Prince Charles's secret egg obsession

by GORDON RAYNER

Last updated at 20:32 23 September 2006


As the king-in-waiting, Prince Charles devotes countless hours to pondering the most important issues of the day.

And none require quite so much attention, it seems, as the issue of whether his boiled eggs are cooked to perfection.

Paxman in hot water over boiled eggs saga

Charles, who is particularly fond of a boiled egg after a day's hunting, is so picky that his staff cook seven eggs ranging from runny to rock hard, which the Prince tests before choosing his favourite.

The revelation is one of a series of fascinating insights into the Royal household contained in a new book by the BBC's arch inquisitor Jeremy Paxman, which is serialised in the Daily Mail next week.

Paxman says in his book, On Royalty: "Because his staff were never quite sure whether the egg would be precisely to the satisfactory hardness, a series of eggs was cooked, and laid out in an ascending row of numbers.

"If the Prince felt that number five was too runny, he could knock the top off number six or seven."

Exactly what happens to the six rejected eggs, Paxman does not divulge.

The anecdote will reinforce the Prince's reputation as an out-of-touch eccentric with an almost impossibly rarefied lifestyle.

And it is likely to lead to more questions about whether the heir to the throne really needs a private staff of 22 - including two butlers, five chefs and a valet - whose salaries are written off as a 'business expense' to lower his tax bill.

Paxman said the tale of the eggs was "one of the most extraordinary stories I came upon while researching this book".

He added: "Although it came from one of the Prince's friends, it seems so preposterously extravagant as to be unbelievable. And yet so many jaw-dropping stories have emerged of the way in which his household is run that it can sound credible."

Princess Diana's former butler Paul Burrell revealed in his memoirs four years ago that Prince Charles's valet was required to squeeze his toothpaste onto his brush and, on one occasion, to hold a specimen bottle while Charles produced a urine sample in hospital.

He also has a reputation for talking to plants and to his chickens at the Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, and Paul Burrell also revealed Charles's habit of communicating with his staff by memo on even the most trivial subjects.

One example cited by Burrell was: "A letter from the Queen must have fallen by accident into the wastepaper basket beside the table in the library. Please look for it."

Paxman decided to write the book after being taken aback at the huge public outpouring of affection for the Queen Mother following her death in 2002.

He was invited to stay at Sandringham as a guest of Charles and Camilla whilst he was researching it, and describes Prince Charles as having "an Eeyore-ish quality to him, this awful sense of being beleaguered, unloved and misunderstood. You want to help him - to tell him to snap out of it."

He also reveals that Charles "finds the invasion of Iraq an utter mystery and despairs of Bush".

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