King Charles is looking to implement even “more changes” to the royal family as his mission of slimming down and modernizing the monarchy reaches new heights, his former royal butler has claimed.
Grant Harrold, who worked for the monarch for seven years when he was the Prince of Wales, claims that Charles will be putting his signature “twist” on traditions put in place by his later mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
“It’s been interesting, he has copied Queen Elizabeth’s footprint and done things the way she did them with all the official engagements,” Harrold said.
“She stopped doing overseas visits a few years ago so Charles has been able to take that on quite easily but he has added his twist to it.”
The King has made his desire for a slimmed-down monarchy known ever since assuming the throne last September — and he’s also looking to make some changes to several aspects of his royal residences.
“There’s lots of changes in the gardens, King Charles is famously a gardener and loves his gardens,” Harrold said.
“I think there are changes coming, a prime example is the balcony at Trooping the Colour earlier this year,” he explained. “If you look from the Queen’s time it looked like Piccadilly Circus, if you look at it now it looks like something after Armageddon, it’s completely different.”
“He has very carefully and dignifiedly slimmed down the monarchy to what he classifies as the core family and that will only get smaller as sadly his royal cousins die off.”
“They won’t pick people to step in, I think it will become a slimmed down monarchy as he has always wanted,” Harrold added, on behalf of Slingo.
Despite the King’s desire to trim the fat of the monarchy, the sovereign’s sister Princess Anne previously said she didn’t think it was a good idea.
“I think ‘slimmed-down’ was said in a day when there were a few more people around to make that seem like a justifiable comment,” she said back in May. “It doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing… I’m not quite sure what else we can do.”
Anne suggested that the royal family was already streamlined enough after Prince Harry, Meghan Markle stepped back as senior working members of the family.
