Royal family news live: Late Queen had ‘tetchy’ reaction to Princess Diana car crash, Earl Spencer claims

Earl Spencer’s latest comment about the Queen are “incredibly unpleasant”, a royal commentator has said.

In his most recent memoir excerpt release on Friday, the Earl said the late Queen reacted “tetchily” to the news that Princess Diana had been in a car crash before she knew of the severity.

Asked if it sounded correct, Jennie Bond said told Sky News: “Look, I don’t know. This is the brother of Diana giving his version of what went on in his memory, but it is incredibly unpleasant.

“He is forthright in his condemnation of Charles and now questioning the Queen’s attitude to it all.

“I find it incredibly hostile of Earl Spencer to do this. It is brutal, really, and I don’t know what his motive is and I cannot think who is going to benefit,” she said, adding: “Well, obviously his wallet will.

“What is the point of raking over this tragedy nearly 30 years on. It’s certainly isn’t I don’t think what William and Harry would want.”

The public is “just not going to know” who is being truthful after Earl Spencer claimed that the King said Diana would be forgotten after she died, a royal commentator has stated.

Earl Spencer insisted he was “telling the truth” in an interview with BBC on Friday following backlash from Buckingham Palace.

Reacting to the claims, Jennie Bond said: “The big question now is whether anyone is going to come forward and corroborate his version of what went on and what was said.

“If that happens, that is big trouble for the palace because essentially Earl Spencer is accusing his former brother-in-law of lying.”

It comes after Buckingham Palace responded to the Earl’s claims, saying that the King is mindful that “grief can cloud reason”.

Asked about the “unprecedented” statement from the palace, Earl Spencer said: “Well, is he furious? Is he furious or is he embarrassed?.

He added that the palace had not denied his claims.”

“They’ve sort of smudged that one, haven’t they? They’ve said that recollections may vary.”

Further damaging claims about King Charles have been made in the latest excerpt from Earl Spencer’s book on Friday.

Princess Diana’s brother has insisted he is “telling the truth” as he faces backlash from Buckingham Palace over his allegations.

In his latest passage, the Earl has said a “lack of obvious care for Harry” following Diana’s death allowed him to “spin out of control”.

He also questioned why Charles was at Princess Diana’s funeral following their divorce the previous year, saying: “This ex-husband, from a marriage that had collapsed so bitterly… surely had no place at his ex’s funeral.”

Earl Spencer also wrote of how the late Queen reacted “tetchily” to the news that Princess Diana had been in a car crash before she knew the severity of the situation.

He claimed that some royal family members had “taken delight” in the removal of Diana’s HRH title.

In an interview with BBC aired on Friday, he suggested Charles was “embarrassed” about comments he made to the Earl in the days after Diana’s death.

Asked about Buckingham Palace’s response that “grief can cloud reason”, Earl Spencer told the BBC: “Is he (Charles) furious, or is he embarrassed? Because I can tell you, here and now, those are exactly the words he said.

“I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life.

“I was hyper-alert to what he was saying, and those are precisely the words he said, and I promise that to you now, genuinely, that is what he said.“I don’t hear him saying he didn’t say that.”

Prince Harry has previously spoken about the experience of walking behind his mother’s coffin, saying no child “should be asked to do that under any circumstances”.

In an excerpt of his memoir, Earl Spencer wrote about how he fought plans for William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12, to walk behind their Diana’s coffin during the funeral procession.

The Earl is said to have insisted to the King that Diana would not have wanted her young sons to have made the difficult public walk.

“He went nuts. ‘That’s the problem with your family. They’ve got no bloody sense of duty!’ he started, before descending into a general rage,” Earl Spencer wrote.

In June 2017, the Duke of Sussex said: “My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television.

“I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.”

In his memoir, Spare, the duke said he felt “numb” as he walked behind his mother’s coffin but was nearly brought to tears while listening to Sir Elton John perform during the service.

As Buckingham Palace hits back at the claims of King Charles’s reaction to the death of Diana, Dan Wakeford, former People editor and founder of the Celebrity Intelligence website, looks at why her brother is publishing his tell-all now, and how the next 12 months will be about settling scores:

Earl Spencer said he had “no contact” with King Charles until Diana’s funeral after he allegedly told him she would be forgotten soon.

Diana’s brother claimed that in a phone call with the King after her death, Charles went “ballistic” over funeral plan disagreements, before telling him “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough”.

He wrote in his memoir: “I had no contact with Prince Charles since hanging up on him after he had disrespected Diana and disparaged our family’s sense of duty.”

On the day of her funeral, he said he “was shown into a sitting room where Prince Charles was seated, alone. He was polite and formal. Neither of us mentioned our phone call altercation. It was as if we had not seen or spoken to one another for an age.

“We talked about other matters – how my mother and elder sisters were coping, and the beauty of the weather that morning. That sort of thing.’

Earl Spencer has claimed that some royal family members had “taken delight” in the removal of Diana’s HRH title.

Reflecting on her funeral in his tell-all memoir, he wrote: “I thought how some had supported her in life while others had taken delight in the demotion that had followed her divorce.

“I saw the face of Princess Michael, whom Diana had considered her ‘nightmare neighbour’ at Kensington Palace.

“She had accosted my sister after she was deprived of her HRH title, and said, with feigned kindness: ‘Don’t worry, Diana – you only need to curtsy to me when we are in public !’

“There was Princess Margaret, who had been a good ally of Diana till the Panorama interview had taken place.

“Margaret could never forgive what she viewed as an unforgivable act of treachery against the Royal Family and had chosen not to bow to Diana’s coffin when it had passed her that morning.”