THE former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, is to reveal in his memoirs details of conversations he had with Camilla Parker Bowles about her relationship with the Prince of Wales. Carey, who retired last year, will base his account on diaries that he has kept for much of his life and Lambeth Palace archives.

The book, Know the Truth, to be published in the spring, is expected to detail parts of the four or five meetings he had in 2000 with Parker Bowles to discuss her future with Charles.

The Queen had signalled an acceptance of the couple by attending a party given by them at Highgrove, the prince??s home in Gloucestershire.

However, Carey was concerned about the constitutional crisis that could arise if the monarch died, leaving the royal heir with a mistress out of wedlock who could not be queen.

He was also worried about having as supreme governor of the Church of England a king in an unmarried relationship.

In a meeting with Charles at Highgrove ?? where the pair are believed to have prayed together ?? Carey discussed the possibility of marriage.

Carey, who led the church for 11 years, had a fairly good relationship with the royal family. ??I admire them greatly for their devotion to duty,?? he said.

The Queen and the Queen Mother are believed to have got on well with him, but it is not thought Charles held him in the highest regard. The prince, a religious traditionalist who is patron of the Prayer Book Society, is thought to have seen him as a ??happy clappy??.

According to Clarence House, the prince needed a lot of persuasion to attend the opening of the 1998 Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops, where evangelical music and dances from African countries were prominent. Charles is said to have called the event ??political correctness gone mad??.

Prince William, in contrast to most previous senior royals, was confirmed not by the archbishop but by Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London.

Carey??s memoirs will also cover his talks with the Queen about the religious aspects of the millennium celebrations. Both had worried that the commemorations of Christ??s birth were being sidelined. The cleric had bad-tempered talks with Lord Falconer, then minister in charge of the Millennium Dome, and with broadcasters about how and when Christ??s birth would be celebrated on air. He wanted his own message to be broadcast near midnight. In the end it went out at 11.15pm.

Carey was appointed by Margaret Thatcher not long before she left Downing Street in 1990. ??She spoke at me for about 10 minutes and I couldn??t get a word in edgeways.?? he said. ??Then I mentioned John Wesley because I knew she had had a Methodist upbringing. But she called him ??that Christian socialist??.??

He had a better relationship with John Major. Both were born and bred in the London suburbs. Carey believes that Major ??had a depth of faith, though it was not an institutional one??. He got on less well with Tony Blair, whom he describes as ??wearing his heart on his sleeve??.

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