The Earl of Cromer has criticised his daughter over comments she made about Princess Diana.
Lady Venetia Baring claimed her grandmother, the Dowager Countess, “didn’t really like” the late Princess of Wales.
Baring said in a recent interview that her grandmother thought Diana should “get a grip”.
Her father, Evelyn Baring, the 4th Earl of Cromer, has now publicly disputed his daughter’s claims in a letter written to The Times.
Lady Venetia Baring alleged that her grandmother 'did not like' Princess Diana
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He said it would be very unlike his late mother, Esme Harmsworth, to speak about the Royal Family in that way.
The earl said: “It would be totally alien to my mother to make a comment on a member of the Royal Family to anybody, least of all to one of her grandchildren and especially to Lady Venetia Baring, my daughter, who was born after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.”
His mother served as temporary lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II from 1967 to 1971.
She later became an extra lady-in-waiting to the late Queen for the next two decades.
Lady Venetia Baring's grandfather and grandmother in 1960
PA
Harmsworth's husband was a governor of the Bank of England in the 1960s and later served as the British ambassador to the US.
Lord Cromer, 77, said his daughter “alleged” the claims in her interview.
Instead, he described his mother as the “soul of discretion”, saying: “My mother served the late Queen for 17 years and was rewarded for her loyalty, work and affection by a CVO.
“Throughout her long service, my mother was the soul of discretion, no doubt learnt from her years as wife of a governor of the Bank of England and wife of a British ambassador to Washington.”
Princess Diana tragically died at the age of 36 in ParisPALATEST ROYAL NEWS
Lady Venetia Baring claimed that her grandmother would say Diana should 'get a grip'
PALady Venetia, 25, told Tatler: “My granny didn’t really like Diana.
“But I take her opinion with a grain of salt. She was one of those kinds of women that was, like, ‘Bro, what’s wrong with you? Get a grip!’
“So I think when Diana was going through her bulimia, stress and everything going on with Charles and Camilla, my granny said she used to throw herself down the stairs.
“When I hear that, I think she must have been going through hell. But [I think my granny was like] ‘this crazy girl wouldn’t stop throwing herself down the stairs’.”