Camilla Parker Bowles stepped forward last night to champion the rights of one of society’s most neglected groups - victims of rape and sexual abuse – and outlined a new plan to give rape victims washbags filled with luxury toiletries in a simple gesture to help them feel ‘more human’ after going through a traumatic ordeal.

Camilla came up with the washbags idea after meeting victims in Derbyshire and discussing what would make them feel ‘more human’ after going through such a traumatic ordeal and subsequent forensic examinations.

Staff at her private office at Clarence House are making up 750 bags using donations of shampoo and body wash from companies including Marks & Spencer, Champneys, 2 True and Trevor Sorbie, in a move that has been welcomed by victims and victims-rights groups.

Camilla has been  campaigning for the rights of rape victims since 2009, hearing the stories of rape victims up and down the land, meeting campaigners and talking to police officers.

 Afghan President Hamid Karzai is prepared to give Prince Harry a break, telling an interviewer: “Young men do make mistakes talking.”

In an interview with ITV News, the president, when asked whether the way the Prince expressed himself during his deployment was unwise, said: “Prince Harry is a young man, we do give exits to young men when they make mistakes.”

Harry, 28, told how he took enemy fighters “out of the game” during his 20-week posting and compared warfare to playing Xbox.

Pushed a second time on whether he was upset about the way the Prince expressed his service in the country, Mr Karzai remarked: “Well, as I said, he’s a young man, and young men do make mistakes talking, while behaving, all of us have gone through that period, so let’s drop it there.”

The president also lavished praise on Prince Charles, saying: “Prince Charles, the father of Prince Harry, is a very fine gentleman, a man for whom I have tremendous respect. For years, even when I was a student in Simla, I used to read about his dislike of modern architecture and the cement buildings and I entirely agreed with him.

“Prince Charles is a great representative of Britain and the British ways of life.”

As well as unveiling a reconstruction of how King Richard III – the great villain of British history whose bones were confirmed yesterday to have been unearthed in a municipal carpark – might have looked, researchers have also attempted to reconstruct his voice.

And the news is – the King was a Brummie. The news is likely to come as a disappointment to Yorkshiremen who have always claimed him as one of their own.

Dr Philip Shaw, from the University of Leicester, studied the king's use of grammar and spelling in contemporary letters, and concluded that the king's accent "could probably associate more or less with the West Midlands."

The first letter was written in 1469 before Richard became king - and well before his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 - and is a request for a £100 loan (bloody royals, never carrying cash), while the second letter is from 1483.

Admittedly, you would have to be feeling really rough to pass up a holiday to the paradise island of Mustique, but there will be few excuses left for avoiding royal engagements when Kate gets home.

Yes, Kate and William have shrugged off any lingering worries about morning sickness (Sorry! Hyperemesis gravidarum!) and jetted off for what is fast becoming an annual tradition - a few days in the sunshine of the Carribean Island famed as the playground of the rich and royal ever since Princess Margaret courted Roddy Llewellyn on its shores, and the gangster John Bindon perfomed obscene party tricks for her pleasure involving half a dozen beer glasses.

The trip involves an eight-hour flight folowed by a hop in a sick-making light aircraft, so lets hope Kate has packed the lavender shortbread.

Spokesmen for the young royals are refusing to confirm their whereabouts, but the Sun quotes a source: “The Duke and Duchess have joined the Middletons for a winter break. Both William and Kate were hoping her condition would not stop her from making the eight-hour flight to Barbados and the connection to Mustique. A month ago such a journey would have been unthinkable for her, so this is a clear sign she has made a virtual recovery.”

Caution: if you're a British king of antiquity lying in an unmarked grave, your bones are likely to soon be disturbed.

For, buoyed by the success of the Richard III quest, a team of archaeologists are now applying for permission to excavate an unmarked grave in Winchester, reputedly the final resting place of King Alfred the Great.

According to The (paywalled) Times, Alfred's skeleton could be among a collection of bones purchased by a 19th-century vicar for ten shillings.

Alfred is the only British king referred to as 'The Great'. He made peace with the Danes, established a code of laws, reformed coinage and famously burnt a batch of cakes he was watching for a swineherd in whose home he was sheltering when he was on the lam. He was too preoccupied with kingly matters to turn the cakes.

Admittedly its not the kind of breaking news and gossip in which the Royalist usually deals, but important tidings reach us from the fifteenth century.

Kings and Queens of England are traditionally laid to rest in pomp and circumstance at Westminster Abbey, but at least one former monarch ended up in a significantly less glamorous final resting place: the carpark of a supermarket in the provincial town of Leicester.

The skeleton of Richard III - Shakespeares's great villain of British history who murdered the two young Princes in the tower in a doomed attempt to hang on to power - was found last fall and extensive DNA tests have been ongoing since then. Today it was confirmed the skeleton is Richard's.

Richard was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, bringing to an end the Wars of the Roses, and ushering in the reign of the Tudors.

He was a big hit in Jamaica last year where he famously raced Usain Bolt and danced to Bob Marley in blue suede shoes, so few surprises that despite a string of gaffes, Prince Harry will be undertaking another foreign tour this year.

But, sources say, it won't be to China, which had been the suggestion of some speculation in the UK media.

Undoubtedly sending Harry to China would have been a better idea than sending his dad, Prince Charles, who once called the elders of the country old "fossils" and is bessies with the Dalai Lama, but there were some who always questioned the advisability of sending Prince Harry on a diplomatic jaunt to China. You can't really do informal with Communist dictators.

The usually calm and well-choreographed royal ceremony known as the “Changing of the Guard” at Buckingham Palace was dramatically interrupted today when a man holding a huge knife to his own throat was tasered by police.

The man, who was dressed in a jacket, jeans and sneakers, broke through a security cordon and held a large knife to his own throat until police moved in and fired at him with the Tasers.

Scotland Yard said the incident happened at 11.55am. The man was arrested and charged with causing affray.

Kate's supposed to be taking time off from official duties to focus on her recovery from hyperemesis gravidarum, but this one might be tough to turn down.

A 21-year-old with just months to live has identified her wish to meet William and Kate as one of the last outstanding wishes to be fulfilled on her 'bucket list' of things to do before she dies - along with a parachute jump, to have a hen night, to open a bottle of champagne with a sword and take her mum to see Wicked at the theatre.

The inspiring bravery of Stephanie Knight, who has been battling cancer since the age of 17, is now causing a viral campaign on Twitter for her to meet Will and Kate, with the hashtag #StephanieKnight.

Stephanie was diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma in 2009 after doctors found a tumour the size of a tennis ball in the back of her pelvis, accordign to the Daily Mail.

The artist behind the much-mocked Kate Middleton portrait has revealed that in response to the savage criticism he received for his picture, he has created a new, much more complimentary picture of the Duchess – but he won’t let it be photographed.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Paul Emsley said that, stung by public reaction to the piece which he described as a ‘witch hunt’, he began wondering if he should have done the portrait differently.

“To answer the question, he picked up a piece of black chalk a few days ago and began cathartically sketching another work. This time, it was the way the duchess’s devoted followers so often see her in glossy magazines and airbrushed photos. Flawless. Glamorous. The fairy-tale beauty who bagged a prince," writes the Post. “But a funny thing happened as he did the sketch. The self-doubt of a man who is his own worst critic began to fade, replaced with a growing certainty that the canvas hanging in London’s National Portrait Gallery is not only the better version, but maybe even the masterwork of his career.”

Well, there's a big surprise. Not.

The beautician who claimed to have had a 'drunken fumble' with Prince Harry and was subsequently thrown in jail over a bounced cheque - an incarceration she blames on the British secret service - is writing a book about her escapades with Prince Harry and other rich and famous men she claims to have 'partied' with.

Reports say that Carrie Reichert, 40, names Tiger Woods, Jude Law, Robbie Williams and Michael Jordan as some of those about whom she has stories to tell.

Attentive readers of the Royalist will recall that hours after Miss Reichert - who was born in Britain but lives in LA -  gave an interview detailing a 'naked fumble' with Prince Harry in Vegas at the time of the naked pictures scandal, she was arrested and thrown into jail when attempting to board a plane to Mexico.

From Rod's autobiography:

It was quite a relief to Penny [Rod's wife, Penny Lancaster] to be invited back among royalty after what had happened a couple of years previously. I was playing a special event at Windsor Castle and Penny was seated next to Prince Charles at dinner. When the waiters appeared at Penny's shoulder with the main course on a platter, the prince was mid-anecdote. As she served herself, Penny continued to hold the Prince's eyeline, as she believed protocol demanded, missed her plate completely and heaved a portion of meat onto the tablecloth between them. The prince merely said, 'Oh, don't worry - I do that all the time,' and casually covered the mess with his napkin. What a bloke.

For just eighty-five quid, you too can celebrate Valentine's Day like Prince Charles.

Well, sort of.

For Charles is hiring out Dumfries House in Scotland for what is advertised as “the ultimate in romantic evenings” on Valentine’s Day.

One of the persistent mysteries of royal reporting is why anyone, anywhere, would believe anything that 'old school chum' Jessica Hay says about Kate Middleton.

Hay gives frequent interviews to an Australian magazine named New Idea, in which she makes random claims, the latest of which is that her mother Carole Middleton is going to act as nanny for the royal baby when it arrives in the summer.

Hay is the source of a variety of fake Kate stories, most notably she is the ‘best pal’ who claimed that Kate had posters of William on her bedroom wall at boarding school – a story categorically denied by Kate on air in her engagement interview - and Hay was also behind a bizarre story, subsequently withdrawn, that Kate had faeces smeared on her bedsheets at boardign school as part of a bullying campaign.

Miss Hay’s story lacked credibility, to say the least, as Kate was not a boarder at the school in question.

Royal sources previously said of Miss Hay: "She is not and never has been a friend. Many claims are just fantasies."

What's wrong with this picture of two people using the tube in London today?

That's right - they're smiling and relaxed and their faces aren't being forced into other people's armpits. Oh to be a royal.

He may be more accustomed to travelling around the country on the royal train, but today, Prince Charles took the subway in London - the first time he has done so for 34 years, when he opened the Jubilee Line at Green Park station in 1979.