A Brother's Account of a Sovereign's Misstep After Diana's Fall

When Princess Diana died on August 31, 1997, the Royal Family—and the world—were left in shock. Prince William and Prince Harry were staying at Balmoral with their father, King Charles (then the Prince of Wales), and their grandparents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, but it wasn’t until September 5 that the monarch publicly reacted to Diana’s death. In his new book Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Earl Spencer shares his surprising reaction to how the media and the public treated Queen Elizabeth.

The late monarch was widely criticized for not speaking to the nation until five days after Diana’s death, and Earl Spencer noted that the media had encouraged a narrative that Elizabeth “got it very wrong” by staying in Scotland.

"The Queen had done this to help William and Harry process the initial shock of grief with her in private,” he said. “But front pages demanded she assume a figurehead role in the nation's mourning.”

There was also a sense of outrage that a flag at Buckingham Palace had not been lowered to half-staff, and “this was interpreted as an insult to Diana,” he wrote.

Queen Elizabeth’s reason for the flag decision was simple, as Gyles Brandreth wrote in his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait. “The flagpole at Buckingham Palace was bare because flags are only flown over a royal residence when the sovereign is in residence,” Brandreth explained, and Elizabeth was in Scotland at the time. However, the royal standard is never flown at half-staff in general.

“The Queen was hurt and angered by the criticism—and she was not often given to anger,” Brandreth wrote. “She felt it showed a lack of understanding of history and tradition.” Eventually, Queen Elizabeth compromised to have a Union Jack flown at half-staff about the palace.

When the late Queen finally gave a televised public address on September 5, 1997, one day before Diana’s funeral, Earl Spencer said he thought her “tone was serious and respectful.”

"It was a short and clever speech that I was sure would satisfy the majority," he wrote, adding, "I knew that Diana would have been proud to be praised by the Queen so generously."