Butler in Right Royal Ruckus!

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Burrell's authorized revelations moved an extra 1.4 million Mirrors last week. He didn't lift the veil much on Diana, but he savaged the Spencer family, whom he feels abused her and stoked his prosecution. He said her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, phoned Diana six months before her fatal accident with a "hate-filled, personal attack" for dating Muslims, prompting the Princess to cry on Burrell's shoulder. That was the last time the mother and daughter spoke. He called Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, a hypocrite for championing her against the Windsors in his famous eulogy at Westminster Abbey, because "in life she had been unacceptable to him."

But Burrell's most intriguing disclosure was an account of the meeting with the Queen when he mentioned he would be keeping some of Diana's things. He said they talked for three hours, both standing, the Queen occasionally misting up as she recalled her former daughter-in-law. He claimed she told him, "Nobody, Paul, has been as close to a member of my family as you have. There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge." Burrell said "she fixed me with her eye and made sure I knew she was being deadly serious. I had no idea who she was talking about. But she was clearly warning me to be vigilant." Buckingham Palace refused comment about the Queen's private conversation. But rival papers scorned Burrell's account as a fantasy, quoting Palace sources as saying the Queen doesn't even spend three hours with her husband.

The Sunday News of the World and its stablemate the Sun (circ.: 3.7 million), the Mirror's archrival, have done the most to crack the Mirror. They managed to procure a statement Burrell had prepared for his lawyers' eyes only — the lawyers say it must have been stolen — full of salacious details: Diana once greeted her lover Hasnat Khan, a heart surgeon, at Kensington Palace stark naked except for diamond earrings and a fur coat; she liked to buy pregnancy tests as a joke; Burrell sneaked her lovers into the palace in the trunk of his car and gave them breakfast after she had left. The Sun dubbed him the "Blabbermouth Butler." But since he had always intended to keep this information secret, a court issued an injunction to block the Sun from blabbing any more on his behalf.

The front-page splashes became ever more rococo. Several insinuated, based on little or no evidence, that Burrell, who is married with children, had an intimate relationship with Michael Barrymore, a gay TV personality recently disgraced after a man was found dead in his pool. The most combustible story concerned a tape supposedly made by Diana in secret, in which a man who used to work in the royal household allegedly claims he was raped by an aide to Prince Charles in 1989. The police have investigated but no charges have been brought.

The Queen knows from experience how hard the scandal machine — fueled by money, vengeance and newspaper sales — is to switch off. Burrell seems not quite to grasp the tough neighborhood into which he has strolled. His agent says he is just a "very nice, nice man," and indeed there is an odd innocence about him. He wants to return to his flower shop, reclaim his trove of Dianiana from the police and weigh a recent offer to be a game-show host (Working title: What the Butler Saw.) But like his old boss, he may find fame has other plans.