UK News 08-11-2002 Scandal Takes Toll On The Queen who: The Queen what: Weeps in public at service of remembrance where: Westminster Abbey, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: As she nears the end of another annus horribilis, tears rolled down The Queen`s cheeks yesterday "in an uncharacteristic display of public emotion," reports Ian Cobain in The Times. Attending an open-air remembrance service at Westminster Abbey, the week`s revelations and accusations seemed too much to bear for the monarch who has so recently lost both her mother and sister. The Sun`s Paul Thompson says The Queen has been "devastated by butler Paul Burrell spilling royal secrets" and language like "treacherous" and "betrayed" peppers the paper`s coverage of the royal family today. The Scotsman points out the hypocrisy in its profile of showbiz agent Dave Warwick, the man who brokered the six-figure deal between The Mirror and Princess Diana`s former butler, following a fierce bidding war. Reporter Karen McVeigh notes that sales of Wednesday`s Mirror shot up by 330,000, making it the newspaper`s fourth best-selling story ever. Little wonder that one paper this week offered Warwick £2million to renege on the Mirror deal. And if the backbiting from rival papers seems bad, McVeigh predicts that it`s going to get worse. "Already, there is a whispering campaign about Burrell`s sexuality," she writes. "With it has come dark conspiracy theories about the real reason for the Burrell trial`s collapse and the faint whiff of a cover-up." Today, in his third Mirror interview, Mr Burrell - who stood trial for the theft of hundreds of Princess Diana`s personal belongings but was sensationally cleared thanks to evidence from The Queen - accuses Earl Spencer of behaving "disrespectfully" at Diana`s funeral. Meanwhile, says The Telegraph, St James`s Palace has broken its silence about allegations of homosexual rape by a member of Prince Charles`s staff in the late Eighties which have been linked to the breakdown of Mr Burrell`s Old Bailey trial. The palace said that the police were aware of the allegations and had investigated. [... more]

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