Kate Middleton bowed to the inevitable last night, wearing a maternity dress in public for the first time.

Still, at somewhere between six and seven months pregnant, she can hardly be accused of not holding out as long as possible.

And she looked stunning, natch.

The royal bump was out on parade as never before as the future Queen attended an event at the National Portrait Gallery to support the charity Art Room of which she is patron.

A female photographer and a publishing executive have been charged over the topless pictures of Kate Middleton taken in France last year and published around the world, it is being reported.

The France-based AFP news agency is reporting that a senior executive at the Mondadori Group - the publisher of glossy magazine Closer where the shots were first printed - and a photographer at regional daily La Provence have both been charged.

The photographer in question is Valerie Suau and the executive is Ernesto Mauri, the publisher of French Closer magazine.

Secret plans are being drawn up for Prince Harry to spend six months in the land down under, on secondment with the Australian Army, according to a report published in the Australian newspaper today. However, Harry's spokespeople told the Royalist that there are 'no such plans'.

Australia is part of the Commonwealth, the club of ex-British Empire nations which maintain a friendly confederacy and many of which, like Australia, retain the Queen as their head of state.

Royal aides and security officials are assessing the risks of such a deployment according to the paper, which says it has learned that Prince Harry has said he is keen to serve alongside Australian soldiers.

The paper says:

A close friend of William and Harry is suing News International over alleged phone hacking by the News of the World, according to the UK Guardian, the paper that has been at the forefront of reporting over the long-running saga.

It is thought that operatives acting on behalf of the paper may have intercepted Meade's voicemails to get information about William and Kate, who attended Meade's wedding in October 2010 in an appearance that prompted speculation that they were engaged.

Harry Meade has filed a civil claim against News Group Newspapers at the high court in London.

Meade is a party pal of Harry's who first came to public attention as the host of the fancy dress party in 2005 to which Prince Harry wore a swastika armband. Meade is an accomplished showjumper and is also friends with Zara Philips.

Naughty boy, Harry!

Prince Harry has been passed over for elevation to the Order of the Garter, an omission which may be interpreted as a chastisement from the monarch over the disrepute into which he has brought the monarchy with last year's naked partying.

The Order of the Garter is the highest order of chivalry in the UK, and is in the exclusive gift of the monarch.

Kate continues a busy week of engagements today with a visit to a school on troubled estate in Wythenshawe, Manchester that is the setting for the original 'Shameless' TV show.

She looked neat and petite despite the ever-growing baby bump in a spring-accented Erdem Sophia Visconti-Bloom Dress. The navy-blue, burgundy, white, blue and pink Visconti-bloom silk-crepe dress has a square-neckline and sheer half-sleeves. The fitted dress has a hidden zip and a small back hem slit.The dress is available for €1248 at Matches. It's also available Neiman Marcus and Net-a-Porter.

Kate was visiting the Willows Primary School, which is, against all the odds, one of the city's most successful primaries. The troubles the area faces were graphically illustrated when arsonists attacked the school just hours after Kate's visit was first announced.

Margaret Thatcher’s authorized biography – by Charles Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph, in which publication the book is being serialised - was published days after her death, according to a long-standing plan.

One of the most surprising revelations to come out of it is the personal respect that Mrs Thatcher had for her most implacable group of enemies – the IRA hunger strikers.

Bobby Sands and nine other IRA prisoners died on hunger strike, over demands that they be treated as political prisoners rather than common criminals and be allowed a raft of special privileges at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland where they were being held.

Prince Harry, 30, has made no secret of his desire to get married, telling interviewers twice in the past year that he is looking for that special someone to settle down with.

Now, it seems, he has settled on his new girlfriend Cressida Bonas as the girl to 'take on' the role of being his wife as he described it in one interview.

Trouble is, Miss Bonas, 24, isn't quite so sure she has found her Prince Charming yet.

Prince Harry paid tribute to the people of Boston yesterday as he presented medals to the winners of the London marathon, accompanied by Richard Branson of sponsors Virgin

He told the BBC that missing the event was "was never an option as far as I was concerned," adding, "Certainly everyone that was planning on coming is still here, no one's changed any plans - the volunteers, the security, everyone is here, nothing's changed. It was always going to be really well run and it always is, typically the British way the London marathon has been running for years.

Just a few weeks ago, close friends of James Middleton, the amazing, baking brother of the future Queen Kate, were being authorised to tell reporters he wasn't gay.

Now, the heterosexual Mr Middleton is to put such idle gossip behind him once and for all with the news that he is dating British TV presenter Donna Air.

The 33-year-old television presenter - who is seven years older than young James - is used to rolling in high society circles havign previously beene negaged to Damian Aspinall, the casino-owning son of the late zoo keeper John Aspinall, by whom she has a daughter, Freya.

We got to see Kate looking really pregnant for the first time yesterday, when she did a meet and greet with boy scouts at Windsor Castle, standing in for the Queen who was celebrating her actual 87th birthday privately (her official birthday, in June, is the big ceremonial affair marked by the pomp-heavy ceremony known as the Trooping of The Colour).

It was the first time we have seen Kate looking properly preggers - although she is STILL eschewing maternity wear, instead sporting a mint cotton Mulberry coat that is currently on sale for £1,750, teamed with her favourite nude LK Bennett heels and a tan-coloured fascinator by Whiteley that she has worn on several previous occasions.

Impressive for six months.

The Royalist has previously reported on the fact that Kate has told our sources she is not going to have a nanny - making her the first royal mother in history to be without child-minding help - but now she is saying that she will also do without a maternity nurse and will move back in with her MOM for at least six weeks after the new heir to the throne is born.

This means that the third-in-line to the throne will be starting life in the home of a commoner - albeit the $8m home of a commoner - unless the powers that be can arrange for Michael and Carole Middleton, Kate's parents, to be swiftly ennobled.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, Kate says she ‘just feels safest and most secure’ with her family and believes that no one could be better placed to teach her about bringing up a baby than her mother, who has three children of her own.

UPDATE 15:30 UK Time: Prince Harry has confirmed that he will join the walking to the Wounded expedition and walk to the South Pole. He made the announcement at the end of a press conference in London streamed live on the Royalist, saying to the American team: "As a member of the British team, I will have a brew on ready for you when you join us at the Pole."

Prince Harry is expected to confirm his status as officially the coolest royal of all time by announcing today that he will join a Walking with the Wounded trek to the south Pole in November.

The press conference launch of the new expedition by Harry in a London hotel will be streamed live at 3pm London time (10am EST), and we will be carrying it here on the Royalist.

The extraordinary British child abuse scandal centered on the children’s entertainers of the 1970s took another dramatic turn today when Rolf Harris, the Australian cartoonist, singer and TV presenter was revealed to be the latest and most high profile celebrity to be arrested over historic sex abuse allegations by police from Operation Yewtree. The controversial task force - which has been criticised for consuming vast quantities of police time investigating historic crimes while current crimes go unsolved -  was set up following hundreds of allegations of abuse against the BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile which emerged after his death last year.

Senior detectives have been investigating Harris, who painted an official portrait of the Queen in 2005, for more than four months.

Harris vehemently denies any wrongdoing.