A friendly word of warning for any aspiring royal staffers out there: King Charles will definitely let you know if you mess up.
According to excerpts from royal writer Tom Quinn’s upcoming book Yes Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants shared by the Daily Mail, the monarch—who has long been known for being very particular about how things are done by his staff—is known to “lose his temper in a split second” over sometimes seemingly small mistakes.
“Charles and Camilla do treat their staff well, but you always feel that they would no more fly without an aeroplane than invite you to have tea with them,” one former royal staffer says in Quinn’s book, according to the Daily Mail. “And Charles does have little bursts of irritation with his staff – perhaps he hasn’t been given exactly the right teacup, perfectly polished shoes and toothpaste neatly squeezed on to his toothbrush in exactly the way he likes it.”
The staff went on to add that the royal might be quick to anger, but that the feeling doesn’t usually last long.
“He loses his temper in a split second but usually quickly regrets it,” they added.
According to the Daily Mail, Quinn also writes in the book that Charles isn’t the only royal with a bit of a temper and that the trait has been “inherited in different measures by Prince William and Prince Harry.”
“They both get irritated very quickly,” one former member of staff told the author. “Throughout their lives they have had these things done for them, so they are very picky. It comes naturally to them.”
This sentiment echoes one highlighted in a previous excerpt from the book which was published in the Times on Feb. 6, in which a palace source was quoted as saying of Charles that “having everything done for you throughout your life by staff gives you a complacent air.”
In that excerpt, Quinn explained that King Charles has seen having servants as something of a double-edged sword.
“King Charles once confessed to a member of staff that if you grow up having everything done for you, a mindset takes over in which you are permanently terrified that if you had to do it yourself, you’d be completely lost,” Quinn writes in the book.
Still, the King told a staffer quoted in the book that having that help was “the only benefit of being Prince of Wales [as Charles then was] 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.”
FWIW, in spite of reports of him having a temper with staff from time-to-time like his dad, Prince William doesn’t seem to agree that having servants is a benefit worth keeping, since he and Kate Middleton have opted not to have live-in servants at Adelaide Cottage.
So, it seems that this, like other royal traditions, might be on the way out.