Earl Spencer Makes Bombshell Queen Claim From Day of Diana’s Funeral
Nearly three decades after the death of Princess Diana, her younger brother Earl Spencer has made another extraordinary claim about the Royal Family — this time involving Queen Elizabeth II and an offer allegedly made on the day of Diana’s funeral.
According to Charles Spencer’s forthcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, the late Queen offered to restore Diana’s “Her Royal Highness” title after her death.
Spencer says he was told about the proposal while travelling by royal train to the Spencer family’s Althorp estate following Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997.
Rather than accepting the gesture, however, the Earl says he rejected it because he believed it came too late.
His account is part of a series of deeply personal claims about Diana’s relationship with the Royal Family that have emerged ahead of the publication of his memoir. The book is due to be published on September 22, while extracts have been serialised in the British press.
The alleged offer from Queen Elizabeth II
Spencer recalls that, during the journey from London to Althorp, Robert Fellowes, Queen Elizabeth II’s private secretary and a relative of Diana through marriage, asked him to step into a quiet part of the carriage.
According to the memoir, Fellowes told him that he had received a call from the Queen and that she wanted to offer Diana’s HRH title back.
The proposal would have reversed a highly controversial aspect of Diana’s divorce from the then Prince Charles.
Diana and Charles officially divorced in 1996, after 15 years of marriage. As part of the arrangements surrounding the divorce, Diana lost the style “Her Royal Highness”, although she continued to be known as Diana, Princess of Wales.
Spencer says the loss of the HRH title had deeply upset his sister.
His memoir portrays the decision as something that remained emotionally significant to Diana and her family even after the divorce.
But when the alleged offer came after Diana’s death, Spencer says he could not see the point.
He reportedly replied that the Queen’s gesture was kind but asked, in effect, why Diana should receive the title when she was already dead.
Why Spencer rejected the gesture
The Earl describes the proposed restoration as a kind of posthumous consolation.
His reasoning, according to the memoir, was that Diana should not have lost the title during her lifetime if the Royal Family ultimately believed it should be hers.
The distinction is important.
Diana’s HRH title had not been restored before her death. Her formal style after the divorce was “Diana, Princess of Wales”, rather than “Diana, Princess of Wales, Her Royal Highness”.
Spencer’s account suggests that he believed restoring the title only after her death would have done little to address the hurt caused by its removal.
He therefore says he declined the offer on her behalf.
The claim has attracted attention because it presents a private conversation involving the Queen that was not publicly known at the time.
There has been no independent public confirmation of the alleged conversation from Buckingham Palace.
The extraordinary timing
The alleged offer came at an emotionally charged moment.
Diana had died in Paris on August 31, 1997, following a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.
Her funeral took place at Westminster Abbey on September 6.
The procession became one of the most memorable scenes in modern British royal history, with Prince William and Prince Harry walking behind their mother’s coffin alongside their father, the then Prince Charles, Prince Philip and Earl Spencer.
Spencer has now revealed that he had serious reservations about the decision to have the boys participate in the procession.
In his memoir, he reportedly questioned whether William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12 respectively, should have been expected to walk behind their mother’s coffin through central London.
His disagreement with Charles allegedly led to a heated telephone conversation shortly before the funeral.
The claim about Charles
Another of the most controversial revelations from Spencer’s memoir concerns what he says Charles told him during that argument.
According to Spencer, the then Prince of Wales became angry when the Earl objected to William and Harry walking in the procession.
Spencer says Charles referred to his own experience of attending the funeral of Lord Mountbatten in 1979.
The Earl reportedly responded that Charles had been 30 at the time, whereas William and Harry were still children.
Spencer claims that the argument escalated before Charles allegedly told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
The allegation has prompted an unusual response from Buckingham Palace.
The Palace did not directly confirm or deny the precise words attributed to Charles. Instead, it issued a statement saying that the King was mindful that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory” many years after a loss.
The statement was widely interpreted as questioning the reliability of Spencer’s recollection.
Spencer, however, has strongly rejected that implication.
In an interview with the BBC, he insisted that the words attributed to Charles were exactly what he remembered being said.
He also questioned whether the King’s response reflected anger or embarrassment.
A second account of the Queen
The allegation concerning Queen Elizabeth is different from the disputed conversation with Charles because it concerns a separate private exchange involving Robert Fellowes.
Spencer says Fellowes approached him during the train journey and relayed the Queen’s alleged offer.
The account cannot currently be independently verified from public records.
That limitation is particularly relevant because the memoir is based heavily on Spencer’s personal recollections of events nearly 30 years ago.
The story therefore remains an allegation contained in a forthcoming memoir rather than an independently established historical fact.
Nevertheless, it offers a revealing insight into how Diana’s family viewed the dispute over her royal status.
Diana’s complicated position after divorce
Diana’s loss of the HRH title was part of the settlement following her divorce from Charles.
Although she retained the title Princess of Wales, she ceased to be a member of the Royal Family with the style Her Royal Highness.
The arrangement reflected the fact that she was no longer married to the heir to the throne.
The issue nevertheless remained controversial among Diana’s supporters.
Spencer’s memoir argues that his sister regarded the loss of the title as deeply hurtful.
His latest account suggests that he personally continued to view the decision as unjust, which helps explain why he says he rejected the Queen’s alleged offer.
The funeral as a moment of tension
The new revelations also show how complicated the days surrounding Diana’s funeral were for those closest to her.
To the public, the funeral procession appeared carefully organised and solemn.
Behind the scenes, Spencer’s account describes disagreements over who should walk behind the coffin and how William and Harry should be protected from the enormous emotional and public pressure.
He writes that he was particularly concerned about Harry, who was only 12.
In another passage reported from the memoir, Spencer recalls feeling that there was insufficient obvious care for Harry during the journey after the funeral.
He describes the young prince as extremely vulnerable after losing his mother and says he worried about the effect of the experience on him.
These recollections provide a different perspective on one of the most photographed funerals in British history.
The Queen’s role
Spencer’s latest claim also adds another layer to the historical debate about Queen Elizabeth’s relationship with Diana.
The Queen had a complicated relationship with her former daughter-in-law.
The two women were publicly united by the need to manage the aftermath of Diana’s death, but Diana’s difficult marriage to Charles and her highly publicised separation from the Royal Family had created significant tensions during the preceding years.
Spencer’s account suggests that the Queen may have been willing to make a gesture towards Diana’s former status after her death.
But because the alleged conversation took place privately, its precise circumstances remain difficult to establish independently.
A memoir reopening old wounds
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is clearly intended as a deeply personal account.
Spencer has said that he wanted to tell what he considers the true story of his sister and challenge accounts of Diana that he believes were inaccurate.
The book has already generated significant controversy before its official publication.
Alongside the claim about the Queen’s alleged offer, extracts have included allegations about Charles’s behaviour before and after Diana’s death, his reaction to the funeral arrangements and the treatment of William and Harry.
Buckingham Palace has responded publicly to some of those allegations, an unusual step given the Palace’s general policy of not commenting on individual books.
Why the claim matters nearly 30 years later
Diana’s death remains one of the most significant events in modern British royal history.
Her relationship with Charles, her divorce, the loss of her HRH title and her funeral have all been extensively examined over the decades.
Spencer’s memoir cannot change the historical record by itself, but it introduces a new first-person account from someone who was directly involved in the events.
The alleged offer from Queen Elizabeth is particularly striking because, if accurately remembered, it would suggest that the question of Diana’s title was still being discussed at the very moment Britain was mourning her death.
At the same time, the absence of independent confirmation means the claim needs to be treated as Spencer’s recollection rather than established fact.
What the memoir adds to Diana’s story
The most significant aspect of the new revelations may ultimately be less about the title itself and more about the complicated emotions surrounding Diana’s death.
For Spencer, the question appears to have represented something larger: whether Diana’s position within the Royal Family had been handled fairly while she was alive.
His decision to reject the alleged offer suggests that, in his view, restoring the title after Diana’s death could never compensate for what had happened before it.
The claim is now part of a much wider debate surrounding Spencer’s memoir and his recollections of the Royal Family.
As the full book reaches readers, further details are likely to be examined against the existing historical record.
For now, the story remains a remarkable claim about a private conversation on one of the most emotional days in modern British royal history — a conversation that, according to Earl Spencer, could have restored Diana’s lost HRH title, but which he decided was ultimately too late.
