Princess Diana’s brother claims Prince Harry was “allowed to spin out of control” after their devastating loss because of a “lack of obvious care” for the then-12-year-old royal.
Charles Spencer recalled being concerned for his young nephew in the aftermath of Diana’s September 1997 funeral in a new excerpt from his forthcoming book, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” according to the Daily Mail.
“My chief memory of that train journey is of being concerned at the lack of obvious care for Harry, as he decompressed from the ghastliness of the morning,” the 9th Earl Spencer wrote of traveling from London to the Spencer family estate, Althorp, where Diana was laid to rest.
“He needed Diana’s hugs, of course, and they would forever be denied him,” Spencer continued.
“But instead of calm and nurture, he was allowed to spin out of control.”
Spencer suggested Harry could have benefited from “a more caring hand” as he attempted to cope with losing his mother at such a young age.
Earlier that day, Harry and his brother, Prince William, then 15, famously walked behind Diana’s coffin during the procession to Westminster Abbey alongside their father, then-Prince Charles, their grandfather Prince Philip and Spencer.
The earl recalled being struck by how vulnerable Harry appeared during the procession.
“I could not get over how tiny, and slight, and bereft, Harry looked,” Spencer wrote, according to the excerpt.
“Too small to be doing this, I thought, and wondered how on earth this heartbroken child could bear the ordeal of that moment, or how he could possibly be expected to deal with the agony that the day ahead would insist upon.”
Harry has previously spoken about the trauma of being made to walk behind his mother’s coffin in front of crowds of mourners and millions of television viewers.
In 2017, the Duke of Sussex said he did not believe a child “should be asked to do that under any circumstances.”
Spencer’s latest allegations come just days after Buckingham Palace issued an unusually pointed response to other claims about King Charles contained in the upcoming memoir.
As Page Six previously reported, Spencer alleged that the now-monarch made a shocking remark about Diana in the days following her death as the two men clashed over whether William and Harry should participate in the funeral procession.
Spencer claimed Charles unleashed a “stream of anger” during the conversation before allegedly telling him, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough!”
Buckingham Palace pushed back against Spencer’s recollection in a statement to Page Six.
“While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss,” a palace spokesperson told us.
Spencer has since doubled down on his version of events, insisting during a BBC interview Friday that he was “telling the truth.”
“I can tell you here and now, those are exactly the words he said,” he maintained, adding that he had been “hyper alert” during the alleged conversation.
The latest excerpt also sees Spencer question Charles’ role in Diana’s funeral following the former couple’s bitter divorce.
“This ex-husband, from a marriage that had collapsed so bitterly four years before and finally ended in divorce a year earlier, surely had no place at his ex’s funeral,” he wrote.
Diana and Charles married in 1981 and finalized their divorce in 1996.
The Princess of Wales died following a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997. She was 36.
“Swan Song: Diana, My Sister” is set to hit bookshelves Tuesday.
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