In a fresh blow to the royals a day after they began legal proceedings against French magazine Closer, the first to publish the pictures of Catherine sunbathing in her bikini bottoms, the images appeared again in Saturday's Irish Daily Star.

"There can be no motivation for this action other than greed," said a spokesman for Catherine and her husband.

Italian gossip magazine Chi, meanwhile, is planning to devote 26 pages to the grainy paparazzi photographs in a special issue today - a move the palace said would heap "unjustifiable upset" on Catherine. The photographs were taken with a long lens while William and Catherine were holidaying at a private chateau in the south of France.

Chi editor Alfonso Signorini said that the pictures were "a scoop" he could not afford to miss.