REPORTS that the King of Swaziland is set to marry his country's Miss World entrant have come as a surprise to staff at one of Dorset's top public schools where he was once a pupil.

A photograph of King Mswati III, aged 35, hangs in the reception area at Sherborne School where he attended in the early 1980s.

It is claimed Mak, as he was known to school friends, plans to make Nozipho Shabangu his tenth wife when she returns from London following last weekend's contest.

He has denied the claims through emissary Tulujane Sikhondze.

He said: "There is no truth in the whole matter as Nozipho is not wanted by the king as his latest bride.

"The king carefully chooses his bride, and he does not just grab any girl he comes across and make her a wife!"

Earlier this year the mother of one of the King's three fiancees accused him of kidnapping her 17-year-old daughter who was snatched by royal aides.

He was fined one cow for breaking his own rule which prohibits girls under 18 having sex, or shaking hands with a man.

While at Sherborne School in 1983 he hit the headlines when a national newspaper claimed he was at the centre of an assassination attempt by a witch doctor.

School officials scotched the reports but the teenager was regularly accompanied by bodyguards.

In 1991, a former school friend Simon Hawksley, appeared on a new stamp, issued by the tiny African state, alongside the king.

He was also given chauffeurdriven tour of Swaziland and treated to a banquet.

A spokeswoman at Sherborne School said: "This is quite a surprise. He planted a tree here during a visit a few years ago."