How on earth can the royal family survive more calamitous revelations?

The Burrell affair illustrates how much the press has changed over the past 20 or 30 years, and how powerful it has become. Not very long ago the majority of newspapers would have given the Queen the benefit of the doubt in such a matter. As it was, only the Daily Telegraph jumped unhesitatingly to her defence. It simply did not occur to the paper that she might have been at fault in coming forward at the eleventh hour with information that stopped Paul Burrell’s trial, and so it naturally looked for others to blame.

In this it was alone, which certainly would not have been the case 20 years ago. The Times, which once could have been counted on to mount the Establishment defence, asked several awkward questions which the royal family may have regarded as unseemly. So did the Sunday Times. The ardently monarchist Daily Mail could not conceal its dismay.