The Queen was "concerned" about the future because of Princess Diana's relationship with Dodi Al Fayed, an inquest has heard.

Ex-royal butler Paul Burrell said he met the Queen weeks after Diana died.

He said Her Majesty had been concerned the princess was "over-excited" about her relationship with Dodi when it first began.

Mr Burrell is giving evidence for a third day at the High Court inquest into the death of Princess Diana.

The princess and Dodi Al Fayed died after a car crash in a Paris road tunnel in 1997.

During an exchange with Ian Croxford QC, representing the Ritz Hotel, Mr Burrell said: "Her Majesty was concerned that the Princess was rather over-excited at the moment."

Mr Croxford asked if the Queen was "concerned about the start of a long-term union with Dodi Al Fayed".

Mr Burrell replied: "Her Majesty was concerned about the future."

Mr Croxford then asked: "And a marriage?"

Mr Burrell said: "No, the Queen did not mention that."

Mr Burrell also told the court that he kept quiet about Mr Al Fayed giving Diana a ring shortly before they died in Paris.

In 2003 the former butler wrote in his book that all he knew of the gift was from a conversation during 1997.

He said he had advised Diana to wear any ring on her right hand to avoid giving the impression she was engaged.

But he revealed at her inquest that he had picked up a ring with Diana's possessions shortly after her death.

Michael Mansfield QC, representing Dodi's father Mohamed Al Fayed, accused Mr Burrell of "lying" in his book A Royal Duty about the ring.

Mr Burrell replied that this was a "strong" term.

"The reason I didn't include it in A Royal Duty was that I didn't feel I had to at the time," he told the court in London.

But Mr Burrell provided more detail about the ring in a subsequent book, The Way We Were, written a few years later.

"So much was being said about the princess I only had to dispel the... myth," he said.

Mr Burrell again insisted that Diana was still in love with surgeon Hasnat Khan in the run-up to her death on 31 August 1997.

"I knew that she would not get engaged," he said.

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