Again, Margaret

Many Britons, high and low, profess to be bored stiff these days with talk of Princess Margaret, but when Margaret's name is mentioned, her sister's subjects prick up their ears. Last week, sparked by the fact that the Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk, Premier Peer and hereditary Earl Marshal of England, went to call on the Pope for the first time in 18 years, rumors were once again rife about Princess Margaret. Flimsily constructed on the supposition that high-ranking Norfolk's papal audience could only concern an equally high-ranking cause, the rumors took three forms:

1) Protestant Princess Margaret is considering marriage to Belgium's Roman Catholic King Baudouin, and sent Norfolk as her emissary to inform the Pope.

2) The Princess still yearns for her rejected airman, Peter Townsend, and hopes that if both of them turn Catholic, his former marriage might be annulled and they could marry in the Roman Catholic faith.

3) Margaret simply wants to become a Roman Catholic.

The responsible British press paid little heed, but, as is often the case in British royal family matters, the gossip got an added fillip from a big play in New York's tabloid Daily News, which quoted unnamed "sources close to the royal household." London's own Woman's Sunday Mirror caught the ball and tossed it even higher, with a report that "priests in Rome are now taking part in three special days of prayer for the conversion of the Princess to the Roman Catholic faith." The Mirror went on to quote "an important Vatican official" as saying that Margaret "has long been a Catholic at heart."

Said Buckingham Palace: "No comment." Said the Duke of Norfolk: "All nonsense." Said an official of London's Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral: "I have been denying these rumors 14 times daily for the last four days. No prayers for the conversion of Princess Margaret have been offered."