LONDON, Feb 10: The tradition of keeping a mistress is a long-standing one for Britain's royal family. In the family of royal consort Camilla Parker Bowles, so is being one.

In a curious quirk of history, the maternal great-grandmother of Camilla Parker Bowles, who is to marry heir to the British throne Prince Charles in April, was also unofficially involved with a top royal for many years.

Alice Keppel embarked on a long affair with another Prince of Wales in 1898, the relationship continuing even after he became King Edward VII in 1901.

Eventually, much like Parker Bowles has for Charles in their long relationship, Keppel, who was also married, became a semi-official escort for the king, even being summoned to his bed by relatives as he lay dying.

The last in a long line of mistresses to Edward, Keppel was largely tolerated in a society where taking a consort to help ease the burden of a loveless marriage was more acceptable than divorce.

According to popular legend, the young Parker Bowles used this connection with Charles to good effect as encountered each other in London in the early 1970s.

"My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress so how about it?" she was supposed to have told the startled prince.

As well as the historical link, Charles and Parker Bowles have a number of other connections, a product of the similar circles they have always mixed in. Before their respective marriages, Charles was a friend of fellow polo buff Andrew Parker Bowles, who at one point even dated Charles's sister, Princess Anne.

Charles even became godfather to the Parker Bowles's first child, Tom, a role that is now to be expanded to step-father. And if royal legend is to be believed, the royal couple's links might even be closer still - some say that Alice Keppel's daughter, Sonia, Camilla's grandmother, might actually have been the child of Edward VII. -AFP