"This country is riven by the class system. It is more alive than it has ever been," the Daily Mirror's royal correspondent James Whitaker said after the separation was announced at the weekend.

"The problem was the mother. I don't think it was Kate. When she met the queen, Carole Middleton said 'Pleased to meet you' and asked where the toilet was," Whitaker told Reuters.

The genteel would normally say "How do you do?" and talk about going to the lavatory. But Mrs Middleton was said to have committed the ultimate faux pas when invited last December to attend William's graduation ceremony at the elite Sandhurst military academy.

"Nobody could believe it when she chewed gum throughout," Whitaker said. Britain was long renowned for having one of the world's most rigid class systems, but the age of deference has now passed and politicians vie with each other to promote the merits of a classless society.

William and Kate's split showed the other side of the coin. Britain's royalty-obsessed mass-circulation newspapers are awash with speculation about why they separated, and many have focused on Kate's mother -- a former airline stewardess.

Members of William's entourage were said to have complained that Kate was "too common," and to have quipped "doors to manual," airline pilot-style, whenever she appeared.

Bookmakers quickly joined the great debate. Ladbrokes promptly installed the upper-class socialite Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe as 6-1 favorite to marry William.

"A number of socialites will be dusting off their ball gowns and polishing their Pradas now that William is back on the market," Ladbrokes spokesman Nick Weinberg said.

George Bernard Shaw's fictional Professor Henry Higgins, the master of speech and manners who turned Eliza Doolittle into "My Fair Lady," always said you could tell an Englishman's social standing the moment he opened his mouth.

Over half a century ago, Nancy Mitford caused a sensation with her guide to "U," or upper-class, and "Non-U" by listing dozens of instant class indicators in the way people spoke.

Debrett's, the "toff's bible" that guides High Society through the minefield of etiquette, resolutely refused to be sucked into the debate.

"On this occasion, we prefer not to make any comment," a spokeswoman said.

But Daily Mail columnist A.N. Wilson condemned "the unpleasant mockery of Kate Middleton by William's braying friends."

"An extraordinary snobbery still exists around the royals," he complained, saying that Kate's mother "has got more class than these sneering snobs."

Royal biographer Penny Junor said she did not believe snobbery would have been a reason for William to give up Kate.

"I don't think the royal family themselves are that snobbish. But I think William's friends certainly are. His polo-playing set are pretty snobbish," she told Reuters.