Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer and a cousin to the royal family, opened up on Gyles Brandreth’s “Rosebud” podcast about the moment he was asked to deliver his sister’s eulogy.
The conversation offered a rare glimpse into how the man who cooked up a tribute in just an hour and a half brought Princess Diana’s memory to life inside Westminster Abbey on September 6 1997.
When the 61‑year‑old Earl‑in‑waiting flew back from Cape Town to Heathrow, he was clearly shaken. “I had a very sweet stewardess help me,” he recalled. “I was in bits.” He had already tried to find someone else—a friend or a professional—to write the speech, but by the time he reached the end of his address book, he realized no one else was available.
“I called my mother and said, ‘I don’t know who will give the eulogy. I’ve got an awful feeling it might have to be me.’” His mother said the answer was simple: “It is going to be you. Your sisters and I have decided it.”
The Earl first drafted a conventional eulogy that touched on Diana’s childhood achievements. “It felt…ridiculous,” he said. “She wasn’t a child with a list of accomplishments.” He shifted gears and decided to “speak for” Diana, rather than speak about her.
He felt a duty—not a legal one—to carry on what his sister had left behind. “By the time I finished the speech, it took about an hour and a half,” he explained, and he felt the words resonated with the world’s mourning.
The eulogy, read aloud at Westminster Abbey, highlighted Diana’s compassion, duty, style and beauty. He described her as a “symbol of selfless humanity” and “a standard bearer for the downtrodden.” The Earl underscored her natural nobility, saying even without a royal title “she still generated her particular brand of magic.”
Spencer also used the platform to stress his responsibility toward the young princes. “Diana would want us to protect her beloved boys—William and Harry—from a tragedy that could echo hers,” he said. “We pledge that they will grow into exceptional young men who can sing openly, as you planned.”
The speech was not without controversy. The Earl admitted to cutting a jab at Rupert Murdoch, deeming it “unnecessary.” Despite this, his final words were clear, “We will not allow the boys to suffer the anguish that once drove our hearts to tearful despair.”
Gyles Brandreth’s “Rosebud” podcast is known for candid conversations with British personalities. This interview gave listeners an inside story to a moment that still echoes in the family’s grief and in the public’s memory of Princess Diana’s tragic death in a car crash in Paris on August 31 1997.
Source: New York Post
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