By Victoria Cross, Culture Editor
A new biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, has provoked an unusually direct confrontation between Buckingham Palace and Earl Spencer, reopening questions about who has the authority to define the memory of one of the most scrutinised figures in modern British public life.
The dispute centres on allegations contained in the book, which were reported on 18 September and have since placed the King, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex on opposing sides of a debate that reaches well beyond literary criticism. At its heart is a continuing struggle over the boundary between historical inquiry and the protection of a family’s private life.
“The argument is not simply about what happened to Diana, but who is permitted to explain what happened to her.”
Neither the Palace nor Earl Spencer has treated the claims as a routine disagreement between a publisher and a member of the Royal Family. The exchange has instead assumed the character of a wider institutional quarrel, with the competing accounts carrying implications for the reputations of both the late princess and her sons.
A contested account of Diana
The biography makes allegations about Diana’s life and relationships that Earl Spencer has challenged. The precise detail of every claim has not been independently established, and the book’s account should therefore be treated as an allegation rather than settled fact. Even so, the controversy has gained traction because it touches a familiar fault line: Diana’s story remains both a subject of legitimate historical interest and a source of profound personal pain for those closest to her.
Earl Spencer, who has long guarded his sister’s memory and spoken publicly about the circumstances surrounding her life, is understood to regard parts of the biography as misleading or damaging. His intervention gives the dispute particular weight. Unlike many relatives of public figures, he is not merely a private complainant: as the custodian of the Spencer family’s public history, he has repeatedly occupied a position between witness, advocate and participant in the Diana story.
Buckingham Palace, meanwhile, has been drawn into the dispute because the allegations bear upon the years Diana spent as a senior member of the Royal Family and upon the conduct of the institution around her. The Palace’s position has put the King in the uncomfortable position of defending the integrity of the royal record while avoiding a public contest with the brother of his former wife.
“The argument is not simply about what happened to Diana, but who is permitted to explain what happened to her.”
William and Harry pulled back into the past
The controversy also affects the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex, whose public identities remain inseparable from their mother’s legacy. William has generally sought to honour Diana through carefully controlled charitable work and public references, while maintaining a marked reluctance to revisit the most intimate details of his childhood. Harry has adopted a more confrontational approach, arguing that the institutions surrounding his family have often failed to acknowledge the pressures placed upon his mother and, later, upon himself.
That divergence has made any dispute involving Earl Spencer especially sensitive. A disagreement about the biography risks becoming a proxy for a much larger argument over competing versions of royal history: one that emphasises continuity, duty and institutional restraint, and another that stresses personal testimony, emotional truth and the consequences of press intrusion.
Constitutional commentators say the episode illustrates the peculiar difficulty the monarchy faces when private grievances become matters of public record. The King has no conventional legal power to suppress a biography, and the Palace’s influence is largely reputational. A response that is too forceful may amplify the allegations; one that is too cautious can be interpreted as indifference or tacit acceptance.
“For the Palace, silence is rarely neutral, but speaking carries its own constitutional and reputational risks,” said one senior observer of the monarchy, describing the dispute as a test of the modern Royal Family’s ability to manage historical controversy without appearing to dictate it.
The long afterlife of a royal marriage
Diana’s death in Paris in 1997 transformed her from a controversial former royal into an international symbol. Nearly three decades later, books, documentaries and dramas continue to revisit her marriage to the then Prince of Wales, her relationship with the media and her sometimes difficult position within the monarchy.
The appetite for new revelations has remained strong, but so too has the public’s sensitivity to material that appears to turn private trauma into entertainment. Publishers defend biographies as essential to understanding the past; families often regard them as selective reconstructions in which context is shaped by commercial opportunity.
British publishing law provides remedies for defamation and misuse of private information, but legal thresholds are high, particularly where the subject is deceased and the claims concern historical events. In practice, the most consequential battles are often fought through statements, interviews and the authority of competing witnesses rather than in court.
For the Royal Family, the timing is awkward. The King is still managing the demands of a reign defined by modernisation and public scrutiny, while William is preparing for a future in which the monarchy’s relevance will depend partly on its ability to appear transparent without surrendering all privacy. Harry’s involvement, whether direct or indirect, ensures that the dispute will be read through the prism of his continuing estrangement from the institution.
Earl Spencer’s challenge has consequently become more than a family objection to a book. It is a confrontation over memory, evidence and ownership of a narrative that has shaped the monarchy for a generation. As further responses emerge, the central question will not be whether Diana’s story can be revisited, but whether it can ever be revisited without reopening the wounds that made it so enduring.
