Prince Charles: “house guest from hell”?

On her progresses around Tudor England, Elizabeth I demanded so much of her hosts she almost bankrupted them, said Sarah Baxter in The Sunday Times. Prince Charles is not in her league – but if a new biography by Tom Bower is to be believed, he is still the “guest from hell”. This is a man so fussy that once, in advance of a weekend with friends, he reportedly sent a lorry with all the furniture he required for his rooms, including an orthopaedic bed with linen, two paintings of Highland landscapes, a lavatory seat and rolls of his favoured toilet paper. His food – organic, of course – came separately.

They were lucky in a way, said Valentine Low in The Times. Another set of friends allegedly spent a small fortune on lavish preparations for the Prince’s weekend visit, only to get a call from his office on the Friday saying he’d be coming the next day instead, in time for lunch. Then it was for dinner – and then not at all. His hosts were not mollified when he explained why he’d had to cancel: he’d been so enjoying the beauty of his garden he’d been quite unable to tear himself away. All in all, the 69-year-old Prince comes across as “ludicrously privileged” and pampered, said Sarah Baxter. With a £22.5m-a-year income from the Duchy of Cornwall, he is so insulated from ordinary life he had until recently never seen cling film (he supposedly shrieked when he first spotted it). Yet, trapped in a gilded cage, he allegedly complains ceaselessly to his staff about the “intolerable burden” of duty. Bower’s pen portrait is not a flattering one. The question is, can Charles survive more negative publicity?

I hope so, said Rachel Johnson in The Mail on Sunday. For all his moaning, Charles does do his duty, and more. Readers of this biography may gasp at the extravagance of a man who once went to stay at the austere monastery on Mount Athos with no fewer than 43 pieces of luggage, but they should also bear in mind that through his Prince’s Trust, Charles has helped 870,000 disadvantaged youths. Last year he carried out 546 engagements and raised £170m for charity. And if that doesn’t calm their republican fury, they might consider this: if Charles hadn’t been born, we’d have been saddled with “Air Miles Andy”.