AS A vengeful Paul Burrell heaped opprobrium on the Spencer family yesterday, he was subjected to a blistering attack by the Princess's former bodyguard.

Ken Wharfe, the Princess's personal protection officer for seven years, disputed the importance Mr Burrell attached to her calling him "my rock", a sobriquet the butler has worn like an amulet since her death.

"She called me her rock, she called Simon [Solari, her chauffeur] her rock, she called her secretary Victoria Mendham, her rock," wrote Mr Wharfe.

"It was a frequent expression that Diana used in acknowledging the dedication of her small but loyal team."

Speaking as one "rock" to another, he compared the butler's apparent revisionism to "a best-selling work of fiction".

Mr Wharfe, who was himself criticised earlier this year when he published a book about his time with the Princess, claimed that Mr Burrell had become "obsessed" with the Princess, and convinced himself he was the only person she could trust.

"When Diana was at her most troubled and really needed the most private of counsel, it was to her mother that she would always turn," he wrote in an Evening Standard article.

But Mr Wharfe reserved his main criticism for Mr Burrell's claims of a three-hour private meeting with the Queen after the Princess's death, in which he said she warned him of "powers at work in this country of which we have no knowledge".

It was the Queen's recollection of a private meeting with Mr Burrell, of which Buckingham Palace has given no details, that led to his trial collapsing.

"I seriously question, from my experience, that the Queen, given her busy schedule, would entertain Burrell for three hours on a matter that, at best would take 15 minutes to discuss - this sounds like something from the pages of a best-selling work of fiction," he wrote.

Mr Burrell, meanwhile, fulfilled his promise to exact revenge on those he claims attempted to ruin his life - namely the Princess's blood family.

Not one member was spared as his accusations and observations filled seven pages of the Daily Mirror.

Astonishingly, the former butler, who is being paid at least pounds 300,000 for his story and another pounds 100,000 for a television interview, accused the family of making money out of the Princess's memory.

"I have not made a penny out of Diana's memory," he said, omitting to mention his lucrative career as an after-dinner speaker and cruise line lecturer peddling "harmless anecdotes" after her death.

He turned on Earl Spencer, the Princess's brother, who runs an exhibition on the Princess's life at Althorp, her ancestral home, with a pounds 10.50 admission. The profits, after expenses, are donated to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund - pounds 850,000 to date, according to the estate website. But Mr Burrell said: "I for one would not parade her life and charge pounds 10.50 a time."

He claimed that her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who once dated the Prince of Wales, was so envious of the Princess that she said to her on her wedding day: "I thought all this would be mine one day."

And he claimed that in their last conversation, the Princess was subjected to vile and obscene language from her own mother, Frances Shand Kydd.

Referring to the Earl's refusal to house his sister after her separation from Prince Charles, Mr Burrell claimed: "In essence he did not want her intruding into his private world.

"But now she is dead, he is more than happy to have her resident on the estate, where her grave has made Althorp one of the biggest tourist attractions in Britain." Of Earl Spencer's famous "blood family" speech at his sister's funeral, Mr Burrell said: "I listened to his speech from the pulpit and my stomach turned. I thought `Am I the only person here who thinks he is a hypocrite?' "

In life, he claimed, the Princess had been "unacceptable" to her family, but they had claimed her in death.

"I was sat among the great and the good, and I was the only one who knew the truth," he declared.

He then delivered his version of the row that led to the rift between Mrs Shand Kydd and her daughter, a rift that resulted in them not speaking for the last four months of the Princess's life.

It was, he claimed, a row over the Princess's attachment to certain Muslim men, and he said that during the heated telephone conversation with her mother, the Princess pressed the receiver to his ear so he could hear.

"It was the slurring voice of Mrs Frances Shand Kydd. What I heard was a torrent of abuse, swearing and upsetting innuendo towards the Princess, and towards the male company she was keeping.

"She was using the kind of language you would never expect to hear a mother ever say to a daughter," he said, adding that it left the Princess in tears and vowing never to speak to her mother again.

But all other sources indicate that the row was over Mrs Shand Kydd giving an interview to Hello! magazine, to raise money for her local church, in which she said she was pleased her daughter had lost her HRH title, a remark meant positively but which her daughter misinterpreted. Those who know Mrs Shand Kydd said she would never have held the views, attributed by Mr Burrell, towards the religion of the Princess's male friends.

Justifying his disclosures, Mr Burrell, who boasts that discretion is his byword, said it was to set the record straight and prove how close he was to the Princess.

It was the Princess's staff and friends who were "the family that mattered".

He detailed raids on the Princess's wardrobe shortly after her death, when her sisters and mother, he alleged, "took out belts, shoes, jeans, handbags, sweaters and were trying them on to see if they would fit". Then they packed them in the Princess's own luggage and loaded them into Lady Sarah's car.

Mr Burrell also attempted to justify his possession of the Princess's private correspondence - including highly personal cards written to a young Prince William from his mother - saying he took them because they "could have been used as potential damage against the Windsors".

To reassure Princes William and Harry, he pledged, in a message delivered through the pages of the Daily Mirror: "I will never betray you. I will not change. My middle name is loyalty."