Revenge is a dish best served cold, so the saying goes. Charles Spencer’s new memoir, Swan Song, arrives nearly three decades after his sister Diana’s death, and it is icy in its contempt for both the British tabloid media and the “arrogance and entitlement” of the royal family.

Dedicated to “all those who have lost a sibling”, and billed as revealing “the true framework of Diana’s life”, the memoir has been marketed as “the most intimate, loving and honest portrait” of Diana yet.

However, the book is as much about Spencer as it is about Diana. Over 350 pages, his litany of grievances swamps the loving tribute he ostensibly set out to write. King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, is cast as a petulant child and “bellowing buffoon” who was “always extremely jealous of Diana’s star power”.

Review: Swan Song – Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer (Michael Joseph)

Among the most damaging claims is that Charles was “giddily elated” on learning of Diana’s death, a reaction Spencer attributes to Charles’ “pent-up contempt for Diana and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death”, as well as what he sees as Charles’s relief at finally being free to marry the woman he loved.

“Rest assured,” Charles allegedly hissed, “we’ll forget [Diana] soon enough!”

Last week, the Palace – reportedly engaged in a war of words with Spencer – pushed back against the claims. “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.”

On Tuesday, British commentator and journalist Piers Morgan announced he is suing Spencer and his publishers over “demonstrable lies” in the book, chiefly Spencer’s wrongful claim that Morgan was editor of the Daily Mirror when it published intrusive photos of Diana working out in a leotard. Spencer has since apologised to Morgan for the factual error, but he stands by other claims about Morgan and the media’s role in Diana’s death.

“I always believed the press would kill her in the end,” Spencer says. “It was only a matter of time.”

Regrets, resentments and righteous rage

Spencer, a former journalist and historian with nine non-fiction books to his name, including four Sunday Times bestsellers, knows how to tell a story. Indeed, his first memoir, about surviving boarding school, was described by the Guardian as combining “righteous anger with therapeutic honesty”.

In Swan Song, his second memoir, he positions himself as Diana’s fierce defender – a role he came to embrace as her youngest sibling, childhood playmate and only surviving brother. The youngest of four, the pair grew up together in “a household divided by divorce and darkly punctuated by the death of a sibling”. (Diana’s older brother........

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