Charles Spencer is sharing new details about how he created his sister Princess Dianathe eulogy at his funeral.
In an interview with Gyles Brandreth the episode of Friday, October 24 of the “Rosebud” podcast.ninth Earl Spencer, 61, said the eulogy he had originally planned for Diana’s memorial service in September 1997 was “very different” to what he eventually read.
He explained that he was “in pieces” returning to the UK from Cape Town, South Africa, when he began to think about who could praise his sister.
“I had a big, thick address book and I thought, ‘I want to find someone to do the speech for her.’ And I got to the ‘Z’ and I hadn’t found anyone,” Spencer recalled of the “deeply emotional moment.”
“(I) got off the plane at Heathrow (airport), called my mum and said, ‘I can’t think who’s going to do the eulogy.’ And I have a terrible feeling that it’s going to be me,” he continued. “And she said, ‘Well, it’s going to be you. Your sisters and I have decided.’
Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer visits his sister’s grave at the Spencer family’s ancestral home in Althorp “almost every day”, he revealed during the Tuesday 15 October episode of Good Morning Britain. Diana died at the age of 36 in a car accident in 1997 in Paris and was buried on a small island near the Ronda (…)
Spencer said she initially decided to write a “very traditional eulogy” about her childhood and such, but then thought, “Well, that’s ridiculous, it’s not who she was.”
He said he soon “realised” that the moment called for him not to speak about the late Princess of Wales but to “speak for her”.
“And I knew that she had left me at that stage, I didn’t have legitimacy, but I knew that she had left me as the guardian of her children,” Spencer added of her nephews. Prince William i Prince Harrywho were 15 and 12 years old when his mother died at the age of 36 after a car accident in Paris in August 1997.
“Obviously the other parent is alive, that didn’t mean anything, but it meant something to me. I think that kind of duty,” Spencer said, noting that the now. King Charles III she would obviously take care of her children. “And then I wrote (the eulogy) in an hour and a half and, yeah, that was it.”
He admitted that he did a “name check.” Rupert Murdoch out, deeming it “rather unnecessary,” but kept the rest of what he had planned to say in his emotional speech.
The praise is “one of the most unforgettable moments in recent British history,” according to “Rosebud,” and detailed her selflessness, strength, beauty and love of family. He also spoke about the mistreatment of Diana by the British media.
Diana, Princess of Wales.
Getty Images“She would have us pledge today to protect her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate and I do so here Diana on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used to drive you to tearful despair,” Spencer said at the time.
“And beyond that,” he continued, “on behalf of your mother and your sisters, I promise that we, your blood family, will do our best to continue the imaginative way in which you led these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply mired in duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned.”
Spencer has been a champion for both William, 43, and Harry, 41, over the years, notably supporting Harry in January after settled their legal battle The Sun. The News Group Newspaper, owned by Murdoch, 94, apologized to Harry “for the serious intrusion” into his private life, along with that of his late mother, over decades.
The People’s Princess always and forever. The British royal family has kept the memory of Princess Diana alive since her untimely death in August 1997. The mother of Prince William and Prince Harry died at the age of 36 after a car crash in Paris that occurred as her driver, Henri Paul, was fleeing paparazzi. Peace and (…)
Spencer praised Harry after the win, writing in an Instagram post at the time“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to major media organizations like this, and incredible tenacity to win against them. It’s wonderful that Harry also secured an apology for his mother – I’m sure she’d be touched by it, and rightly so. Well done.”
LR Earl Spencer Prince Charles Prince William Harry and Prince Charles stand next to the hearse containing Diana’s coffin after the funeral service at Westminster Abbey.
Photo by Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty ImagesHarry and his wife, Meghan Marklestepped down from their royal duties in 2020 and have has been at odds ever since with his father William and his wife, Kate Middleton.
Harry and Meghan, 44, now live in California with their children Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4.
“I like living (in the US) and bringing my children here,” the Duke of Sussex told New York Times DealBook Summit in New York City in December 2024. “It’s a part of my life that I never thought I’d get to live and it feels like the life my mom wanted for me.”