Lady Anne Glenconner, the former lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, has voiced her support for the King following explosive claims made by Earl Spencer in his memoir about the aftermath of Princess Diana's death.
Earl Spencer's book, 'Swan Song: Diana, My Sister', includes allegations about the-then Prince Charles's reaction to the tragedy. Among the contents are claims that King Charles said "rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough" following the car crash in Paris in August 1997.
Lady Anne's Verdict on the Book
Buckingham Palace issued a strong rebuttal to the claims, and Lady Anne has expressed her support for the King, despite saying she hasn't read Earl Spencer's book. Speaking on the Jane & Fi podcast, Lady Anne said: "Absolutely not and I'm not going to. I don't really want to talk about it. I'm a great great friend of the King. I love the King. I've known him since he was three. There's nothing else I want to say about the Spencers. I know the Spencer family and that's it."
Engagement to Diana's Father
Earlier in the interview, Lady Anne spoke about her brief engagement to Diana's father, John Spencer, Viscount Althorp. They were engaged in 1950, but his father rejected the union. She mentioned the engagement in her own memoir, 'Trunks & Tiaras: Journeys through life with friends, family and a Princess'.
Speaking about her engagement to Diana's father, who died in 1992 at the age of 68, she said: "I was engaged to him. And I do write about that. His father was well quite difficult. But in those days, aristocrats, you looked for your elder son to make a suitable marriage and then produce the heir. I mean that's the way it should go."
Lady Anne said the engagement fell apart because she was from the wrong family. She said: "At the time when I was engaged to Johnny, his father said, 'No you can't marry Anne Cook. Her grandmother is Trefusis. It's sort of bad blood, you know.' And so that was that. I was devastated actually."
Princess Margaret's Quirky Habit
In a recent interview with Hello! magazine, Lady Anne recalled a surprising thing Princess Margaret, who died in February 2002 at the age of 71, liked to do for her employee. Lady Anne said: "She loved cleaning my car and she had a huge pair of yellow Marigold gloves I had a chandelier and to my horror, she managed to get that down. I don't know how she did it. She started taking off bits, and I said: 'Well, ma'am, how do you know how to put it together again?' and she was a bit taken aback, because she'd rather forgotten about that."
