We had to put a stop to it. Every tart in London was getting in. - Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

But we can go back further still, for the thing did not start with Princess Anne, either; before her there was Princess Margaret. She, too, was attacked for going on holiday, and indeed for putting on weight, but the main charges, which seem almost incredible today, concerned her choice of men friends - and after, not before, her divorce.

It was while Princess Margaret was attending a high-society party in New York that the hostess asked her politely how the Queen was keeping. "Which one?" she is reported to have replied with her typically razor-sharp wit. "My sister, my mother or my husband?"

Silly ass. The land would be much more valuable today.