The book is not about his sister
Charles Spencer has published a memoir. It is called 'Swan Song'. The book was trailed as a reflection on his relationship with his sister, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, a final tribute to a globally recognised figure. The first reviews are in. They say something different. They say the book is not really about her at all.
Critics argue it is about him. The Guardian's review set the initial tone, calling the book 'a furious exercise in score-settling' which tells the public a little about Diana and a great deal about her brother. The paper suggested its 400 pages, though containing some genuinely touching passages about his late sister, ultimately leave the reader with a feeling of sourness at the way the story is told. It is a story full of chest thumping and wild indiscretion. A head spinning story. The central charge is that Charles Spencer has put himself, and his own many grievances, at the centre of the stage. The book becomes a document about the author.
The Evening Standard review shared this assessment. Its headline framed the memoir as a dish of revenge served almost three decades late, suggesting the wait had only improved its potency. It is a book of vengeance. The paper described 'Swan Song' as a 'plum pudding of revelations' that was made more interesting by what it called 'the piquant sauce of revenge'. This idea of calculated retribution, of old scores being settled after years of silence, has defined the immediate public reaction to the book's publication on Tuesday.
So the book is not what it seemed. It was presented as a tribute. It has been received as an attack. The consistent thread running through the early commentary is that this memoir is a vehicle, one designed to carry the author's personal complaints into the public record. Charles Spencer may have intended to write about his sister's life and legacy. Critics say he has written about himself instead. The subject is his own anger.
This is an exercise in revenge
This is an exercise in revenge. The reviews agree. Old scores are being settled. The Guardian's description of a 'furious exercise in score-settling' finds its partner in the Evening Standard's metaphor of a revenge dish, a meal that has apparently only grown more potent during an almost thirty year wait to be served. The argument is that this book is a calculated act. It is not a lament. It is a weapon. The memoir’s core purpose, according to this reading, is retribution against those Spencer holds responsible for his sister’s difficulties and his own.
The targets are not new. They are old adversaries. The context for this interpretation is found nearly three decades ago, in the eulogy Charles Spencer delivered at his sister's funeral inside Westminster Abbey on 6 September 1997. It was an address that stunned observers with its directness. He attacked the press, accusing editors of having blood on their hands and describing Diana as 'the most hunted person of the modern age'. This specific grievance, against the media which documented and pursued his sister for years, appears to be a central theme of his book, a complaint he has now chosen to repeat and expand upon in print. The book is the argument revisited.
The royals were a target. His words were carefully chosen. He made a public pledge to his nephews, the princes William and Harry, to protect them from a fate where their souls were 'not simply immersed by duty and tradition', a line widely seen at the time as a direct and extraordinary criticism of the institution into which they were born. It was an astonishing thing to say. He was speaking in front of the Queen. That public rebuke, delivered from the pulpit of the abbey, positioned Spencer as a fierce critic of the royal establishment and its effect on his family.
These are the same grievances. They have resurfaced. The critical assessment of 'Swan Song' suggests that the animosity Spencer displayed towards the press and the establishment on that day has not softened with time but has instead been curated, saved and now deployed in book form, a 400 page continuation of the arguments he first made over his sister's coffin. The reviews suggest the book is the final, definitive volley in a long running conflict that began in public view on a day of national mourning. It is a second eulogy. This time, critics say, it is for himself.
The timing is deliberate
The timing is deliberate. He has waited nearly three decades. The book’s publication arrives almost thirty years after Diana died in Paris, a gap that reviewers believe is central to its very purpose. This is not an accident of scheduling. The Evening Standard’s review frames this long wait as a specific strategy, describing the book’s contents as a ‘revenge dish is even better aged 30 years’. The long maturation has, in this interpretation, made the settling of scores more potent, not less. This suggests a calculated release. It is not presented as an immediate, raw reaction to the events of 1997 but as a considered and final act, a settling of accounts that has been curated over an entire generation.
There is also the question of legacy. Releasing the memoir now, so long after the fact, allows Charles Spencer to attempt to control his own historical narrative and secure his place within the story of his sister's life. He is ensuring his version is recorded permanently. It is an opportunity to transform his famous eulogy from a singular, shocking moment of grief into the opening chapter of his own sustained argument against the institutions he holds responsible. With many of the key figures from that period either silent by protocol or unable to offer a rebuttal, he has a largely uncontested field on which to present his case to the public. He gets the last word.
This is an act of self definition. The Guardian review notes the element of ‘chest thumping’ in the prose, which points to a man deeply concerned with how he himself will be remembered. This is not just about Diana’s memory. It is about his memory. By publishing this account, Spencer moves from being the guardian of his sister's story to being a primary protagonist in his own right, defining the narrative for a new audience that may have no memory of the events themselves but will now have his 400 page testimony to guide them. It is history written by the participant. It is a story shaped for posterity.
This changes Spencer's public role
Charles Spencer has held one role for a very long time. He was the keeper of his sister’s memory. For nearly thirty years, the public has largely viewed him as the principal guardian of the Diana story, a solemn position he first claimed with a famous eulogy that directly challenged the royal family over their daughter-in-law's coffin. That speech at Westminster Abbey cemented his place. He was the protective younger brother. He was her champion. This new book, ‘Swan Song’, fundamentally alters that long held perception. The initial reviews suggest a different and far more personal motive is now at play. It is a profound shift.
The language used by the first reviewers is specific. It is quite damaging. The Guardian review describes a 400 page book filled not just with memories but with ‘chest thumping’, and it concludes that the experience leaves the reader with a ‘certain sourness’. These are not the words typically reserved for a simple, loving tribute. They paint a picture of an author who is driven by ego and by old animosities, a man who appears to be using his sister's considerable legacy as a powerful platform for his own protracted battles. This undeniably complicates his public position. He is no longer just a selfless narrator of Diana’s life. He becomes an active, and perhaps now unreliable, participant in a story increasingly centred on himself.
This book is therefore an act of redefinition. It is a man writing himself into the centre of a global narrative from which he had been a supporting player. The Guardian calls ‘Swan Song’ a ‘fascinating document that tells us a little about Diana and a great deal about Charles Spencer’. This observation gets to the core of the change. His public identity was once almost completely fused with his sister's, his purpose seemingly defined by her tragic absence and the perceived need to defend her memory against the press and the palace. He was Diana’s brother. Now, he stands apart from that role. His own grievances, and what The Evening Standard terms a ‘revenge dish’, are presented as being of equal, if not greater, importance than remembrance. This is not guardianship. It is autobiography. It is a settling of accounts.
This repositioning has consequences that extend beyond one man’s reputation. It affects the entire Spencer family’s carefully curated public image. They were always the other family. The family of Diana's blood. For decades they have been presented as a necessary contrast to the colder, more formal world she married into, positioned as the people who truly understood her. This book, with its reported ‘wild indiscretion’ and what critics identify as a clear exercise in score settling, introduces a new and much more complicated element to that mythology. It suggests personal vendettas and long held resentments are part of the Spencer story too, not just a feature of the House of Windsor. The clean moral line once drawn in the public imagination between the Spencers and the Windsors has now been blurred by a 400 page act of very public score settling. The story is no longer so simple.
The palace will say nothing
No comment is expected. None will be offered. Buckingham Palace will almost certainly maintain a disciplined, unbreachable silence on the publication of ‘Swan Song’ and the critical reaction to its contents. This is the application of a long established operational doctrine. The informal but rigidly observed policy of ‘never complain, never explain’ dictates that the institution does not engage with public criticism, particularly when it emanates from family members or their associates. The rule is simple. Do not get drawn in. The strategy’s purpose is to avoid dignifying a story with an official response, thereby starving it of the oxygen that a public argument would provide. It is a tool of statecraft. It has been used for generations.
To issue a statement, even a carefully worded denial or a simple expression of disapproval, would grant Charles Spencer’s memoir official standing in the historical record. It would become a fight. A public argument. The royal household avoids public arguments. Responding would elevate the book from a personal project, described by critics as sour and full of chest thumping, into a direct confrontation between the House of Windsor and the Spencer family over the memory of Diana. That is a conflict the palace has no interest in starting, let alone winning. It would only create a bigger story. A more damaging one.
This discipline is not just about institutional pride. It is a protective measure for the future of the monarchy itself, specifically for the man who will one day be king and whose mother is the subject of this deeply personal and apparently vengeful book. The silence protects him. It creates distance. Any official palace response would inevitably drag the heir to the throne into a painful public revisiting of his family’s most difficult period, forcing a choice between defending his father’s house and honouring his mother’s memory as presented by his uncle. The palace machinery is designed to prevent precisely this kind of scenario. Its primary function in a crisis is containment.
So the score settling will remain a one way affair. The ‘wild indiscretion’ identified by reviewers will be met not with a counter attack or a point by point rebuttal but with the quiet, unyielding continuity of the royal diary. There will be nothing. Just a void. The press offices in the royal households will be instructed to say nothing. They will not brief journalists. They will not correct inaccuracies. The silence itself will be the only response the public ever receives from the palace.
What to watch for next
The palace will be silent. Others will not. The publication of ‘Swan Song’ now invites a new chapter of consequences, one played out not in the controlled corridors of Buckingham Palace but across the pages of the very press Charles Spencer castigates. There is now a book. A 400 page document. Individuals who find their own actions and motives detailed within its pages, seasoned with what one critic calls the ‘piquant sauce of revenge’, are free to issue their own statements or grant their own interviews. A book described as an exercise in ‘wild indiscretion’ almost guarantees public rebuttals from those whose reputations are now tied to Spencer’s version of history. The fallout will be piecemeal, not official, a series of small fires lit by personal accounts rather than a single palace decree.
This also forces a fundamental and likely permanent shift in the relationship between the Spencer family and the House of Windsor. The silence from the royal household is a professional necessity but a personal gulf will surely widen between an uncle and his nephews. That is now inevitable. Spencer has traded his long held role as the quiet guardian of his sister's memory for that of its most aggrieved and public narrator, a choice that complicates his connection to a future king whose mother is the book’s central subject. He is no longer just Diana’s brother. He is the author of a furious book.
The most lasting impact may be on the story of Diana herself. For almost thirty years, Spencer’s eulogy has been the definitive text of his perspective. Now, this book, with its score settling and ‘chest thumping’, becomes a new primary source for a new generation of historians, journalists and dramatists to interpret. It adds a layer of sourness. It provides a detailed record of resentment. Future portrayals of the princess will have to account for this version of events, a story told not just with love but with a fury that has been nursed for decades. The book exists. The narrative is altered.
Sources. Guardian UK: Swan Song by Charles Spencer review – a furious exercise in score-settling by Diana’s brother. Evening Standard: Swan Song by Charles Spencer review: Revenge dish is even better aged 30 years.
Analysis. Drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed above and reviewed by an editor before publication. Jnews links to the organisations it writes about.
