Palace hits back over Charles Spencer's claim about Princess Diana

ABC News (AU) · collected 2026-09-16
Read the original at ABC News (AU) ↗

Summary

King Charles has responded to claims by his late wife Princess Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, who alleges that Prince Charles said, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough,” during funeral arrangements for Diana. This statement is reported in a Daily Mail article and forms part of Spencer’s upcoming memoir.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-17, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
2
claim-shaped sentences
Uncertain
100%
2 of 2 hedged
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Correction & hedging signals
60.2
corrections and hedging in what we collected; not a measure of accuracy
Outlets on this story
9
Politics
Narrative spread
1
articles carrying this framing
Analyzed 2026-09-17 · how these are computed

AI analysis (generated at analysis time, not now)

Story summary

Charles Spencer, Diana's brother and the ninth Earl Spencer, has alleged in his upcoming memoir "Swan Song: Diana, My Sister" that just days after Princess Diana’s death on September 8, 1997, he received a phone call from then-Prince Charles who told him, “rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” This claim is made amid disputes over funeral arrangements for the princess, including whether Princes William and Harry, aged 15 and 12 at the time, should walk in their mother's funeral procession. Earl Spencer insisted Diana would not have wanted her young sons to endure such a public ordeal. In response, Buckingham Palace issued a statement saying Charles is "mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory," without directly addressing the specific claim but indicating it could be influenced by the passage of time.

Written for “Charles Diana Claims” on 2026-09-17, grounded in this article and the 8 other(s) covering the same event.
Why this leaning score
This article does not take a side on a contested political question, so it has no leaning score. That is an answer rather than a gap: a match report or a rescue can be warmly or critically written without being left or right, and scoring it anyway is how approval of a subject gets recorded as a political position.
No political leaning scored for article 14584 · logged 2026-09-17

Story

📰 Charles Diana Claims
Politics · 9 article(s) covering the same event.

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 100% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
Palace responds to Earl Spencer bombshell claims King said Diana would be forgotten 'soon enough' same event · 100%
Evening Standard · 0.89 cosine similarity
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 15% hedged 2 of 13 📰 publisher trust 71
“Both articles report on King Charles' response to Earl Spencer's claim about a comment made during Diana's funeral arrangements in his memoir.”
Charles said Diana would be forgotten ‘soon enough’ after her death, book claims same event · 100%
Evening Standard
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 29% hedged 4 of 14 📰 publisher trust 71
“Both articles describe King Charles' response to claims about comments he allegedly made regarding Princess Diana during funeral arrangements, reported on the same date.”
King Charles issues blistering statement in response to Charles Spencer’s book claims on Princess Diana’s death same event · 100%
New York Post
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 14% hedged 1 of 7 📰 publisher trust 59
“Both articles describe King Charles issuing a statement in response to claims made by Charles Spencer about Princess Diana’s death, specifically addressing alleged remarks concerning how soon people would forget her.”
Palace hits back at claims King said Diana would be forgotten ‘soon enough’ same event · 95%
Evening Standard · 0.87 cosine similarity
⚖️ Leans right 🔴 23% hedged 3 of 13 📰 publisher trust 71
“Both articles describe the same response from Buckingham Palace regarding Charles Spencer's claims about Prince Charles' alleged comments shortly after Princess Diana's death.”
Prince Harry knew about bombshells in Princess Di’s brother’s new book: sources different event · 95%
New York Post
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 12% hedged 3 of 26 📰 publisher trust 59
“The articles describe different aspects of the situation involving Charles Spencer's book and its claims, but they do not report on a single identical incident.”
‘We’ll forget her soon enough’: Diana’s brother makes explosive claim about Charles same event · 95%
The Sydney Morning Herald
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 30% hedged 7 of 23 📰 publisher trust 97
“Both articles describe King Charles responding to an explosive claim by Earl Spencer about their private conversation after Princess Diana's death, indicating the same specific incident.”
King Charles responds to Charles Spencer's claims about Princess Diana in a rare statement same event · 95%
Fox News
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 17% hedged 4 of 23 📰 publisher trust 95
“Both articles report on King Charles's response to claims made by Charles Spencer in a memoir about Princess Diana, published on the same date and mentioning the same alleged conversation.”
Charles told Earl Spencer 'rest assured, we'll forget Diana soon enough' in incendiary phone call days after her death, claims devastating memoir different event · 75%
Daily Mail
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 8% hedged 2 of 24 📰 publisher trust 59
“While both articles discuss an allegation from Charles Spencer's memoir about a phone call between Prince Charles and Earl Spencer, they are not describing the same specific event but rather reporting on different aspects of it: one focusing on the alleged content of the call and the other on the palace's response to the claim.”
Charles told Earl Spencer 'rest assured, we'll forget Diana soon enough' in incendiary phone call days after her death, claims devastating memoir different event · 50%
Daily Mail · 0.85 cosine similarity
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 8% hedged 2 of 26 📰 publisher trust 59
“Article A reports on the claim of an alleged phone call between Prince Charles and Earl Spencer, while Article B discusses the Palace's response to this claim. They are related but describe different events.”

Publisher

ABC News (AU) · 517 article(s) · 2 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 2 correction(s)
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Who wrote this

No reporter is named on this article.

Topics

the Daily Mail

Subjects

Diana PERSON · 3× Charles PERSON · 2× Charles Spencer PERSON · 1× Charles Spencer's PERSON · 1× the Daily Mail ORG · 1×

Narrative

Charles Spencer alleges in a soon-to-be-published memoir that the then-Prince Charles told him, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough", according to a report in the Daily Mail. The comment was allegedly made during the arrangements for Diana's funeral.
framing: speculative · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-17
2026-09-17 · ABC News (AU)
Palace hits back over Charles Spencer's claim about Princess Diana · speculative framing

Claims (2 extracted, 2 hedged)

Palace hits back over Charles Spencer's claim about Princess Diana In short: King Charles has responded to criticism by the brother of his late first wife, Diana. uncertain
Charles → hit → wife
Charles Spencer alleges in a soon-to-be-published memoir that the then-Prince Charles told him, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough", according to a report in the Daily Mail. The comment was allegedly made during the arrangements for Diana's funeral. uncertain
comment → allege → funeral
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Articles to 17 Sep 2026