Only Princess Diana's brother knew the double meaning in her eulogy, until now

Only Charles Spencer knew the double meaning in his eulogy for Princess Diana, until now A brother was tasked with eulogising his "global phenomenon" of a sister. Now, Earl Spencer is analysing his own words decades on. This is not the first time Charles Spencer has spoken so publicly in defence of his sister's memory. His eulogy for Princess Diana was lauded around the world as billions tuned in to mourn the "people's princess" nearly three decades ago. Now, his controversial new memoir has sparked a war of words with the palace as he revisits one of the darkest times in modern royal history. Among the most damning claims in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is Earl Spencer describing King Charles III as sounding "giddily elated — like a lottery winner" on the phone hours after the fatal crash. The memoir has also sparked a legal threat from broadcaster Piers Morgan, for which Earl Spencer has apologised for getting a "date wrong", but says he will not pull the book from shelves. In Swan Song, Earl Spencer analyses the eulogy he penned for his late sister, revealing the moments that inspired certain lines and the hidden rebuttals inked into his lasting tribute. Below is a full transcript of his eulogy from 1997, annotated with some of Earl Spencer's recent reflections. "I stand before you today the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning before a world in shock. | Earl Spencer was the point of contact for his family when it came to Princess Diana's funeral arrangements. Once it was decided the service would be a national ceremony, Earl Spencer claimed every detail had to be put through Queen Elizabeth II and then her heir, Charles, with the Spencer family's wishes a third priority. As Earl Spencer writes: "Diana remained theirs, in Buckingham Palace's eyes, even in death." | |---| "We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana but rather in our need to do so. For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her, feel that they too lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today. "Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic. | Almost one year before her death, the Queen stripped Diana of the Her Royal Highness title in what Earl Spencer describes as the "package of humiliation handed to her at her divorce". As Earl Spencer writes: "The removal of Diana's title hurt her. The loss was designed to emphasise to her, and the world, that her royal days were over." | |---| "Today is our chance to say thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated always that you were taken from us so young and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult. "We have all despaired at our loss over the past week and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving has afforded us the strength to move forward. "There is a temptation to rush to canonise your memory, there is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. "Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humour with a laugh that bent you double. | Earl Spencer wanted to protect his sister from "any criminals, lunatics or journalists who might seek to desecrate or steal her remains". But there was another worry — "dangerously obsessive fans". Diana was laid to rest at the Spencer family's Althorp Estate, on an island within a lake. Earl Spencer writes it was clear he had to make Diana's grave "such an unattractive proposition to even the most determined and dangerous of her followers that they chose to expend their energy elsewhere". | |---| "Your joy for life transmitted where ever you took your smile and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes. Your boundless energy which you could barely contain. "But your greatest gift was your intuition and it was a gift you used wisely. This is what underpinned all your other wonderful attributes and if we look to analyse what it was about you that had such a wide appeal we find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives. "Without your God-given sensitivity we would be immersed in greater ignorance at the anguish of Aids and HIV sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of landmines. "Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected. | As external pressures mounted on Diana, Earl Spencer claims she considered taking her own life on several occasions. "It is a sad fact that, in her later years, Diana drove herself more than once to Beachy Head, the highest sea cliff in England, while contemplating ending it all. Her love for her sons stopped her from going further," Earl Spencer writes. | |---| "And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom. | Earl Spencer says some felt he should not have mentioned certain aspects of Diana's life in her eulogy, including her eating disorder. But, he now writes, "one of the many ways in which Diana was different to the royal norm lay in her natural honesty, which freely confronted perceptions and challenged prejudices". In another chapter, Earl Spencer claims that days after the royal engagement was announced, Charles squeezed Diana's waist and said, "'Oh, a bit chubby here, aren't we?'" Earl Spencer says the comment was "devastating", adding Diana "would later share with me that her waist shrank from 29 to 23.5 inches between her engagement and her marriage". | |---| "The world sensed this part of her character and cherished her for her vulnerability whilst admiring her for her honesty. "The last time I saw Diana was on July 1, her birthday in London, when typically she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends but was guest of honour at a special charity fundraising evening. She sparkled of course, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact apart from when she was on display meeting President Mandela we managed to contrive to stop the ever-present paparazzi from getting a single picture of her — that meant a lot to her. "These were days I will always treasure. It was as if we had been transported back to our childhood when we spent such an enormous amount of time together — the two youngest in the family. "Fundamentally she had not changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school and endured those long train journeys between our parents' homes with me at weekends. "It is a tribute to her level-headedness and strength that despite the most bizarre-like life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself. "There is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment that she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. "It is baffling. | Earl Spencer writes he was "flabbergasted" to learn Fleet Street editors had been invited to Diana's funeral, recalling he said to his brother-in-law: "But they can't come to this one, surely, Robert? I mean, they killed her." Earl Spencer says he called each editor and requested they not attend "for obvious reasons". "The only one who sounded surly, as opposed to merely confused or embarrassed, was Piers Morgan of the Mirror, who snarled with annoyance before he hung up," he writes. Morgan has strongly disputed Earl Spencer's claims and threatened legal action. While Earl Spencer has apologised for getting a "date wrong", the stoush has cast doubt on the book's accuracy. | |---| "My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this — a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age. "She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys William and Harry from a similar fate and I do this here Diana on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. | On his media blitz to promote Swan Song, Earl Spencer told the BBC that the media's treatment of Prince Harry and wife Meghan echoed what happened to his sister. "It would be really beholden on people to learn from Diana's example," Earl Spencer said. "I am not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who is being destroyed in this way, daily, it must be such a cancerous influence in their life." | |---| "And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned. | Earl Spencer writes it felt "utterly barbaric" to force Prince William and Harry to walk behind their mother's coffin. Earl Spencer claims he clashed with Charles over the phone, writing the prince "went nuts" and said the Spencer family had "no sense of duty". In one of Earl Spencer's most damning criticisms, he claims Charles said: "'Rest assured,' he hissed, 'we'll forget her soon enough!'" Buckingham Palace strongly rebuked the claim, saying: "His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss." | |---| "We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role but we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us. "William and Harry, we all cared desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with the sadness at the loss of a woman who was not even our mother. How great your suffering is, we cannot even imagine. "I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time. For taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had joy in her private life. Above all we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds." | Earl Spencer says he wrote the final line in Diana's eulogy as a "counterbalance" to Charles's "slurs" on the phone. "I made a particular point of emphasising Diana's sense of duty, when stating in my final words how her example would, far from being 'forgotten soon enough', as the prince had hoped, 'never be extinguished from our minds'." | |---| If you or anyone you know needs help: - Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 - Red Nose Grief and Loss support line on 1300 308 307 - Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 33 4673 - Lifeline on 13 11 14 - Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line 13YARN on 13 92 76 - Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 - Headspace on 1800 650 890 - MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978 - Share options - Copy link - X (formerly Twitter)