Robert Hardman has narrated this article for you to listen to.

We are familiar with the perfectly sensible convention that monarchs should not fly with their heirs. But should they also be discouraged from foraging for their prime ministers? While researching my new book and film on the King, I was at Balmoral to see the visit of the Sunaks. At one point, the King vanished into the grounds of Birkhall to pick mushrooms for his guests, who also included Sir Nicholas and Lady Coleridge. It’s a favourite form of royal relaxation (the King was picking Birkhall mushrooms on the day the Queen died). When I mentioned this to a privy counsellor last week, he was troubled. He pointed to the ghastly tale of Nicholas Evans, the late author of The Horse Whisperer, who also went picking mushrooms in the Highlands a few years ago, plucked the wrong sort and four people ended up fighting for their lives. ‘Just think. One mistake and we could have lost the King, the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Provost of Eton at a single sitting,’ he said. Fortunately the King knows his onions – and his mushrooms, too.

This week’s accession of Frederik X of Denmark was particularly interesting given our own recent experience. Sunday’s event was similar and yet so different. There was genuine public love for the great Margrethe II, as there was for Elizabeth II, but she is very much still with us, so the mood was not mournful. She had simply decided to abdicate at the age of 83 (having always said – to me and others – that she never would). It made the exercise feel more functional and secular (which it was), rather than something spiritual.

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Royal notebook / The day the King could have killed Rishi

3 1
18.01.2024

Robert Hardman has narrated this article for you to listen to.

We are familiar with the perfectly sensible convention that monarchs should not fly with their heirs. But should they also be discouraged from foraging for their prime ministers? While researching my new book and film on the King, I was at Balmoral to see the visit of the Sunaks. At one point, the King vanished into the grounds of Birkhall to pick........

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