"London is so much more more brutal than it was 20 years ago and the treatment at Coutts is so lovely."The impressive headquarters on the Strand divides its customers into five inner branches: Adelaide, Buckingham, Chandos, Duncannon and Villiers; the latter is reserved solely for the Royal Family and only the longest serving employees of the bank have any inkling of its workings.A couple of weeks ago, Jennifer (not her real name), who is 35, the granddaughter of an Earl, and has been a customer of Coutts since birth, received a letter from her bank manager. "The doorman always opens the door and addresses you as sir or madam," says one lifelong customer. If the scandal has raised questions about Fergie it has raised just as many about the nature and practices of the private bank which allowed her overdraft to reach such proportions.Coutts cannot comment on the particulars of the case. Its reputation is based on serving an elite band of aristocratic customers whose confidences are respected absolutely - as are those of Coutts' more nouveau riche customers, such as the singer Sting, who now provide the vast bulk its custom.The bank with the frock-coated tellers and cap-doffing doorman also shies away from giving specific details about the minimum liquid assets that potential customers must possess. Some of the high-street banks that have begun to move into the increasingly lucrative private banking sector claim that it is as high as pounds 250,000 or even pounds 500,000.

Pressed, Coutts says its baseline is pounds 150,000 but emphasises that it looks ahead and considers potential earnings. Even at Eton, where they offer every boy the chance of joining the bank, they do not expect all 18-year-olds to have that sort of money; at least not that which they can get their hands on just yet.What Coutts offers is old-fashioned personal service, snob value and a return to an older, pleasanter Britain. The Queen's message this week was delivered in the usual Palace-speak, but the message was loud and clear; she was fed up bailing out her Imelda Marcos of a daughter-in-law The debts are hers. She is in it on her own.Fergie is not alone in being a toff living beyond her means. And while it is all confidential she cannot be the only customer of Coutts, Britain's oldest bank, to be doing so. After plenty of near misses Fergie seems finally to have confirmed a senior Palace press aide's assessment that she was "unfit" to be a member of the Royal Family. The spending spree in New York where she bought 20 pairs of shoes and boots, costing pounds 3,000 in all, and the pounds 50,000 she reportedly spent on 12 dresses from the designer Isabel Kristensen are being raked over, as are the year-round holidays and ski trips.By any standards this cash-flow problem is epic.

She had high hopes for a lovable little character called Budgie the Helicopter. But these are, at least temporarily, grounded.A few months ago the rumours of an overdraft surfaced. Trouble with the bank - who hasn't had it? Who hasn't gone through tough times; lived ever so slightly beyond their means and received one of those stiff, dreaded letters from the high street bank manager?But this week the extent of Fergie's debt became clear, and while the precise reasons for it - a battery of business deals including some with Bryan might be partly responsible - it is lavish over-spending that is being latched upon as the root cause of a reported pounds 1m overdraft at Coutts, her mother-in-law's bank, and pounds 2m in other debts. Goodness, she would have a jolly good go at anything! Attempting to pick up the threads of her less than dazzling pre-marriage publishing career, she even tried her hand at children's books. If the extravagance and high-living of the let-them-eat-cake duchess had been a secret, we might have sympathised with her story.

Since separating from her husband, Fergie, as the nation affectionately or scornfully knows her, had had to give up her home and move with her two small daughters to rented accommodation. Like millions of other single mums her dream was financial independence. Of course, there was a settlement of sorts but pounds 2m was hardly enough to keep a woman and two children going. She and her then close friend John Bryan - a sort of financial adviser cum boyfriend - tried out a few business ideas. A year ago Sarah Ferguson embarrassed her in-laws by complaining to an audience in Washington that like many single parents she was, quite frankly, hard up. One source in the Catholic churh described it as "walking a tightrope".In his article, the Cardinal carefully does not take issue with the abolition of the concept of fault, which has been the central issue for many opponents of the Bill.He quotes the measured statement of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in November: "We are not persuaded that excluding 'fault' in the proposed legislation effectively alters the reality that divorce has become available on demand."In civil law, marriage is already a temporary contract which can be broken by the unilateral decision of one partner sustained over a period of time."The Church's teaching is that a valid marrriage contract cannot be broken."From a legal point of view, it is difficult to see what more objective proof of marital breakdown there could be than the sustained determination of one or both partners to end it.".

The mainstream churches in this country had all given their support to the Bill as the least worst way of dealing with the issue. The growing campaign mounted by political and religious conservatives has, however, put the Cardinal under pressure in recent months.Today's article is an attempt to accommodate critics of the compromise, without threatening the essence of the Bill. The Bill would put an end to "quickie" divorces; end the concept of fault; and introduce mediation where possible to replace lawyers. Opponents in the Lords want a minimum period of 18 months or two years.In an article in today's Tablet, the Catholic news magazine, the Cardinal says: "I do myself wonder whether a period as short as a year is sufficient to establish that a marriage has irretrievably broken down."He adds that marriage counselling is an "essential" element which needs to be added to the Bill as it stands.Lengthening the year's waiting period is the one area where the Lord Chancellor might make a concession to the Bill's opponents in a bid to persuade them to tone down their objections to other provisions. ANDREW BROWN and STEPHEN WARD Cardinal Basil Hume, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England, is to support opponents of Lord Mackay's controversial divorce Bill by suggesting that a year is too short a time to wait before dissolving a marriage. His intervention midway through debates on a multitude of highly critical amendments in the House of Lords will come as a blow to the Lord Chancellor, who had believed that the Catholic bishops of England and Wales were solidly on his side. "It is important to know how different professions react to the ideas.