YOU King Charles III - Commemorative edition
KING OF QUIRKS
A teddy bear, a bespoke toilet seat – Charles has several eccentricities that put him in a league of his own
CHARLES has always been keen to stress that he’s “just an ordinary person in an extraordinary position” and wants to be treated like anyone else.
But when you grow up the son of a queen and heir to the throne you aren’t treated like an ordinary person at all. You have people at your beck and call, ready to respond to your every whim and indulge all your idiosyncrasies.
HIS MAJESTY’S WARDROBE
The king likes to look good in a suit, handkerchief billowing from his breast pocket and a flower in his buttonhole – but no pocket flaps.
His formal wardrobe is almost exclusively made of double-breasted suits from Anderson & Sheppard, of London’s exclusive Savile Row tailors. His shirts from Turnbull & Asser, which are made of the finest, most luxurious cotton and finished with French cuffs – thicker cuffs fastened either by wooden buttons or cufflinks.
And it’s not just suits His Majesty is particular about. Paul Burrell, who served as a butler to Princess Diana and a footman to Queen Elizabeth, once said Charles is fussy about several things.
“His pyjamas are pressed every morning and his shoelaces are pressed flat with an iron.”
MEALS FIT FOR A KING
Charles’ first nourishment of the day typically consists of a handful of specially mixed wheatgerm and cereal grains with honey and preserves, a few pieces of fruit and tea on a silver tray.
Christopher Andersen, author of The King: The Life of Charles III, says the tray always has “a cup and saucer to the right with a silver spoon pointing outward at an angle of five o’clock”.
When Charles goes down for breakfast after taking his tray in his bedroom, the royal toast is always served on a silver rack and never on a plate to prevent it becoming soggy.
“And butter must come in three balls and be chilled,” Andersen says.
Though it’s true that the king prefers boiled eggs cooked for three minutes, Buckingham Palace was once forced to address the rumour that Charles had seven eggs prepared for him but ate only the one that suited his precise instructions.
“No, he doesn’t and never has done, at breakfast or any other time,” read a statement in the frequentlyasked-questions section of the-then prince’s website.
Charles rarely eats lunch, but a typical dinner consists of salad with a softboiled egg. And a dry martini. If he’s invited to dinner, his security team carry his martini in a special case so that there’s no danger of his beverage being spiked.
HALF-NAKED HEADSTANDS
In his bombshell memoir, Spare, Prince Harry reveals his dad keeps limber by doing headstands against the door of his room at Balmoral, the royal family’s summer retreat in Scotland.
“Open the wrong door and you might burst in on Pa while his valet was helping him dress. Worse, you might blunder in as he was doing headstands,” Harry says.
The exercises were prescribed by Charles’ physiotherapist and were the only effective remedy for “the constant pain in Pa’s neck and back”.
“Old polo injuries, mostly,” Harry says. “He performed them daily, in just a pair of boxers, propped against a door or hanging from a bar like a skilled acrobat.”
His security team carry his martini in a special case so there’s no danger of his beverage being spiked
AT HIS BECK AND CALL
When he was Prince of Wales, Charles was reportedly nicknamed the “pampered prince” by staff at Clarence
House, his London residence.
And it’s easy to see why. An army of chefs, valets and butlers have always worked hard to ensure things are exactly to Charles’ liking and that he gets the little luxuries he loves.
“The bath plug has to be in a certain position and the water temperature has to be just tepid,” Burrell says. “Charles even has his valets squeeze one inch [about 2cm] of toothpaste onto his monogrammed toothbrush every morning.”
Royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith says because the king has had everything done for him all his life, he couldn’t organise things on his own if his life depended on it.
“His office is wildly disorganised and his thinking often is too,” she says.
TRAVELLING IN STYLE
Charles is known to be a fan of frugality and a man of modest taste who eschews extravagance – but he also takes great
delight in his creature comforts.
Whenever he’s away on royal business, he insists on taking boxes of fresh produce with him from his Highgrove estate, according to former royal chef Carolyn Robb. “He likes to have his own food with him,” she says.
He also brings his artwork with him, says Michael Fawcett, the king’s former aide. “He insists on having his own landscape paintings hung in the bedrooms where he sleeps.”
When Charles travels by air, it’s often in
Charles, seen here with Camilla at a tree-planting ceremony in 2019, believes in shaking trees to wish them well on their growing journey. the private royal jet, an Airbus A320-232, which comes equipped with a large double bed and a shower for the monarch.
Among the must-haves on his packing list is a custom-made toilet seat for the other royal throne and ice-cube trays so he can have circular-shaped ice in his drinks.
“I think this is one of the funniest quirks,” Andersen says. “A number of royals have this; the queen had it too. They don’t like square ice cubes.
“They carry around ice-cube trays – have them brought with them wherever they go – because they don’t like the clinking sound square cubes make.”
COMMUNING WITH NATURE
Charles believes in homeopathic medicine and even teamed up with a former spiritual psychologist to design a herb garden based on ancient religious symbolism, which “he hopes will heal the rifts in Britain”, sources close to the king say.
His Majesty is also a firm believer in conversing with flora. Last year his courtiers confirmed the king often gives a branch of a tree “a friendly shake to wish it well” and Charles admits he chats to the things he grows.
“I happily talk to the plants and trees and listen to them,” he says. “I think it’s absolutely crucial.”