Two weekends ago, the Sunday Times had a fascinating report about King Charles and his Highgrove estate. Highgrove was once “privately owned” by Charles, but he folded the estate into the Duchy of Cornwall, and the Highgrove gardens are now operated by the King’s Foundation for-profit, as a revenue stream benefiting the foundation. Well, the Times report was all about the chaos among the Highgrove gardening staff, and how Charles is a temperamental bully who stresses out and bitches out gardeners on a regular basis. Just my opinion: while I completely believe everything the Times reported, I also thought that the story would just go away, and that few reporters would even bother to follow up. That’s the way to play it if you’re the king, right? Just ignore it and let your staff hush it up. Instead, “sources close to the king” have been exceptionally chatty – Charles is deeply offended that he was called out for his terrible behavior towards staff. Even the Daily Mail’s Richard Kay was called upon to defend Charles!
In its report, The Sunday Times said its claims were based on interviews with eight sources who have worked as royal gardeners or have ‘detailed knowledge of the estate’s inner workings’. Friends of the King, however, are frankly sceptical about some of the charges made against him.
One issue said to rankle particularly is the claim that the King had reprimanded a gardener for his lack of knowledge about a flower. According to a source with an understanding of the situation, this was not the case. The King had been irritated because the gardener concerned asked directly for an unskilled friend of his to be hired. ‘He was not being beastly to this man,’ I’m told. ‘The fact is he was ambushed over a matter, and it was this that he was cross about.’
Then there is the ragwort removal controversy. If anything, this shows the King’s striking attention to detail. Ragwort may look attractive but it is a weed, spreads quickly and is poisonous to some animals. According to the reports, the single offending ragwort was not in a publicly accessible part of the garden and therefore not in the remit of the gardeners. Friends disagree. As one says: ‘It is an invasive and noxious weed and hardly seems unreasonable to request its removal.’
It is fair to say that no one knows more about Highgrove’s gardens than Charles. Might, therefore, the problems stem from the fact that as monarch Charles simply does not now have time to garden? Certainly the days when, as Prince of Wales, he would base himself at Highgrove with his London office staff working out of the house so he could have more time in the garden are long gone. As King, he has inherited other properties in which he must also invest time. In many of these royal homes, from Balmoral in Scotland to Sandringham in Norfolk, Charles has set about the gardens with the same passion he once had for Highgrove. ‘He sees the gardens as an important part of his legacy,’ a close friend says.
His ongoing cancer treatment has also had an impact. Not only does it restrict his visits to the countryside but also means he doesn’t have the energy he used to.
Of course, stories about Charles as a demanding, pernickety fusspot – together with a lavish, pampered lifestyle – are not new. Over the decades, his relentless pace led to a high turnover of senior advisers whom he exhausted with round-the-clock demands. He would phone at all hours, oblivious to any separation between personal and professional life. One aide told me that over three years Charles was the first person he spoke to in the morning and the last person at night – and this aide was married!
As thoughts occurred to him, he would jot them down, even if in bed or during meals, and expect them to be acted upon. Princess Diana found all this activity annoying and bewildering. But while he is a much calmer person thanks to a happier second marriage, some things haven’t changed. He can still be testy. The absence of a favourite table decoration for a dinner with friends can, says one source, ‘see him going off the deep end’.
To some who know the King well, the present difficulties with the gardening team stem from the enforced absence of the one man who made his life run smoothly – former valet and personal assistant turned charity director, Michael Fawcett. The once indispensable Fawcett was forced out of the King’s circle in 2021 over the ‘donations for honours’ scandal. And life for Charles has never been quite the same. ‘Michael would never have allowed the complaints from the gardeners to reach Charles’s ears because he would have handled them himself,’ says one old associate of Fawcett.
Please, this is too funny. I read the Times piece two weekends ago – there were dozens of stories about Charles’s bullying behavior, and how poorly he treated the gardeners. When gardeners quit, Charles literally suggested hiring seniors and refugees as unpaid volunteers! And now Kay has been tasked with saying “well, actually, one of those stories is wrong, Charles actually had a completely legitimate disagreement with one of the gardeners, case closed!” And all of the other sh-t is hilarious too – sure, Charles might have been treating staff poorly for years/decades, but it’s not his fault because he has cancer AND he has to focus on all of his other inherited gardens AND he doesn’t have Michael Fawcett around anymore! A whole-ass king who is magically not responsible for his own words and actions. Commence the bullying investigation!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
