Swan Song

Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer, writes as Diana, Princess of Wales's younger brother, offering a personal account of her life, death, and legacy. Spencer frames the book as his swan song, written as the thirtieth anniversary of Diana's death approaches, aiming to correct what he views as pervasive inaccuracy in existing accounts. Their mother, he notes, believed he knew Diana better than anyone in the world.

The book opens with a prologue set at the burial of the Spencer children's father in the early 1990s. Spencer recalls joking morbidly that one of the four siblings would attend the funerals of all the others. Diana laughed it off. Five and a half years later, Spencer found himself marching behind her coffin, Diana's sons Prince William and Prince Harry on either side of him.

Spencer recounts learning of Diana's death in August 1997 at his home in Cape Town, South Africa. His middle sister Jane, whose husband Robert Fellowes served as the Queen's Private Secretary, relayed escalating updates through the night, the final one confirming Diana was dead. The next morning, Spencer broke the news to his children and issued a statement accusing every editor who paid for intrusive photographs of having "blood on their hands today" (50). He then flew to London, resolved to deliver Diana's eulogy himself.

Spencer reconstructs their shared childhood at Park House, the family's home on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, near the Royal Family's country residence. He describes a household divided between an adult wing and a children's wing, where he and Diana lived with a succession of nannies. Spencer insists Park House was a happy home, pushing back against biographers' claims that Diana was miserable as a child, though he acknowledges Diana later presented their childhood differently.

A central event was the death of their brother John, who was born in 1960 with fatal health conditions and survived only hours. This tragedy damaged their parents' already strained marriage, and in 1966 their mother fell in love with Peter Shand Kydd. The divorce that followed left their father with custody. Diana was deeply affected by their mother's departure: She took literally their mother's promise to return soon, sitting on Park House's front doorstep to wait. Spencer believes Diana never forgave this disappointment. He firmly denies allegations of physical abuse by their father, calling them "an appalling lie" (90).

When their grandfather died in 1975, the family moved to Althorp, the Spencer ancestral estate in Northamptonshire. Their father's second wife, Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, made life difficult for the children, selling a fifth of the house's historic contents while relegating them to attic bedrooms. Diana and Spencer found solace at the Round Oval, an ornamental lake with a small island that would later become Diana's final resting place.

Spencer argues that Diana had undiagnosed learning difficulties related to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Teachers criticized her inability to concentrate without offering constructive help, and she never passed any O-level exams, the standardized tests then required for British secondary students. Spencer contends this sense of academic failure haunted Diana throughout her life, fueling both her insecurity and her compulsion to serve others.

Diana's transformation began after she left a Swiss finishing school, where compulsory French classes left her feeling stupid. Spencer implored their father to bring her home, and free from classroom humiliation, Diana blossomed with newfound confidence. In late 1977, Prince Charles visited Althorp as a guest of their eldest sister Sarah. Diana wrote to their father that she liked the prince and that he was "clearly someone in need of a wife" (142). By November 1980, Diana and Charles were courting. Spencer accompanied her to a restaurant in Bray, where he first witnessed the terrifying energy of a pursuing media mob surrounding his unprotected sister.

The Royal Wedding on 29 July 1981 was watched by 750 million people. Spencer visited Diana that morning and found her tired and wistful; he later learned Prince Charles had told her the previous day he was not in love with her. Diana had been dealing with an eating disorder for five months by her wedding day. Spencer describes how the royal establishment took control of her life, dismissing her family doctor, severing her from family traditions, and isolating her. Her marriage was troubled from the start, complicated by Prince Charles's ongoing attachment to Camilla Parker-Bowles, his longtime lover.

Spencer describes Diana's extraordinary public magnetism and her devoted, tactile parenting of William and Harry. She insisted on taking her sons on overseas tours and gave them experiences of ordinary life. Yet Diana's celebrity also made her a commodity, relentlessly pursued by paparazzi. Spencer recounts the harassment she endured after losing Palace and police protection and reveals that the cumulative press attacks led both him and Diana to contemplate suicide.

Spencer details how Martin Bashir, a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), deceived both him and Diana to secure a 1995 interview on the BBC's flagship current-affairs program, Panorama. Bashir presented forged bank statements and fabricated claims. Spencer warned Diana that Bashir was untrustworthy, but the reporter reconnected with her behind Spencer's back. The interview's consequences were catastrophic: The Queen insisted on Charles and Diana divorcing, and Diana lost her title as Her Royal Highness (HRH). Spencer draws a direct line between Bashir's deceptions and Diana's fatal vulnerability.

Spencer recounts the fraught week between Diana's death and her funeral. The Spencer family wanted a private ceremony, but Buckingham Palace pushed for a national event. Spencer chose the island in the Round Oval as Diana's burial site and telephoned each tabloid editor to uninvite them from the service. A bitter conflict erupted over whether William and Harry should walk behind the coffin. When Spencer refused the plan, Prince Charles called him, furious, accusing the Spencers of having "no bloody sense of duty" and declaring, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough" (117). The boys ultimately chose to walk, provided their grandfather Prince Philip accompanied them.

Spencer wrote the eulogy in an hour and a half, drawing on his decade of experience as a television news correspondent. He centered the speech on William and Harry, pledging that Diana's "blood family" would protect them from being "simply immersed by duty and tradition" (366). At the funeral rehearsal, he realized Palace officials had positioned themselves to vet his speech; he pretended to have left the text at home, preserving its integrity.

The funeral on 6 September 1997 constitutes the book's emotional climax. Spencer describes the half-hour walk to Westminster Abbey as the most harrowing experience of his life. Inside the Abbey, Elton John performed a reworked "Candle in the Wind," and Spencer delivered his eulogy, nearly losing his composure during passages addressed to his nephews. Applause started outside and rolled inward. On the Royal Train to Althorp, Robert Fellowes relayed an offer from the Queen to restore Diana's HRH title posthumously. Spencer declined: "What's the point, Robert? Now? I mean – Diana's dead" (333). Diana was buried on the island in the Round Oval.

In the book's closing chapters, Spencer recounts Diana's final visit to Cape Town months before her death. He arranged her meeting with Nelson Mandela, then South Africa's president, who praised Diana and her philanthropic work. Spencer observed that Diana was deeply unhappy. Five years after the funeral, Mandela visited Diana's grave at Althorp and told Spencer she was "a very, very great lady" (361). The book closes with the full text of Spencer's eulogy, uniting his celebration of Diana's qualities, his critique of the media, his pledge to protect her sons, and his expression of a brother's enduring grief.