Prince Charles did not hint to a journalist that he may remarry but was merely avoiding a question, his spokesman has said.
The Daily Mail asked whether the prince planned to marry his companion Camilla Parker Bowles, to which he replied: "Who knows what the Good Lord has planned. You can't be certain about anything."
But a spokesman for Charles said he did not believe that that was a hint about his future.
"It's a statement saying 'I'm not going to answer that question'."
The prince himself, visiting a fete near his Highgrove home on Saturday, told reporters to leave him alone.
Since his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, ended in 1996 with admissions of adultery on both sides, St James's Palace has maintained that the heir to the throne had no intention of marrying divorcee Mrs Parker Bowles.
Public kiss
But the couple shared their first public kiss last week when the prince pecked Mrs Parker Bowles on the cheek as he arrived as her guest at a party.
Any marriage between the pair would pose considerable difficulties, not least to the Church of England since Mrs Parker Bowles is a divorcee.
The BBC's Royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the question of re-marriage is by far the most sensitive issue facing Prince Charles.
"In the past the heir to the throne has indicated that he has no intention of re-marrying," he said.
But in this interview Prince Charles' answer was ambiguous.
"His failure to rule out a marriage to Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles, may be interpreted as a sign that such a step is not now viewed as inconceivable," the royal correspondent said.
Privacy appeal
In the interview Prince Charles also appealed for Diana and his sons, princes William and Harry, to be left alone.
"The truth is that the children mind about the way in which she is dealt with," he said.
"It must be quite difficult for them, I think.
"I wish people could just let her soul rest in peace without all these constant reminders."
Charles added of the teenagers: "They are terrific, and I am very lucky to have them."
~*~
'Members of the family should contribute to their finances' (Electronic Telegraph)
By Andrew Alderson
THE Queen and Prince Philip occasionally face criticism that they are part of the "Old Guard" who are reluctant to move with the times and who resist reform.
On the issue of whether young members of the Royal Family should be able to pursue commercial careers and perform royal duties, they are visionary thinkers, according to Buckingham Palace officials. Prince Philip, in particular, is a champion of free enterprise and considers that it is important for his children and other members of the Royal Family to be able to earn a living.
Perhaps because as the Queen's husband he was unable to embark on a career of his own, he has sympathy with his children and those who want a more conventional job. If, as with the Duke of York, this involves a military career, their work is uncontroversial.
The Earl of Wessex and his wife have, however, chosen business careers in television production and public relations respectively, which leave them open to accusations of a conflict of interest with their roles as members of the Royal Family. The Queen, say her aides, acknowledges that such careers present dangers but they are ones that she believes can and should be overcome.
One senior Buckingham Palace official said: "Prince Edward undoubtedly is pioneering in the way he has gone about his career and it is up to us to make it work because it is likely to happen again in the future."
"This is forward looking. The idea of members of the Royal Family going out and joining professions and forming their own business is the future. It is all about them going out and about as part of society, rather than being behind closed doors and conducting royal engagements and nothing else."
The Queen, according to officials, thinks it is right that members of the Royal Family should want to use their strengths for their careers. "The Queen accepts that it is natural to go into business in the area where you have skills, knowledge and contacts," said one courtier.
At the age of 75, the Queen is overworked. Even with some individual members of the Royal Family carrying out more than 600 official engagements each year - Princess Anne tops the current league table with 677 - demands cannot be met: there are thousands more invitations from communities and good causes than can be taken up by the Royal Family.
The Queen considers that Prince Edward is efficient and sensitive when he attends official engagements: he was particularly appreciated by the local community when he visited Sussex during the floods earlier this year. It is highly likely that even during the present decade one or more of the Queen's grandchildren might want to pursue a business career and carry out royal duties.
The Queen, say her officials, believes it would be wrong to force them to choose between their careers and their official duties. She believes the monarchy needs young enthusiastic faces - such as the Earl and Countess of Wessex - if it is thrive. In future, many younger members of the Royal Family might well choose not to perform official duties if it meant that they could not embark on a business career.
The Queen has help from nine other "working Royals": Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent.
The Lord Chamberlain, Lord Luce, who is in charge of the Royal Household and the Queen's most senior adviser - speaking exclusively to The Telegraph - explained how it was understandable that the Queen should seek help for her work from members of the Royal Family, including those who pursued business careers.
He said: "The Queen believes that in the 21st century it is not only understandable but entirely right for members of the Royal Family - if they wish to do so - to embark on careers of their own choice, including running their own businesses or being in business of one kind or another.
"Members of the Royal Family should in their own way, using their own skills, be able to make a contribution to their own finances. The Queen believes that the public respect this, and that they understand the modern aspirations of some members of the Royal family to do this.
"Equally, however, there is a heavy workload for the Queen. She needs support and help in undertaking the wide range of official duties and the members of the Royal Family are keen to give that support."
Lord Luce, however, said that the Queen was aware of the risks of combining a career with a public role. "There is, therefore, a reconciliation to be made. The members of the Royal Family look upon this as a challenge but they are absolutely aware of the risks and the hazards involved. The obvious one is the risk of an accusation - however false - that somehow there is commercial advantage in the use of the royal status."
Buckingham Palace officials are sensitive to criticism that the guidelines do not go far enough. The incident in which the Countess of Wessex was caught in an undercover tabloid sting earlier this year was "ghastly", as well as unfair. They acknowledge, however, that the checking procedures were insufficient and needed to be improved.
One courtier said: "These new guidelines are intended not just for the present but also for the future. It is the challenge for the 21st century." Senior courtiers admit, however, that even with the new guidelines there will be "grey areas" and individual members of the Royal Family will have difficult decisions ahead.
Lord Luce said: "We have given and will be giving some new advice but at the end of the day it is up to individual members of the Royal Family to make their own judgments on how to apply it to their own specific circumstances."
~*~
Edward and Sophie glad to remain royal workers (Electronic Telegraph)
By Andrew Alderson
THE Earl and Countess of Wessex have welcomed the new guidelines from Buckingham Palace and plan to forge ahead with their careers, according to colleagues and friends.
They believe that it would be wrong for them - and future young generations of the Royal Family - to choose between their jobs and royal duties. Both made their views known to the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Luce, who conducted the review.
The couple have, however, conceded that mistakes were made by the Countess and her company when they fell victim of a tabloid sting. The Countess has given an undertaking that tougher safeguards will be followed in future by her company, R-JH Public Relations.
In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Jack Cassidy, the chief executive of R-JH, said of the review's findings: "This is a victory for the people and for common sense. It is good news for the Royal Family, the country and, of course, the Earl and Countess of Wessex. It is Sophie's continuing desire to pursue a career and to keep her company together.
"Sophie feels most definitely that in this day and age young members of the Royal Family should be able to embark on rewarding careers while also helping the Queen to carry out public duties. She feels it is possible to combine a career, while also pursuing her royal obligations.
"It is a victory for everyone that young members of the Royal Family can fulfil a public role while also becoming doctors, lawyers, business people or whatever." Mr Cassidy, speaking with the authority of the Countess, said he did not believe that she would sell her business, but neither did he think that she would be quite so "hands on" as previously.
The review by Lord Luce was prompted by disclosures in April when the Countess was secretly recorded making indiscreet comments about members of the Royal Family and politicians by a News of the World reporter posing as an Arab sheikh.
The undercover journalist had indicated that he was willing to pay £500,000 over two years for public relations representation. The Countess's comments led to claims in tabloid newspapers of "Royals for rent". She was recorded admitting that there could be a conflict of interest caused by her two roles.
She had said: "If anybody ever gets some kind of additional profile or benefit from being involved with us because of my situation, that's an unspoken benefit . . . Most of our clients do end up having extra mentions in the press or, you know, additional profile. For instance in your own country when people find we're working for you, the chances are you'll get people interested: 'Oh gosh, they've employed the Countess of Wessex's PR company'."
Mr Cassidy, conceded, however, that the Countess and her company had made mistakes. "We have all learned lessons from this episode. We will be much, much more diligent in terms of adopting safeguards for the company in future. We are happy and willing to go along with the guidelines."
Close friends of the Earl of Wessex indicated yesterday that he will continue his career with his company, Ardent Productions. "It is completely my understanding that he will continue with his current role," said one friend.
It was unclear, however, whether Ardent intends to continue making television programmes on the Royal Family. The Earl may decide that it would be prudent, given the new guidelines, to concentrate on other areas.
It is understood that the Earl and Countess of Wessex will continue to live at Bagshot Park, a Victorian mansion with up to 50 rooms set in an 88-acre estate in Surrey. Estate agents have estimated that a property of this size would cost up to £250,000 a year to run well, including staff and maintenance costs.
By the standards of many of their business contemporaries, the Earl and Countess have low earnings. Ardent Productions pays around £50,000 a year to have its offices at Bagshot, while the Earl draws a salary of £61,500 a year from the company which has struggled to make a profit.
The Earl also receives £141,000, which is tax free, from the Queen for his official expenses. It is money that used to come from the Civil List but which now, says Buckingham Palace, comes from the Queen's savings.
Ardent has made a series of films about the Royal Family, although Buckingham Palace has denied giving him special access or privileges. He was criticised earlier in the year when it was revealed that - weeks after an official visit to Brunei - he was planning a film project on the country's palaces and gardens.
Last year it was alleged that the Earl had promised exclusive access and interviews with the Royal Family in a deal with an American cable television company. Now, however, there will be even closer scrutiny to ensure that Ardent competes on a "level playing field."
The Countess has bought out Murray Harkin, her former business partner who was also recorded during the News of the World undercover investigation. Mr Harkin admitted during the sting that he took drugs and that he arranged dinner parties with young men for male business clients. He also made innuendos about Prince Edward's sexuality.
Last year the Countess drew a salary of around £47,000 from R-JH together with a dividend of £18,000, while the company had a modest turnover of £662,000. At the time, she owned 60 per cent of the company.
The Earl is said to be determined to turn Ardent into a financially successful company: it returned a profit for the first time earlier this year. He once said: "Judge me by what I do, not who I am." The jury is now out.
~*~
Charles disappointed but will support the Queen (Electronic Telegraph)
By Andrew Alderson
THE Prince of Wales is disappointed by the new guidelines but accepts them and will support them reluctantly, his most senior aides said yesterday.
He believes that the conclusions of the review are a missed opportunity for the Royal Family to address more vigorously the issue of potential conflicts of interest between commercial careers and royal duties.
Prince Charles told the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Luce, at a private meeting that he thought the Earl and Countess of Wessex should give up their careers if they were to continue to receive privileges as working members of the Royal Family.
The Prince will, however, support Lord Luce's conclusions. "It is the view that has prevailed and it is the Queen's show, not his," said an official. "It doesn't affect him directly because - even though he is the most commercially successful member of the Royal Family - all the profits from his ventures go solely to charity."
According to his aides, the Prince's view is that members of the Royal Family who choose to pursue commercial careers should give up benefits of the "royal machine", including losing the right to access to British missions abroad and the help of Buckingham Palace press officers.
One official said: "Prince Charles believes that you are either in the royal business or in private business, and takes a hard-line view that they conflict and that you can't mix the two"
Aides to Prince Charles insisted yesterday that the Princess Royal and many of the Queen's most senior courtiers had shared his vision of greater reform, but that they had been overruled by the Queen, who in turn was influenced by Prince Philip. "It just shows that the Duke of Edinburgh is still Mr Powerful at the Palace," said one aide to Prince Charles.
The aide said: "The review is better than nothing. The guidelines have gone some way to addressing the problems that exist, but the Prince believes it should have gone much further.
"There is now enormous pressure on just two people, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, to behave impeccably. They will come under enormous scrutiny. If Edward makes one more royal programme or Sophie is one step out of line, they will be finished in terms of public support.
"Relations between the Prince and the Queen are better than they have been for some time but there are still serious problems between the Prince and his father and things were very tense last week. The Duke of Edinburgh seems determined to protect and please his favourite son [Edward] even though it risks harming the monarchy.
"The Prince is not going to sulk about the review's conclusions but he does fear that this is not an issue that is going to go away. "
~*~
William at play in a seductive land (Sunday UK Times)
Kenya holds a special place in the hearts of the royal family. The Queen, then a princess, was visiting when she heard her father had died. Stopping over on her way to the 1992 Commonwealth summit in Harare, she confided to me: "State House was still gorgeous, just the same as I remembered it. I told President Moi he should water the lawn more often, though."
Prince Charles came both as a young man and later with his young sons on holiday. His last visit was in the mid-1990s with Camilla Parker Bowles to a luxury camp just off Lamu island, long a playground of the rich and famous.
And now Prince William has fallen for this seductive land; but the Kenya he has visited - during the last secretive expedition of his gap year before going to university - was far from the parched presidential lawns of Nairobi and the pampered playgrounds of the Indian Ocean.
William was in the most rugged part of the country, where life is lived on the edge by wealthy, hard-driving white Kenyan families who have been fighting a long war against bandits and poachers while turning their huge farms into wildlife conservancies.
"William just loves Africa, that's clear. He just loves it out here," said Ian Craig, a third generation Kenyan on whose ranch William stayed. "He did everything from rhino spotting to anti-poaching patrols to checking fences. He's a great boy, enthusiastic and just happy to be getting on with it."
Craig is the director of the Lewa conservancy, a wildlife reserve he has created on the 55,000 acres his family has farmed since 1922. It is on the Laikipia plateau, Kenya's last great untamed wilderness, an area of outstanding beauty stretching from the Great Rift Valley to the slopes of Mount Kenya.
Laikipia is a premier destination with the international jet set and pretty girls are in abundance. The tight group of British public-school educated daughters of big ranchers and safari camp owners had been eagerly awaiting William's arrival for months.
"Everyone knew. It was one of the worst-kept secrets I've ever known," said Anna Cunningham Reed, a distant descendant of Lord Delamere, the doyen of colonial Kenya.
William struck up a friendship with Craig's 19-year-old daughter Jessica - a long-legged beauty known as Jecca who has inherited her father's deep blue eyes and blond hair.
"They were often seen laughing and talking together, but nobody knows if it went any further," said one of the Lewa staff. "I wouldn't be surprised if William comes back - he loved everything out here."
Craig went to enormous lengths to keep William's visit a secret. Miles Bredin, a writer on Africa, was a house guest at the time. He was told that, as an "important person" was coming to dinner, he should make himself scarce. "Just in case I saw anything and recognised the person, I had to sign a piece of paper saying I would not tell anyone," Bredin said.
A director of Tusk Trust, a British charity which finances some of Lewa's activities, revealed that on the day William arrived in May he almost came face to face with Ronnie Wood, the Rolling Stones guitarist, and two Daily Mail reporters. They had been on a promotional trip organised by the trust.
"We had to go to extraordinary lengths to make sure they did not catch on as to who was about to arrive," said the director. "Their plane took off as William's came over the horizon. It was a hoot - they thought they had a good story and had actually missed the scoop of their lives."
Safely away from prying eyes, William was launched, not into a latter-day Happy Valley lifestyle, but into the reality of modern wildlife management. Days were spent flying around in helicopters visiting remote outposts, checking on animal migrations, spotting poacher movements. In the evenings there were camp fires, "safari talk" and tales of old Africa.
"He was so cool. I had no idea he was a prince," said James Munyugi, a conservationist on the ranch. Munyugi briefed William on all the activities of Lewa and its neighbouring ranches. "William was fascinated by all these projects and visited many of them. The locals gave him a great welcome, greeting him with traditional dances and so on," Munyugi added.
The Craigs managed Lewa as a cattle ranch for more than 50 years, but as commercial farming became unprofitable, the farm evolved first into a rhino sanctuary and then into today's conservancy. Ian Craig and his brother William, who runs one of three luxury tented camps on the conservancy, have pioneered a new kind of eco-tourism that involves the creation of "group" ranches owned by whole villages or communities. Craig and his associates helped the local Masai and Samburu tribes people design and build upmarket tourist lodges, organised for them to go on catering courses and helped provide the infrastructure necessary for looking after wealthy Europeans and Americans.
Laikipia has now become the leading destination for exclusive tourism in Kenya. There is a constant stream of European royalty, industrialists and dotcom millionaires. Visitors can ride on horseback alongside herds of elephant, go bird shooting and take camel treks lasting several weeks and still not reach the edge of the Laikipia plateau.
Prince William's host, controversially, also believes in hunting. "They do it down south [in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana] and make an enormous amount of money out of it. We should do it here and plough the money back into conservation," Craig argues.
This way of thinking infuriates the purists, however. "It is typical of the cocoon these people live in. For them nothing has changed," says Gordon Boy, the editor of the East African Wildlife Society's Swara magazine. "How can you allow millionaires to come here and kill animals and then tell hungry local people who do it that they are poachers and it is illegal?
"My family shot, but it was a different world then. Now they look down telescopic sights and just blast away. This is not sport, it is murder. The advocates are just cynically looking for ways of making money out of wildlife so they can carry on with their own privileged lifestyles."
How privileged is this? Superficially, little has happened to affect the British aristocracy's love of Kenya since the days of the Happy Valley set, the titled ne'er-do-wells whose unrestrained hedonism was brought into the open by the murder of the 22nd Earl of Erroll.
Well-off white farmers still flit around the country in small aircraft, visiting friends, enjoying parties, shooting animals and hanging out on spectacular beaches.
The international jet set began moving into Laikipia's vast ranches four decades ago. Adnan Khashoggi was a longtime resident. Actors such as Stephanie Powers and John Hurt have lived on the slopes of Mount Kenya. The Wildensteins, the New York art dealers, built up a menagerie of exotic animals, including imported tigers and circus-trained giraffe that could be ridden like horses. Kuki Gallmann, the author of I Dreamed of Africa, which was released as a movie starring Kim Basinger last year, owns more than 90,000 acres.
There have been eccentrics in abundance. A renowned Frenchman howled at the full moon every month, married the nurse sent out from Europe to care for him and once deliberately torched half the buildings on his own farm.
The farmers have to endure mounting pressure from corrupt politicians and land-hungry nomads driven by drought and famine. There are also incursions from across the Ethiopian and Somali borders, and guns are still pouring down from Somalia. An AK-47 costs less than £70, a bazooka only £350. Nomads openly wander about with semi-automatics.
William was safe. Lewa is surrounded by an electric fence and policed by armed guards. Once through the gates, one is in a luxury cocoon rather reminiscent of scenes in a James Bond movie.