Earl Spencer marked the 29th anniversary of Princess Diana‘s death with poignant photos of their parental home on his ‘least favorite day’ of the year.
The sobering photos showed the flag at Diana’s home at half-mast as the Count paid tribute to the ‘People’s Princess’ who tragically died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, aged 36, leaving behind her two sons. Prince William And Prince Harry.
Charles’s moving Instagram post comes ahead of the publication of his ‘historic’ memoir, detailing Diana’s childhood, unhappy marriage to current King Charles and the aftermath of the crash that plunged the world into mourning.
When Earl Spencer, 62, announced the news earlier this month, he said: ‘As the 30th anniversary of Diana’s tragic death approaches, I have once again been inundated with requests for interviews about my sister.
‘This convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories once and for all, rather than have the inconvenience of re-reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time.’
Swan Song is expected to provide an unprecedented inside account of the seismic week in which the House of Windsor was rocked by a global wave of public grief and anger.
The author, Earl Spencer, had a ringside seat during his sister’s 15-year marriage to the future king, their eventual bitter separation and, in 1996, their divorce.
Earl Spencer has marked the 29th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death with poignant photos of their childhood home on his ‘least favorite day’ of the year
Charles pictured with the late Princess of Wales at the Birthright Ball in London on November 21, 1985
The Earl famously delivered a raw and provocative eulogy at Diana’s funeral in Westminster Abbey, which was broadcast to an astonishing global audience of 2.5 billion people.
During the powerful oration, he emphasized that his sister “did not need a royal title to continue generating her particular brand of magic.”
Reflecting on Diana’s ‘extraordinary’ legacy, he added: ‘It’s different things for different people, especially women of the same age. They truly invested their lives in hers.
‘Maybe they had an unhappy marriage, maybe they struggled with an eating disorder. There’s plenty of Diana to look into and do your part in – almost like a horoscope, you can make it make sense to you.”
Swan Song will be published in the UK on September 22 by Penguin Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Random House.
The book’s striking cover features an elegant black-and-white photo of Diana.
Publisher Daniel Bunyard said today: ‘This is a book of historical importance, telling the story of one of the most iconic and culturally significant figures of the 20th century, but it is also utterly unique in that it is written by Earl Spencer, from a vantage point of such intimacy.
Earl Spencer delivers his eulogy at Diana’s funeral in Westminster Abbey
Earl Spencer, Prince William, Prince Harry and the then Prince of Wales on the day of Diana’s funeral
The then Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex look at the statue they had made for their mother in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace in 2021 (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
“Charles Spencer is as much a loving brother and acclaimed memoirist as he is a celebrated historian, and all these facets come together in Swan Song.
‘It is extraordinarily moving, beautifully written and remarkably candid, thanks in no small part to Charles’ rare ability to achieve great emotional depth without sentimentality, honest observation without rancor and warmth without gloss.
“While these pages contain many revelations that will attract much attention, readers will find for the first time, and forever, a fitting tribute to the beloved woman that was Princess Diana.”
Charles Spencer and Diana grew up in the idyllic Park House on Queen Elizabeth’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, until the family moved to Althorp in 1975, when Charles was 11.
Diana affectionately called her younger brother ‘Carlos’, while he called her ‘Duch’ – short for Duchess.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children Archie and Lilibet reportedly visited the Althorp estate last month, where they are believed to have laid flowers on Diana’s grave.
The princess’s final resting place is on a tree-covered island in the middle of an ornamental lake called Oval Lake.
The anniversary of Diana’s death comes just days after her youngest son, the Duke of Sussex, his wife Meghan Markle and the couple’s two children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, returned to Britain after six years in the US.
