According to Earl Spencer, a few days after Diana's death, he learned from one of Queen Elizabeth II's senior aides that 15-year-old William and 12-year-old Harry would have to walk behind their mother's coffin during the funeral. Spencer strongly opposed this, believing that Diana herself would not have wanted to subject her sons to such a public ordeal. Soon, Prince Charles called him. He reminded Spencer that he had participated in the funeral procession for Lord Mountbatten in 1979. Spencer countered that Charles was already 30 at the time, while William and Harry were teenagers. According to the memoir's author, the conversation escalated into a quarrel. Spencer claims that Charles became enraged and then uttered a phrase that Diana's brother remembered for the rest of his life: > “Rest assured, we will forget her soon.” Spencer writes that he perceived these words as a manifestation of the accumulated irritation of Diana's former husband and his reaction to the unprecedented wave of grief that swept through the UK and other countries after her death. It is important, however, that the account of the conversation is based **on the recollections of Charles Spencer himself**. There is no independent confirmation in the provided material that the future king actually said this phrase in that exact wording.
