He was faced with similar moments throughout his schooldays. His photograph was often in the newspapers, and if the accompanying stories owed more to imagination than fact that was no consolation to Charles as he struggled and usually failed to live up to the image the press were determined to create for him. When faced with situations over which he had no control, however, he would withdraw deep into himself. Fearful of confrontation, desperate to avoid ridicule, he constructed a wall of regal reserve to protect the sensitivity which had been his most notable characteristic as a child.

On one occasion, one of the senior boys had the bright idea of making a tape recording of Prince Charles snoring. Waiting until he was asleep, several boys crept to the open window of Charles’s dormitory and lowered the microphone by an extension cable to just above his head. It was easy as Charles’s bed was next to one of the windows, which were always kept open. The plan worked like a charm and a little later that night the excited plotters listened to the loud snores of their future king on the tape recorder.

It was bullying of the cruellest kind and, although the tape was confiscated, the Charles-baiting went on without respite. Furthermore, he was always being told about his father’s wild exploits when he had been at the school. Without a doubt, Philip had ‘been one of the lads’ and was often referred to as a ‘good man’ or a ‘good shade’, as the Gordonstoun terminology has it. To other pupils, it seemed as if he was always trying hard to live up to his father’s great reputation, not by misbehaving or having adventures, but striving energetically to excel at everything he did. He has been doing so ever since.

Chapter 7

PHILIP AND ALBERT

With the Queen now settled on the throne, Prince Philip needed to secure for himself a proper role, and he had to fight to ensure that his own needs and position weren’t entirely overlooked, as the courtiers’ focus was unsurprisingly on his wife. For Philip, it was a difficult transition, and one in which he would have to learn to make his own way. As we have seen, he spoke to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands about it, but there was also one other very important role model he could look to in the past: Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert – the last man to have been in a similar position to him. And what he saw, when he looked, made him realise that he wasn’t getting treated as well.