Queen Diana

21.06.46: THE PRINCESS of Wales will be proclaimed Queen Diana of England following King William V's decision to take early retirement on his 65th birthday next year.

"Even kings deserve retirement," the monarch quipped, "though unfortunately the job isn't pensionable."

The King and Queen Fionnuala plan to retire to their beloved Ireland.

Princess Diana's accession, ahead of her younger brother, Prince Louis, will be the first time that the rule of gender equality in the succession, introduced in 2002 by the long-forgotten writer and adventurer Jeffrey Archer, MUHP, comes into effect. Also novel is the decision that her husband, Raffaelo Doria-Pamphili, the Italian-American professor at the Mellon Center for British Art at Yale, will take no title and continue his career.

"Art outlasts dynasties," the flamboyant professor said.

The future Queen, an art expert, who inherits her looks and dress sense from her grandmother, Diana Princess of Wales, is the first self-confessed intellectual in the royal family for generations.

In a wide-ranging interview granted recently, she outlined her vision for the monarchy. "Politics and charity are important," she said. "But our key role is to be patrons of art. And that means new art as well as old." DRS