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Kuenssberg: I asked Earl Spencer who we should believe - him or the King?
Laura Kuenssberg met Earl Spencer at Althorp, the ancestral home on the grounds of which Diana is buried
When I arrived at Althorp on Thursday to speak to Charles, Earl Spencer, only a handful of people were in evidence in the vast stately home, where Princess Diana had once tapdanced in the hall and rollerskated in the cavernous library.
It was only hours after Buckingham Palace had sent out its blistering statement in response to the explosive claims made in a new book by Earl Spencer. From the particularly English peace of this grand countryside setting, Diana's brother had provoked a storm.
That Palace statement, questioning Earl Spencer's account of the days after his sister's death, was a total contrast to its normal "never explain, never complain" mantra. But it meant that as we sat down, with oil paintings of Earl Spencer's aristocratic ancestors staring down at our TV lights, the interview was not just about his recollections of his sister. It had become about whether the earl, or the King himself, was telling the truth. As we asked Earl Spencer: which Charles are we meant to believe?
'There was a lightness in his tone', says Earl Spencer about Charles' reaction to Diana's death
That's why it was so important to test Earl Spencer's claims. Was he really sure that the then-Prince Charles had sounded "giddy" after his former wife had died on that terrible night in 1997? Both men, after all, were in a moment of profound shock.
Did the earl, a historian and former journalist himself, have evidence of another of his memories, that Charles had "hissed" at him that the world would "forget her soon enough"? Why does he, the uncle of William and Harry, think the world needs to hear his version of events from all those years ago?
Earl Spencer was resolute; strong in his conviction that his version of events needed to be told as a matter of record. And he recounted his memories of his conversations with the King in meticulous detail, noting carefully in our discussion that the Palace had not explicitly denied his claims, instead choosing to question his judgement.
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