, ahead of the 30th anniversary of Diana's death next year. According to excerpts published by the Daily Mail and reported by CBS News, Spencer writes that he objected to a plan for Diana's young sons, Princes William and Harry, then 15 and 12, to walk behind their mother's coffin during her funeral procession. Spencer says the then-Prince Charles responded to his objection by questioning the family's sense of duty, telling him over the phone: "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough."

According to the fuller account of the exchange recorded in the memoir, Charles's reaction reflected what Spencer described as long-suppressed feelings toward his former wife. The book recounts that the suggestion "allegedly angered the prince, who '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.'" Spencer writes that Charles then "hissed" the........

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