Palace offers olive branch to Diana

STEVE BOGGAN

COLIN BROWN

and LOUISE JURY

The Princess of Wales was yesterday offered talks on her future within the Royal Family as speculation grew that a divorce from the Prince of Wales was now inevitable.

While controversy raged over her admission during a Panorama interview on BBC1 that she had committed adultery, Buckingham Palace extended an olive branch to her and promised to "help and support" the Princess in her desire to become an ambassador for Britain.

However, immediately after the announcement by the palace, Nicholas Soames, the Minister for the Armed Forces and a former equerry to Prince Charles, fuelled the growing political row by suggesting that any future role for the Princess would involve toeing the royal line.

Mr Soames, who was widely criticised for suggesting that the Princess was paranoid, said: "She will have to operate within the constraints of an orderly operation. You cannot be just a freelance. She cannot have it both ways."

The Prime Minister, John Major, was expected to raise the crisis with the Queen at Buckingham Palace last night during his weekly audience with her. The official line from Buckingham Palace was that the interview had not made a divorce more likely.

"Lawyers for the Prince and Princess of Wales clarified the position last October and nothing at all has changed since then," a spokeswoman said. At that time, the lawyers issued a statement denying press reports that the couple had discussed either a divorce or a financial settlement.

The palace spokeswoman said that the talks on offer to the Princess would be aimed at identifying her future role.

"That would be the role that she described for herself in the interview," she said. "We will be talking again to the Princess, to see how we can help her define her future role and continue to support her as a member of the Royal Family."

During Monday night's broadcast, the Princess said that she saw herself as an ambassador for Britain.

Her suggestion during the interview that Prince Charles might find being king "suffocating" was denied by his supporters yesterday, while the Princess's supporters claimed that the interview had strengthened public support for her. That argument was reinforced by polls which showed that 84 per cent of the public backed her decision to speak out.

Constitutional experts were united in declaring that the divorce, if it had been brought closer, would change nothing constitutionally. The only effect, according to Vernon Bogdanor, Reader in Government at Oxford University, would be to prevent the Princess from ever becoming queen.

That view appeared to reinforce calls for a permanent split. Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, the constitutional expert Lord Blake said: "What I saw [in the Panorama interview] confirms me in the view that the sooner they get divorced the better.

"The present situation in which they seem to be giving a sort of tit- for-tat, running each other down . . . has become almost intolerable."

The Venerable George Austin, the Archdeacon of York, said: "They don't have any future together, obviously, and the sooner it comes to an end, the better."

Dr George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, thought that "the constitutional issues are unchanged", his office said. A spokesman for Mr Major added: "The Prime Minister believes we live in a constitutional monarchy and he hopes we will always do so."

There was strong reaction to Mr Soames's decision to defend the Prince while attacking the Princess.

He said that it was a "travesty" for the Princess of Wales to suggest that Prince Charles may not become the king. Divorce between the Prince adn Princess may now inevitable and the best course of action, Mr Soames added.

"Clearly their marriage has irretrievably broken down. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to see that. The matter of divorce may be inevitable and in everyone's best interest,"Mr Soames concluded.

Labour's constitutional affairs spokesman, Doug Henderson, said: "I find it strange that a defence minister should be meddling in the affairs of the monarchy.

"I would have thought that was a matter for the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister."

Downing Street said that Mr Soames's comments reflected his own opinion and not Government policy.