UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By RICHARD KAY FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Lit by the flickering light of a log fire, their faces glowed with sober mutual interest. The prince with the troubled soul and the priest with all the answers.

Staff at Highgrove, the Prince of Wales’s country home, had grown accustomed to these intimate exchanges when the Rt Rev Peter Ball, the now disgraced Bishop of Gloucester, came to offer solace and enlightenment to their boss.

Charles had long been an admirer of the charismatic and dedicated Anglican churchman, who slept on an old horsehair mattress on the floor of his own Gloucester residence and rose for prayer at 4.30am.

When the Prince’s marriage to Diana was unravelling, Ball’s advice was sought and the prince had written ‘personal letters’ to him. Later, the bishop encouraged him over his relationship with the former Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles.

Indeed, so…