Row over Di ticket takes a grave turn

But Harold Brooks-Baker, publisher of Burke’s Peerage, the directory of Britain’s bluebloods and a commentator on royal matters, said Diana’s brother should say how much of the proceeds from the tickets he would donate to the fund.

“No one knows exactly where the money from the grave entrance charge will go. It may be that it will be used to fund other parts of the Althorp estate that have nothing to do with the Earl’s sister,” Brooks-Baker said.

“Some people could see that as greed on the Earl’s part. I would have thought that as the brother of the Princess of Wales he would want to be setting an example to the world and making it very clear exactly how much he was giving,” Brooks-Baker said.

“The reason we have not said how much will go to the fund is because we don’t know,” said Spencer spokeswoman Shelley-Ann Claircourt. “We have made it perfectly clear all along that Earl Spencer has invested several million pounds in order to allow the public to visit the grave. … It is not a profit-generating exercise, but should there be profits they will go the Diana Memorial Fund. The investment must be paid back.”

Brooks-Baker had suggested that the Earl could be perceived as greedy if he did not abide by the same rules as other people wanting to set up tributes and memorials to Diana.

All companies have had to tell the Diana trust exactly how much money from memorials and tributes will go to the memorial fund.

The law firm Mishcon De Reya, which had handled Diana’s legal matters in the last years of her life, is in charge of the Diana trust, to which companies planning tributes must apply for permission to produce their goods, stating what percentage of the cost of those items will go to the memorial fund.