Buckingham Palace yesterday responded to the torrent of criticism over the way the royal family had handled the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. In an unusually frank and lengthy statement, the Palace, official residence of Queen Elizabeth, said "a wave of speculation and inaccurate stories" about the events leading up to and after the funeral "need to be corrected".
During the week following Diana's death after a Paris car crash on August 31st, the royal family was accused of being indifferent to the national outpouring of grief. It was criticised for being slow to fly a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace and for remaining ensconced in its Scottish castle at Balmoral instead of returning immediately to London to lead national mourning.
Press stories later spoke of clashes between Buckingham Palace and Diana's family, the Spencers, over the funeral arrangements, and disputes between Prince Charles and members of the royal household.
A palace spokesman said: "Stories of disputes between the royal family and the Spencer family are false. The funeral arrangements were made in less than a week. Inevitably there were some minor differences over points of detail but these were swiftly and amicably resolved."
He said the queen had taken decisions in close consultation with Prince Charles at Balmoral, and her advisers were in close touch with those of the prince and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair. "Suggestions that pressure had to be exerted on the queen by anyone, including the Prince of Wales, are false."
The palace also dismissed a report of disagreements between the Prince of Wales and Sir Robert Fellowes, the queen's private secretary. Prince Charles was reported to have told Sir Robert to "go impale himself on the palace railings".
The spokesman also "put the record straight" over other stories that the queen had been opposed to a public funeral, to an RAF plane bringing Diana's body home from Paris and to the princess's resting in a royal palace or chapel before the funeral.
Referring to public pressure for the monarchy to reform and get more in touch with the people, the spokesman said: "The queen believes there are lessons to be drawn from the life of the princess and the public reaction to it. That process of evaluating these lessons is not helped for the royal family or anyone else by unfounded speculation."
The royal households are also this week bracing themselves for the publication of the warts-and-all book by renowned US biographer Kitty Kelley. The book, The Royals, cannot be published in Britain for legal reasons but hits the streets of New York tomorrow, and is reported to be full of private details of the love and leisure lives of senior members of the royal family.
The British newspaper the Guardian said yesterday it had obtained an advance copy of The Royals, and claimed it contained allegations of "serial marital infidelity" by members of the royal family of all generations.
Kitty Kelley, who previously wrote searching biographies of Jacqueline Onassis and Nancy Reagan, launched the book before a vast US television audience last night.