EARL Spencer is a very angry man. He is angry with Paul Burrell for selling his memories of Diana. He calls it a 'betrayal'.

He is angry at the way the Queen's evidence was made public only as Diana's butler was about to take the witness stand - and angry at the police for bringing the prosecution on such slender evidence.

And he is very angered indeed by the damage this case has caused to his family.

He believes they are being made the scapegoat for the disaster of the Burrell trial.

For the better part of 400 years, the noble House of Spencer has perched close to the pinnacle of British society.

In Diana's funeral address, her brother had the audacity to suggest they, and not the the ruling House of Windsor, were better able to look after her two young sons, one of whom was born to be king.

Yet in the space of days, this most noble of families has seen the good name its forebears worked so hard to uphold topple into the rubble of opprobrium.

Princess Diana's brother, sisters and mother thought they were simply doing their duty when they went to court to give evidence against a suspected thief - only to see Paul Burrell declared not guilty of all the charges they helped bring against him.

And now it is Earl Spencer, his sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, and their mother, Mrs Frances Shand Kydd, who are in the dock.

They have been portrayed as spiteful, snobbish, arrogant and dysfunctional.

Any possibility of a truce between the Spencers and the Windsors - who have hardly had a civil word to say about each other since Charles Spencer's excoriating attack on the Royal Family at Diana's funeral - has been totally destroyed.

No wonder, then, that the mood at their family seat of Althorp is as sullen as the leaden clouds scudding across their 13,000-acre Northamptonshire estate.

'They feel aggrieved and let down,' said a close friend, who adds that they are as much the victims of police incompetence as Paul Burrell himself. 'They just want to put this case behind them.' That is not going to happen. Burrell believes that the Spencers betrayed him.

He is thirsting for revenge.

HE SAYS: 'It's my turn to set the record straight and settle a few scores. I was Diana's rock, whatever the Spencers say.' That amounts to a declaration of open warfare. And what the butler saw and heard is certain to add to their already intense discomfort. To many, the sight of the Spencers squirming is nothing less than they deserve. For the charges against them have made for unpleasant reading.

During the trial, the court heard how the family deliberately shredded valuable documents, and how Lord Spencer rejected Diana in her hour of need, and refused to give his sister a house on the Althorp estate.

It was revealed that Diana had refused to speak to her mother during the last four months of her life for using their relationship to make money.

It transpired that Lady Sarah, who the butler venomously called McCrocodile, was largely responsible for getting Burrell kicked off the Diana Memorial Fund - and that someone close to this most aristocratic of families snootily told Burrell, the son of a lorry driver, 'Just remember where you come from.'

The Spencers found these disclosures embarrassing, not least because much of what the jury was told was true. But the family insists these vivid revelations were only a part of the story.

'Like any family, the Spencers have their differences,' the friend explains.

'Sarah can be feisty, Charles has got a temper and Diana was not an easy woman. But their rows soon blew over and they find it extremely hurtful to see themselves portrayed as dysfunctional.

'It is true that Diana hadn't spoken to Mrs Shand Kydd for four months.'

Diana's mother had sold an interview to Hello!. 'But all Frances was doing was trying to raise money for a church on the holy island of Iona in Scotland, and in time they would have sorted out their disagreement.

'As for the story about Diana being denied a house at Althorp, it is true that Charles wouldn't let her move into the Garden House because he was concerned about the attention she would attract. The police agreed with him and advised against her moving there. But he did offer her the choice of any number of other houses outside the main park. That seems to have been overlooked.' These are matters that the Spencers nonetheless believe should have been kept in the family. Instead, they ended up as evidence - with damning consequences for the family.

'They were led to believe that the case against Burrell was a great deal stronger than it turned out to be, that the police had conclusive evidence,' said the friend.

'You must remember that they were extremely grateful to Burrell for they way he looked after Diana.

That is why they arranged to give him pound sterling50,000 out of her estate. They all trusted him.' But that, Lord Spencer insisted, is as far as it went.

The Spencers argue that, if the Princess had wanted Burrell to take charge of her estate, she would have made him an executor. She didn't.

She trusted her sister and mother to carry out her wishes - and now they are being vilified for simply carrying out their duties as executors.

And when the police said that he had been selling her possessions and that he dressing up in her clothes, Lady Sarah, an executor, felt she had a legal obligation to help them.

Rather than driving the case forward, the Spencers say they were simply acting in accordance with their legal obligations.

The family has said its only objective in the case was to ensure the return of Diana's possessions which Burrell had taken, and that they never wanted to see the butler in jail.

THE EVIDENCE of the Queen, presented at the last minute, took away even the remotest possibility of that happening. 'They are very bemused by the way things have turned out,' their confidant said.

'They are not upset with the Queen; but they are upset that this evidence only came to light when it did. Now they just want to forget about it.' What they have not done, however, is forgiven Paul Burrell for selling his story.

And they believe there is still an unanswered question as to why he had all those other things (besides the papers he told the Queen about) in his possession.

But the Spencers are going to have to contain their anger - or be dragged into a slanging match with the butler who knows too many secrets.

That is exactly the kind of situation they are desperate to avoid - for what remains of their good name and for the good of their family.

Diana appointed her brother as guardian to her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. It is the opinion of Lord Spencer that the Princes have already suffered enough without him adding more fuel to an already inflammatory situation.

He also has his mother's health to consider. While Mrs Shand Kydd was giving evidence, her house near Oban was burgled and her jewels stolen. She is not very well, and that trauma only made matters worse.

Despite her son's entreaties, Mrs Shand Kydd has returned for now to Scotland. But everyone will be together at Althorp for Christmas - a rare occurrence in a family whose members have spent the past few years in a vicious feud with each other.

As their reputation continues its slide in public esteem, however, they will take no comfort from the fact that it is the same butler who has done so much to dismantle their reputation who has brought them together at last.