King’s dashing equerry who is already setting hearts af lutter
BLESSED with dashing good looks, he is the Scottish Army officer who is equerry for the new King and is thought of as something of a ‘braw darling’ by Royal watchers.
Major Jonathan Thompson of the 5th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland was once the Queen’s most senior bodyguard.
Known to friends as ‘Johnny’, in recent days he has found himself front-and-centre of historic Royal events as the equerry of King Charles III, having served in the role when he was Prince of Wales.
On Friday, Major Thompson watched over Charles’s first public walkabout as Monarch.
Later that day the officer escorted Prime Minister Liz Truss to meet the King at Buckingham Palace. Yesterday, he was seen standing behind the King as he signed the proclamations at St James’s Palace.
Major Thompson always wears a thick tartan kilt and large fur sporran, which had him sweltering during Charles and Camilla’s Royal tour of Canada in May.
The moment the Major – who is married – and Prime Minister looked into each other’s eyes yesterday caused some amusement among observers of the historic occasion.
A body language expert joked: ‘This is how most Mexican telenovelas [soap operas] begin.’
One Twitter user posted: ‘PM Truss is the envy of the world. A weekly meeting with Johnny – I mean, King Charles?’
Another tweeted: ‘We’ll be seeing a lot of him now. As my dear husband said, “Oh look here’s your Major” (in my dreams).’
But another Twitter user empathised with Major Thompson, who was known to be close to the Queen, saying: ‘I think he looks very sad, he’s really devoted to the Royal Family, bless him.’
Earlier this year he was present at July’s Service of Thanksgiving for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at St Paul’s Cathedral, sitting behind the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
His positioning was seized upon for speculation that he was acting as Charles’s ‘eyes and ears’ to observe Harry and Meghan.