NOW that they’ve extracted the rotten apple named Andrew out of the royal family barrel and dumped it in the royal waste bin, we can all rest easy. King Charles says: "My family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all." 

Charles is reassuring the British public and his subtext is: “My depraved younger brother is a disgrace, but take it from me, the rest of us are back in harness, dawn to dusk, lifting that barge, toting that bale, carrying out the duties that come with being members of this family.”

So what exactly are the duty and service Charles carries out? 

Unlike most of us, he doesn’t do a  9-5 day.  In 2022/3, the first year of his kingly reign, Charles worked for 161 days. The following year he worked for 132 days (he had a sick note). In  2024/25, he toiled for 175 days.

Even a slow learner in maths will spot  that in the years cited he was off-duty more often than he was on. 

So what work did he actually do on the days he turned up?

 Something like this: 

He’d be chauffeur-driven in a luxury car to a given spot, where the local people would gather to gawk as he cut a ceremonial ribbon, or asked them if they’d travelled far, or he’d make a short speak after a banquet consisting of the finest of food and wines. Your job’s not a bit like that? Of course not. You’re not a royal. You’re a subject, a commoner.

Where does Charles pass his time when he’s not ‘working’?  Well he might be in Buckingham Palace, or Windsor Castle, or Holyrood House in Edinburgh, or (less likely) Hillsborough Castle in Hillsborough. In addition to those four biggies, King Charles  can choose to kip up in any of the14 official residences at his disposal. Uneasy may lie a head that wears the crown, but it’s not short on places to rest its uneasy head.

And there’s more. Charles has got two major private estates: the Sandringham estate, which is 20,000 acres in size, and the Balmoral estate, which is 50,000 acres. That’s 70,000 acres he owns personally. As King, he gets to use (but not sell) another 286,00 acres. If he tried to walk the length of his acreage, he’d drop down dead from hunger and exhaustion long, long  before he’d have finished. In fact, before he’d barely begun. 

And what about moolah? Well, there’s the Sovereign Grant, which comes to over £86 million each year and helps pay the servants and flunkies that wait on him. Not that Charles really needs it – he makes around £25 million a year from the Duchy of Lancaster and around £23 million a year from the Duchy of Cornwall.

So loads of big houses – castles, really – loads of land, and loadsamoney. But don’t forget the hard work he puts in: being driven around and giving the odd wave to the unwashed masses. That’s on the days he’s working.

Some people like to attach their affections to a particular royal. It might be the late Queen Elizabeth – decades of service to her cheering subjects; or maybe Charles, so shy and softly spoken, into his 70s before he got the Big Gig. And who hasn’t a soft spot for Princess Diana, the Queen of Hearts? Only she died, alas. allowing Charles’s old flame Camilla to move in.

The royals are the cement of British society, some say: hard, grey and thick as a brick. Living a life of unmentionable luxury in return for their steady service of their British subjects.

Pass my gold-plated bucket,  Virginia, and for the next few minutes don’t look as I become noisily sick.