Prince William offered Buckingham Palace marital home

Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton could make Buckingham Palace their marital home - after Queen Elizabeth invited them to share it with her.

The monarch has told William and Kate - who are set to marry on April 29 - that they will have their own self-contained apartment inside the sprawling London residence if they accept because she wants the pair to have a safe and private place to live away from the public gaze after their nuptials.

William, 28, and Kate, 29, will have exclusive use of the palace at the weekends as the queen and her husband Prince Philip only stay there Monday to Thursday.

His father Prince Charles has also offered them a flat at his nearby St James's Palace which they can renovate themselves. William already shares an apartment there with his brother Prince Harry, 26.

A royal insider told The Sun: "Buckingham Palace is an option, not least because it has a lot of spare space, and it's obviously safe from a security point of view.

"But William is determined to make life as 'normal' as possible after the wedding, which makes an apartment at St James's Palace a more likely choice.

"Buckingham Palace is full of household staff and is not exactly a peaceful place to live."

The pair will, however, spend most of their first year sharing a remote cottage in Wales, near to the prince's RAF base in Anglesey where he works as a rescue pilot.