Lady Anne Glenconner, the former lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret who was once engaged to Princess Diana's father, has delivered a blunt response to Earl Spencer's explosive memoir about the Royal Family.
Speaking on the Jane & Fi podcast, Lady Anne, 94, was asked about Earl Spencer's book, 'Swan Song: Diana, My Sister', which contains allegations about King Charles and the events following Princess Diana's death. She responded passionately: "Absolutely not and I'm not going to. I don't really want to talk about it."
Defending the King
Lady Anne, who has known King Charles since he was three, added: "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."
Earl Spencer's memoir includes the claim that Charles, then the Prince of Wales, said people would "forget her soon enough" after Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997. Buckingham Palace has issued a strongly-worded response to the claims.
Engagement to Diana's Father
Lady Anne also spoke about her brief engagement to John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, which ended in 1950 because his father objected. She said: "I was engaged to him. And I do write about that. His father was well quite difficult."
She recalled: "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."
A Rare Coronation Attendance
Lady Anne attended both Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation and King Charles' Coronation in 2023, making her one of the few people to have been present at both. In an interview with Hello!, she recalled being asked to attend: "He could only invite 120 or so close friends, so I was very honoured to be asked. And of course, it was wonderful, because I could relax. I had dinner with him three days later. I went in and he said: 'How was it Anne?' And I said 'Magnificent!'"
