What someone so wholly unconnected with the family is doing making money out of them is a question only to be answered by a vein of repulsive prurience among the general public. Nothing at all is furthered by letting anyone outside the immediate family know what the Duke of Edinburgh thought of his son and daughter-in-law's lovers. The only end which is really being served here is Mr Burrell's bank account.It is absolutely clear that Mr Burrell does not have any power to publish any of the letters and memoranda in his possession It is far from proved that he really owns them. It proves nothing that the Princess of Wales thought herself in danger.

But much of the story is not our concern, and the documentation relating to it ought to remain secure from the public eye until there is no one left to whom it can cause the most direct and purposeless suffering. Even if the Princess had lived and was now writing her own autobiography, she could not quote extensively from these letters.What Mr Burrell is doing is playing a cat-and-mouse game with the laws of copyright. Penguin's lawyers will have taken a firm view on how much could be quoted from each letter while remaining within the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. Whether any English court will take the view that his use of the letters violates something called "the expressive heart" of each, or whether that is something which English law can recognise, remains to be seen.All that one can say now is that some aspects of the disintegration of the Wales's marriage were of legitimate public interest. Of course, these letters seem to be intensely private communications on intensely private matters, which are no concern of ours, and he would never give such permission. These letters, sent by the Duke of Edinburgh to the Princess of Wales, were almost certainly in the Princess of Wales's possession when she died, and belong to the estate, and it is up to Mr Burrell to prove otherwise.The copyright question is a different one, but reflects no more credit on Mr Burrell. The words quoted are the Duke of Edinburgh's, and it is for him to give permission to publish.

She must have seen, apart from anything else, that if she gave the Duke of Edinburgh's letters to her butler in the fear that she might suddenly die, her butler would personally be in a position to make a great deal of money out of them It is simply an incredible claim for Mr Burrell to make. There appears to be no evidence, apart from his word, that she actually did give them to him. He came by this ownership, he says, because his employer gave them to him.She was, indeed, perfectly entitled to give them to him But we must ask how plausible his story is. He is trying to sell these letters to the highest bidder, but if anyone buys them, they are in effect only objects. They could not, for instance, be printed by the purchaser, or made public to any extent. That is because the copyright in the words remains with the estate of the Princess of Wales, who would naturally never grant such permission.