Bedroom size matters to the Spencers. Among the countless festering resentments aired by Charles Spencer in his blame-throwing book supposedly about his sister Diana but really just as much about himself, is that when their new stepmother Raine began her reign at Althorp in 1976, she made Diana and Charles sleep in tiny attic bedrooms in the 90-room house while her own children “had the run of the grandest guest rooms.”

What a Harry-like complaint, I thought, recalling Prince Harry’s childhood bedroom-size gripe in Spare. I jotted it down in the section on “accusations and score-settling” in my notes. It became a long list.

We’re all familiar now with the “giddily elated” accusation and the “we’ll forget her soon enough” attribution, both directed at the King, who is portrayed throughout the book as snooty and emotionally cold. “Giddily elated” is a clever pairing of words, crafted to portray a toxic combination of giggly frivolity and tin-hearted callousness. “Like a lottery winner,” tacked on at the end, suggests a scratch-card punter whose Saturday night crossed fingers have reaped a £1 million bonanza. And this is how Spencer describes the then Prince of Wales on the day after the death of the mother of his sons.

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“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” goes the playground chant, but it’s nonsense. Words can be murderous barbs. Spencer lobs them across these pages, aware, surely, that the King will not be in a position to........

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