King Charles's 'constant battle' with Queen Camilla that he 'usually wins'

King Charles reportedly has a "constant battle" with Queen Camilla that he "usually wins", according to her sister, and it’s all to do with their living space.

King Charles and Queen Camilla have been happily married for 19 years but it seems there’s one thing that they reportedly often have squabbles about. Their Majesties are based primarily at Clarence House in London, but also split their time between several other royal residences including Highgrove House and Birkhall. According to Queen Camilla’s sister Annabel Elliott, King Charles and his wife are "polar opposites" in many ways, including when it comes to the temperature of their home.

As reported by Hello!, Annabel supposedly revealed in Robert Hardman’s biography, King Charles: New King. New Court. The Inside Story, that King Charles loves his home to have a cold breeze running through it whilst Queen Camilla wants her living spaces to be incredibly "warm and cosy". This apparently leads to a "constant battle" between the King and Queen about having the windows open. 

Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story by Robert Hardman | Was £22, Now £16.99 at Amazon

Robert Hardman's fascinating biography delves into King Charles's court and his reign as a modern monarch. The author has drawn on access to members of the Royal Family, officials and unpublished royal papers and this book reflects on the King's plans for reforming the monarchy. 

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"There's a constant battle about it. He will have opened it. She will creep in behind and shut it. So there's a lot of: 'Oh, darling, you shut the window’, 'Yes, I have, because we're all freezing.' So a lot of banter goes on," Annabel explained.

Author Robert ended up concluding that according to Annabel if the King "usually wins on that front", but that Queen Camilla "wins most other things". The King’s sister-in-law isn’t the only one to have suggested that he prefers his living spaces to be on the chilly side. 

The monarch’s former Communications Secretary Julian Payne, who worked for him and Camilla for five years, previously wrote in The Sun that King Charles upheld this habit of wanting the windows open even in Scotland in winter.

"The King dislikes being inside for too long and always has the windows wide open," he claimed, before adding, "A meeting at Birkhall, his home in the Highlands, in the middle of winter was not for the faint-hearted. I can remember more than one occasion when I thought I might have actually got frostbite while trying to write with a hand I could no longer feel."

This sounds like King Charles’s commitment to fresh air can sometimes be taken to levels many of us might not be too keen to copy. However, his late mother Queen Elizabeth was apparently a fan of embracing the cold, highlands air too. During her reign she would enjoy an annual summer break at Balmoral from August until October.

Despite the UK weather typically taking a turn for the worse in the autumn, Her Majesty apparently wasn’t deterred in the slightest from sleeping with her windows open. Queen Elizabeth’s holiday habit was previously revealed by former royal butler, Paul Burrell, speaking on behalf of Slingo.

"She loved the fact that her bedroom windows were open every night and she would get the fresh air from the highlands every night. From August until early October, she never closed her bedroom windows," he alleged.

It seems that King Charles might have inherited his preference for having the windows open, whatever the weather, from Queen Elizabeth. Whilst Queen Camilla might not share their love of cooler rooms, her and King Charles's "constant battle" over the windows is likely something the couple approach in a light-hearted way after so many years.