Prince Charles's popularity poll

Apr 6, 2006, 13:32 GMT

Britain's Prince Charles has won more public support by marrying Camilla Parker Bowles, according to a new poll.

The study - carried out by Britain's The Times newspaper - shows more people are behind the royal becoming king now he is married to Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

The figure now stands at 37 per cent of respondents thinking the prince should succeed Queen Elizabeth, a six per cent rise since last year.

However the vast majority of the public don't want Camilla - who married Charles last April - to become queen.

Just 21 per cent were happy to see her take the throne, while 56 per cent would prefer her to take the planned title of Princess Consort.

The figures show women who were particularly sympathetic to Charles's first wife Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, were more likely to feel hostile towards the new royal couple.

Royal historian David Starkey told Britain's The Times newspaper he wasn't surprised by the survey.

He is quoted as saying: 'There is no great hostility, a little bit of enthusiasm. The monarchy is the ancestor of new Labour. It had an unbelievably powerful populist narrative for much of the 20th century as this model family, which carried all before them.

'The queen is acting as a symbol for continuity, but no one knows what she is continuous with. People, by and large, have come to the conclusion that Charles is trying and the fact that he has shown himself to be a good father in the Diana mould has softened opinion towards him.

'However odd some of his interventions in public life may appear, they have turned out to be quite sensible and they are all well intentioned . . . public opinion is warming to Camilla as a woman.'

He added: 'Yet for a significant proportion of women the Diana factor is an unbridgeable gulf. I happen to think they are mad for thinking that.'

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