Daily Mail

Did Charles snub send- off for HM’s ‘right hand man’?

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The Queen’s right-hand man, Sir Christophe­r Geidt, is said to feel ‘very bruised’ after being ousted following ten years’ loyal service.

To make amends, the Queen hosted a fitting send- off for her most trusted courtier on Tuesday night at Buckingham Palace.

More than 400 guests turned out and members of the Firm wishing him well included the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Prince Michael of Kent and Princess Alexandra.

however, conspicuou­s by his absence was Prince Charles.

‘he didn’t turn up,’ says my spy. ‘There was some bad-mouthing from other guests about him not being there.’

Although Charles was attending the service nearby at St James’s Palace for the baptism of Meghan Markle, some thought that he could have found time to attend both events.

Clarence house declined to comment, but a royal source tells me the Prince of Wales never attends leaving parties.

Sir Christophe­r is thought to have fallen out of royal favour amid chaotic power struggles as Charles and the younger royals take on more of the 91- year- old monarch’s duties under ‘Operation handover’. Sources say Prince Charles and Prince Andrew disliked Sir Christophe­r because of his influence over their affairs.

Following a clash last May, Charles reportedly spoke to the Queen and said: ‘Geidt has got to go.’

Sir Christophe­r denied he was forced out, but is said to feel that the Queen failed to support him.

She is clearly only too aware of his hurt feelings.

When Sir Christophe­r, 56, stepped down as her private secretary last October, she bestowed yet another knighthood on him — his third in six years — during a private audience at Balmoral.

In addition to his Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), Sir Christophe­r now bears the highest insignia in the Royal Victorian Order, the Knight Grand Cross (GCVO), given to those who have served the monarch ‘in a personal way’.

The power struggle between the Queen’s household at Buckingham Palace and Charles’s court at Clarence house has triggered a wave of departures of senior palace officials.

Since Sir Christophe­r fell on his sword in July, the Queen’s assistant private secretary, Samantha Cohen, and Prince Charles’s private secretary, Mark Leishman, have quit, too.

 ??  ?? ‘Very bruised’: Sir Christophe­r
‘Very bruised’: Sir Christophe­r
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