"I can't bear this bloody thing!" King Charles' at signing ceremony at Northern Ireland's Hillsborough Castle over frustration of an inadequate pen. Video / AP
OPINION:
In 2006, a wild story about Prince Charles went around.
Famed British broadcaster Jeremy Paxman, in his book On Royalty, claimed that every morning the then-prince was presented with seven eggs, all cooked to different degrees of doneness so that he could select the perfect one.
Paxman wrote: "Because his staff were never quite sure whether the egg would be precisely to the satisfactory hardness, a series of eggs was cooked, and laid out in an ascending row of numbers. If the prince felt that number five was too runny, he could knock the top off number six or seven."
It's an extraordinary image, of a prince so wildly spoiled and perpetually indulged, it is just too delicious to go past. Unfortunately, it is not true, Charles prefers fruit and seeds first thing, but nonetheless, there is no escaping that the new King is a man who has been waited on hand and foot his entire life.
But a new video showing the King having – another – tantrum while on the job raises the question, is he something of an overindulged man-child?
His Majesty's latest display of bad temper came in Northern Ireland as he and wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, continued their tour of the nation. While signing the visitors' book at the royal family's official Belfast residence, Hillsborough Castle, the 73-year-old was caught on camera becoming supremely cross when he realised he had put the incorrect date on the document, declaring, "Oh God I hate this."
King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort sit at Westminster Hall. Photo / AP
Then, when Camilla took the pen to sign, she could be heard saying "Oh look, it's going everywhere, hang on," before an increasingly livid-looking Charles said, "I can't bear this bloody thing! What they do, every stinking time."
(Don't you just hate it when a dodgy fountain pen plays havoc with your working day?)
Now, it would be entirely understandable if the King was tired and emotional, having lost his mother and having conducted a seemingly never-ending procession of ceremonial events across the UK in five days.
Sadly, this was not his first blow up of the week after he was caught rudely demanding a lackey move an inkwell from a table during his first Privy Council meeting. (Did the video of that moment go viral? You betcha.)
Charles might generally be better known for his lifelong ardour for Camilla, homoeopathy and talking to plants but scratch the surface and there are plenty of less-than-flattering details about his temperament.
Take, for example, in 2005 during a photo call in Klosters with his sons Princes William and Harry when Charles was caught on camera vituperatively attacking the press, including him saying, "I hate doing this" and "bloody people".
Of the BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Whitchell, he said, "I can't bear that man anyway. He's so awful, he really is. I hate these people." (Imagine for a hot second if that had been Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The internet would actually melt down.)
Biographer Sally Bedell-Smith, writing in 2017's Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life, has described him as "hopelessly thin-skinned … naive and resentful" and who is "keenly sensitive to violations of protocol".
She recounts how in 1997, when flying to Hong Kong for the formal handover of the then British territory, a "dyspeptic" Charles was shocked to learn he had not automatically been seated in first class and later wrote in his diary, "Such is the end of Empire, I sighed to myself."
She also tells the truly extraordinary story of how the deluded prince, a passionate watercolourist, once offered to swap one of his pieces with that of Lucian Freud, one of the 20th century's greatest artists. Unsurprisingly, Freud declined "with little hesitation".
Then there is his opulent lifestyle. The King might not travel with a white leather toilet seat as has been reported but he has four valets, down from a previous five, and can change outfits up to five times a day.
In 2002, in the wake of former Kensington Palace butler Paul Burrell's trial, it was alleged that his former valet Michael Fawcett once held a specimen bottle for the Prince of Wales when the royal had broken his arm and that Fawcett was also required to put his boss' toothpaste on his brush, using a silver dispenser bearing the Wales crest.
A person who has been a guest of both the King and his mother told Paxman, "The Queen has nothing so grand as Prince Charles."
For our reputationally-challenged King, Wednesday's Pengate caps off (sorry, I couldn't help myself) a fairly rotten 24 hours.
There has been so much going on it's hard to know where to start, but let's begin with the fact that up to 100 Clarence House staffers, some of whom have worked for Charles for decades, have gotten the chop.
The Guardian has reported that private secretaries, people in the finance office, the communications team and household staff have received notices of their redundancy, "just as they were working round the clock to smooth his elevation to the throne".
While there has historically always been staff turnover when HRHs have moved between positions, offices and residence, that the King would choose to pull the trigger on this right now, before the Queen is even laid to rest and as his dedicated team works tirelessly to support him and Camilla, comes across as extremely cold-hearted.
King Charles III, back to camera, greets well-wishers as he walks by the gates of Buckingham Palace. Photo / AP
"Everybody is absolutely livid, including private secretaries and the senior team," a source has told The Guardian. "All the staff have been working late every night since Thursday, to be met with this. People were visibly shaken by it."
Not a good look Your Majesty, not a good look.
Maybe the monarch is in a bad mood, something that would not have been helped by learning that there has been an 800 per cent jump in viewing figures for The Crown since the Queen's death. While this might bode very well for Netflix executives, who have a fresh season of the hit show in their back pocket, the opposite is true for Charles.
Later this year the streaming giant will release the fifth season of the hit show which will focus on the events of the 90s and the disintegration of the then-Prince and Princess of Wales' marriage.
A whole new generation is about to learn about Tampongate in vivid detail, at precisely the moment that Charles and Camilla are trying to establish themselves on the throne.
Moving on. It wouldn't be a category three House of Windsor disaster if the family's two most controversial figures were not somehow involved.
On Monday, the defrocked Prince Andrew, Duke of York, took his place beside his siblings for the procession down Edinburgh's Royal Mile. They walked behind their mother's coffin as it began its long journey to her final resting place.
In hindsight, the inclusion of Andrew was always going to be provocative, with a protester, identified only as Rory, being dragged away and arrested after yelling, "Andrew, You're a sick old man." (Look, it was definitely not the moment but it's something we've all thought …)
That was followed by the traditional Vigil of the Princes at St Giles' Cathedral during which Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Edward and Andrew stood guard around the Queen's coffin. Despite Charles having ruled that only working members of the royal family will be allowed to wear military dress for Her Majesty's funeral, it emerged that Charles had given his brother, the same man who only six months ago was fighting a civil sex abuse case in a New York court, permission to wear his uniform.
(The only photo released of the Vigil conveniently only shows the back of Andrew's head.)
King Charles III and other members of the royal family hold a vigil at the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh. Photo / AP
The decision by Charles to grant his brother, who is nearly universally reviled, this privilege is an appalling look for a new monarch who is working devilishly hard to charm an entire country and to bring them around to his side.
Why for the love of god give Andrew any sort of boon?
Then, just to round things off, came royal biographer Tom Bower, author of the explosive Revenge, who has claimed during a TV interview that Harry's book will be hitting shelves in the coming months.
"I'm told tonight that Harry is insisting that his book is published in November, it's astonishing," he told GB News' Dan Wootton. "Apparently the publishers are not too certain, but he says if they don't publish it's a breach of contract, that's what I'm told. It's extraordinary.
"On the other hand, it fits the bill because Harry and Meghan's finances depend entirely on the book and on Netflix. And also I think they're convinced they're in the right and they want to get their own back."
If there is any credence to the many, many reports speculating that Harry might take aim at his stepmother, the Queen consort, in his memoir then Charles has even further good reason to be doing a spot of fretting.
Here's one last story about His Majesty. In 2016, reporter Gordon Rayner, who has gone along on 20 royal tours, revealed that when Charles and Camilla are abroad, the royal's butler carries not only "a supply of his favourite runny honey" but that one of their bodyguards has to tote a "discrete" bag containing their go-to drinks (gin and red wine respectively).
The British might be all about a stiff upper lip but after the last 24 hours, I think our King and Queen consort might be more in need of a stiff drink.
