But it seems that he has miscalculated. The King, a stickler for convention, has insisted that he have a valet for his visit, and the dour Ewan, at least twice Philip’s age, is evidently under instructions not to be sent away.

Watching Ewan lay out his father’s threadbare dinner jacket without comment makes Philip more uncomfortable than he wants to admit. Next come the worn socks, all of them badly in need of a darn, and the scuffed walking shoes with an unmistakable hole in the sole.

Ewan studies the shoes for a moment. ‘Would you like these to be sent to the cobbler in the village, sir?’

Philip’s mouth twists with a mixture of embarrassment and impatience. ‘That would be helpful, yes,’ he manages to grind out.

Ewan pokes around in the valise. ‘And your spare shoes …?’

‘I’ve got what’s there. That’s it.’

The unpacking continues in disapproving silence. When everything is laid out on the bed, Ewan studies Philip’s wardrobe.

‘I see you have no kilt, sir.’

‘Do I look like a man who’d wear a bloody skirt?’

The footman’s expression is carefully blank but the atmosphere is frosty.

‘And pyjamas?’

‘Never wear the things. Can’t stand ’em.’

Nor does Philip possess plus fours for shooting or a gun of his own. He is wearing flannel trousers and an open-necked shirt but in spite of being in the middle of bloody nowhere, it appears something more formal is expected.

It’s too late now, Philip tells himself, shrugging off Ewan’s unspoken contempt. The man will get no kudos in the servants’ hall for looking after the penniless prince, that is obvious.

The main thing is that he is here. Invitations to Balmoral are an honour and he wonders how Elizabeth managed it. Reading between the lines, Philip gathers that neither the King nor the Queen were keen to invite him and although Elizabeth hasn’t said as much, he understands that the visit is something of a test, a chance for him to prove himself.

Well, he is ready for that. Uncle Dickie has warned that there are still problems with his naturalisation, largely thanks to his cousin George’s inability to deal with the communists in Greece, and there is no sign that the King is ready to give his daughter permission to marry, but Philip is determined to sort matters out with Elizabeth once and for all. There has been too much shilly-shallying.

Turning his back on Ewan’s carefully blank expression, Philip contemplates the view, such as it is. Heavy grey clouds slump over the landscape, obscuring the hills he drove through earlier, and the trees themselves seem to be sagging beneath the weight of the rain that has evidently been falling in sheets but has now slowed to a dreary mizzle. Scotland’s summer seems every bit as damp and dreich as its reputation.

His room is on the ground floor and about as far away from the bathroom as it is possible to get. Although apparently he is lucky that there is a bathroom at all. Modern conveniences are evidently an afterthought at Balmoral. Like the rest of the house – or at least what he has glimpsed of it so far – the room is decorated in a riot of tartan: tartan curtains, tartan carpet, tartan rug on the bed. There’s even a tartan soap dish on the old-fashioned washstand. Ewan has already informed him that hot water will be brought in a jug. A jug! Perhaps he’s lucky not to have been issued with a chamber pot.