As a small boy, Charles Spencer was known to his family as “Buzz” for his bee-like effervescence. Today, the buzzing is of a decidedly less innocent variety. The 9th Earl Spencer—former journalist, historian, godson to Queen Elizabeth, veteran of three divorces and, of course, the only brother of Diana, Princess of Wales—has re-entered the national conversation like a hornet in the royal enclosure.
We already know from the headlines that Spencer has accused King Charles of sounding “giddily elated” and “like a lottery winner” after Diana’s death. He also alleges that Charles casually told him that he was “so lucky” his father had died young because it meant Spencer came into his inheritance sooner. These revelations—”verbal homicide,” according to the journalist Andrew Marr—are very much in keeping with the picture Spencer paints of the King in Swan Song as a toxic compound of vanity and envy.