Newly revealed correspondence shows the King’s deep frustration with Paul Burrell and the media storm around Diana
Private letters written by King Charles III have surfaced, offering a blunt and unusually personal look at how he felt about explosive claims linked to Princess Diana.
The letters, reported by The Mirror, centre on allegations made by Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell, who claimed she feared her car brakes would be tampered with to cause a fatal crash. The correspondence shows Charles wrestling with anger, disbelief, and exhaustion as the story dominated headlines.
At the time, Charles was exchanging letters with James Milligan, the son of the late comedian Spike Milligan, a close friend of Charles for many years. After Spike’s death in 2002, his son James Milligan wrote to thank Charles for sending flowers to the funeral. What began as a kind gesture turned into a long-running and increasingly open correspondence.
In one striking letter dated January 6, 2004, Charles responded to the Burrell allegations after they appeared in The Daily Mirror. His tone was raw and unmistakably fed up.
He told Milligan he felt overwhelmed by what he described as a relentless media machine, questioning whether the world itself had “gone mad”. Charles criticised what he saw as chequebook journalism and stories manufactured purely to win circulation battles, suggesting the pressure was only intensifying rather than easing.
Despite the frustration, the future King struck a note of stubborn resilience. Quoting Winston Churchill, he said he would keep “buggering on”, adding that support from trusted allies mattered more than ever.
By then, Burrell was already a deeply divisive figure. He had worked for Charles during his marriage to Diana, before becoming one of her closest confidants up until her death in 1997. The letters make clear that Charles saw the renewed claims not as revelations, but as part of a wider media circus he felt powerless to escape.
Taken together, the correspondence offers a rare glimpse of a man under strain, long before he became King, trying to hold his ground amid grief, public scrutiny, and stories he believed should never have seen the light of day.
