Piers Morgan is still throwing loud, palace-sponsored tantrums over Charles Spencer’s Swan Song, but most people are ignoring him (which is funny). I have no idea if Piers is actually going to sue Charles Spencer over the relatively small factual error in Swan Song, but I imagine that the ginned-up controversy has subsided permanently. In the meantime, it looks like Charles Spencer has alerted his lawyers to a situation involving the Spectator, a right-wing British magazine. On the Spectator’s podcast, two guests spread lies and misinformation about the Earl Spencer and Princess Diana’s relationship. From Richard Eden’s column:

Undaunted by the complaints he has received from Piers Morgan about a factual error in Swan Song, his best-selling memoir, Earl Spencer has begun a legal action of his own. I can disclose that the uncle of Princes William and Harry has instructed m’learned friends over a podcast featuring former Cabinet minister Michael Gove.

In the podcast produced by The Spectator magazine, of which Gove is editor, he discussed Charles Spencer’s new book with assistant editor Madeline Grant, wife of a Church of England vicar. The pair made a series of claims about Lord Spencer, including that he was on ‘bad terms’ with his sister, Princess Diana, when she was killed in a car crash in 1997, and that he was ‘monetising her death’ by publishing the book.

They also alleged that Spencer had refused Diana permission to stay with William and Harry at Althorp, his stately home in Northamptonshire. Spencer has demanded that the podcast be removed from The Spectator’s website.

His spokesman tells me: ‘The Spectator’s podcast claimed that in the summer of 1997 Diana asked her brother if she and her sons could stay with him to escape the Press, and that he said “No” because the paparazzi would bother his family at Althorp. That is untrue. She never asked to stay that summer. She would not have done, as Althorp was open to the public throughout the summer months. But had she asked, he would have done everything possible to make it happen.’

He added: ‘Earl Spencer never turned his sister away. After her marriage broke down, and in line with police advice about her safety, he offered her a choice of a dozen homes on the Althorp estate, as well as Wormleighton Manor, the family’s ancestral home. Earl Spencer has asked The Spectator to correct the record. People are entitled to whatever opinion they like of his book – they are not entitled to invent how he treated his sister.’

Gove declines to comment.

[From The Daily Mail]

In my opinion, the “Charles Spencer & Diana were beefing the summer she died” talking point/conspiracy has always been from the palace and the Windsors. Variations of these stories have circulated for years, and the stories were reintroduced around Spencer’s book promotion. As in, Tom Bower and various unhinged royalists were suddenly piping up and saying “by the way, why doesn’t Charles Spencer address his falling out with Diana over staying at Althorp??” All of which to say, I believe Charles Spencer – it’s far more likely that Diana did not ask to stay at Althorp in the summer of 1997 because she wanted to go on vacation and have fun. There is also a story about Diana, post-divorce, asking for one of the cottages or manor homes on the Althorp estate, and Spencer addresses that as well. I absolutely believe that Spencer was concerned about his sister’s safety, and that if Diana had asked him for something, he would have tried to give it to her.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencap courtesy of ‘Lorraine’.