Buckingham Palace hits back at claims in a book by Princess Diana's brother

LONDON (AP) — Buckingham Palace has forcefully denied a claim by the brother of the late Princess Diana that King Charles III said she would soon be forgotten after her death.

In a new book, Charles Spencer recounts the traumatic days after Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 at the age of 36. He alleges that he argued with the then-Prince Charles, Diana’s estranged husband, over palace plans for Prince William and Prince Harry to walk behind her coffin during the funeral procession.

Spencer says he told the now-king that Diana would not have wanted her sons, then 15 and 12, to undergo the ordeal. He claims Charles told him: “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” He accuses Charles of having “contempt” for his ex-wife.

The Daily Mail is publishing extracts from Spencer's book “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” which is due to be published next week.

Buckingham Palace responded late Wednesday with an extremely strong statement by the measured standards of the royal household.

“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 color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss,” it said.

Tensions between the palace and Diana’s aristocratic Spencer relatives after her death have been much discussed and were dramatized in the film “The Queen” and TV series “The Crown.”

Many felt the palace was slow to acknowledge the global outpouring of grief over Diana’s death, which forced the royals to recognize that Diana’s common touch had allowed her to connect with people in ways that eluded the rest of the royal family. The more emotionally literate approach of Prince William and Prince Harry — and, in recent years, the king — is a legacy of that time.

Prince Charles, then 32, married 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer in a lavish ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1981. The couple separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.

Diana’s younger brother, Charles Spencer – the 9th Earl Spencer – has long clashed with the royals over their treatment of his sister.

In a searing eulogy at Diana’s funeral, Spencer vowed that Diana’s “blood family" would carry on her “imaginative and loving" legacy in raising her two sons. The speech was widely considered a swipe at the royal family.