Princess Diana's former butler ignored an unprecedented plea from Britain's two young princes and went ahead today with publication of an intimate book about their dead mother. p>
As stores began selling A Royal Duty, the butler-turned-author Mr Paul Burrell welcomed a request to meet Princes William and Harry, vowing to give them "a piece of my mind". p>
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Former Royal butler Mr Paul Burrell in central London this morning
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With an initial 95,000 copies on sale in Britain and 700,000 in the United States, the book's most sensational revelation is that Diana predicted her own death in a car crash just ten months before she died in a Paris road tunnel in 1997. p>It is also packed with personal letters and details around the famous infidelities of Diana and ex-husband Prince Charles, Britain's heir-to-the-throne, before their break-up.
"We cannot believe Paul, who was entrusted with so much, could abuse his position in such a cold and overt betrayal," the angry princes said at the weekend. They urged him to halt the revelations and meet them.
Mr Burrell responded positively, but said he too was hurt - by the boys' failure to contact him when he was on trial a year ago for theft of Diana's goods. The trial collapsed, unleashing a tide of embarrassing revelations for the House of Windsor.
Despite being called "my rock" by the popular Diana during more than a decade's service, Mr Burrell has been vilified by sections of the British media for stirring old scandals. One friend of Diana called him a "vulture" raking over her bones.
But Mr Burrell insisted his book - expected to soar straight into the bestseller list - was an attempt to set the record straight about a misunderstood woman.
"It is a loving tribute," he said. "It's an accurate portrayal of a life which I witnessed. This is part of my life, part of what I saw and heard. It doesn't come any more real than that. The British public have a right to know."
The Queen's husband, Prince Philip, has been severely embarrassed by the publication of his correspondence with Diana in the book, extracts of which were printed in recent days by the tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror.
"We do not approve of either of you having lovers," Philip wrote in one letter to his daughter-in-law, referring to both her affairs and Charles' relations with Camilla Parker Bowles.
"I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind leaving you for Camilla," he added.