Prince Harry has admitted to suffering from a “spotty memory” when writing his bombshell memoir, but insisted his version of events have “just as much truth” as “so-called objective facts”. The Duke defended possible inaccuracies in his book, Spare, which was released in the UK yesterday, as “misremembering” details surrounding his mother Princess Diana’s death.
As he described a trip to the late Queen’s Scottish estate Balmoral in 1997, Harry said he could recall “landscape, geography, architecture” in “crisp detail” – but struggled with “dates and dialogue.”
He explained: “Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there’s just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts.”
The Duke elsewhere suggested his memory “had been spotty” after his mother Princess Diana’s death, adding he could be “misremembering my own struggles with memory from back then”, the Daily Mail reported.
The statements about his memory come amidst a book that appears to contain multiple factual inaccuracies.
In one instance, Harry described King Henry VI , who founded the Prince’s school Eton College, as his “great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather”.
However, the alleged ancestor’s lineage ended in 1471, when his only son, Edward of Westminster, was killed at 17 years old in the Battle of Tewkesbury – making it impossible for Prince Harry to be his descendant.
At another moment in the book, Harry describes in great detail the “bright and warm” weather on the day at Eton College when he took the dreaded “phone call” to let him know that the Queen Mother had died in March 2002.
However, news reports, as well as a statement released by King Charles’ spokeswoman at the time, indicate that Prince Harry was, in fact, skiing in Switzerland when the Queen Mother died.
Harry was photographed arriving back in the UK a day later, after the point at which the news was made public and Charles had been confirmed to have received it.
In Spare, Harry wrote: “At Eton, while studying, I took a call. I wish I could remember whose voice was at the other end; a courtier’s, I believe.
“I recall that it was just before Easter, the weather was bright and warm, light slanting through my window, filled with vivid colours. Your Royal Highness, the Queen Mother has died.”
But at the time in 2002, Buckingham Palace issued the following statement: “The Queen, with the greatest sadness, has asked for the following announcement to be made immediately: Her beloved mother, Queen Elizabeth, died peacefully in her sleep this afternoon.
The then Prince of Wales’s spokeswoman issued a statement from Klosters later that day, where he was staying with both of his sons, adding: “He [Charles] is devastated. His only wish is to get home as soon as he can.”
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