The Queen’s right-hand man, Sir Christopher Geidt, is said to feel ‘very bruised’ after being ousted following ten years’ loyal service.
To heal the rift, the Queen has given her most trusted courtier a fitting send-off.
When Sir Christopher, 56, stepped down as her private secretary on Thursday, HM bestowed yet another knighthood on him — his third in six years — during a private audience at Balmoral.
The Queen’s right-hand man, Sir Christopher Geidt, is said to feel ‘very bruised’ after being ousted following ten years’ loyal service
In addition to his Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO), and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath KCB, Sir Christopher now bears the highest insignia in the Royal Victorian Order, the Knight Grand Cross (GBE), given to those who have served the monarch ‘in a personal way’.
Sir Christopher is thought to have fallen out of royal favour amid chaotic power struggles as Prince Charles and the younger royals take on more of the Queen’s duties under ‘Operation Handover’.
Sources say Prince Charles and Prince Andrew dislike Sir Christopher because of his influence over their affairs. Following a clash in May, Charles reportedly spoke to the Queen and said: ‘Geidt has got to go.’
Sir Christopher denied he was forced out, but is said to feel that the Queen failed to support him. The former Army intelligence officer is recovering from his bruising treatment by climbing in Austria and tending his sheep on his farm in the Outer Hebrides.
The power struggle between the Queen’s household at Buckingham Palace and Prince Charles’s court at Clarence House has triggered a wave of departures of senior palace officials.
Since Sir Christopher fell on his sword in July, the Queen’s assistant private secretary, Samantha Cohen, and Prince Charles’s private secretary, Mark Leishman, have quit too.
Rebecca Deacon, the Duchess of Cambridge’s right-hand aide, resigned in March, and the Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Alan Reid, will retire at the end of the year.
One courtier said: ‘You could describe it all as a right royal shambles.’
Prince Harry’s favourite nightclub is undergoing a dramatic makeover. Tonteria, the Mexican-themed hotspot in Chelsea, owned by Harry’s close friend Guy Pelly, will re-launch next week with a very modern addition: transgender burlesque dancers. ‘They are taking the club to the next chapter through an evolved outlook, new layout and new interiors,’ says a spokesman for the club.
Grace Kelly girl’s a match for grandma
Hollywood icon Grace Kelly was once considered one of the most beautiful women in the world and there is no denying her granddaughter, Camille Gottlieb, is a chip off the old block.
The 19-year-old daughter of Princess Stephanie of Monaco and Jean-Raymond Gottlieb, a former palace guard at the Palais Princier in Monaco, made waves this week by posting a picture of herself online showing off her newly dyed blonde locks.
Hollywood icon Grace Kelly was once considered one of the most beautiful women in the world and there is no denying her granddaughter, Camille Gottlieb, is a chip off the old block
Sharing her fair hair and blue eyes with the Oscar-winner, who became Princess of Monaco after marrying Prince Rainier III and who died in a car crash in 1982 at 52, Camille also posed with a cigarette in her mouth – echoing Kelly in a scene from her 1954 Hitchcock film, Rear Window.
When she’s not sharing racy bikini snaps with her 25,000 followers online, Camille enjoys helping animals and last year visited Sri Lanka’s Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage.
How heiress Jemima’s ‘OCD’ filing helped clear ex Imran
Heiress Jemima Goldsmith is thrilled her ex-husband Imran Khan has been cleared of fraud and money laundering charges in his native Pakistan. She had to track down 15-year-old bank statements to help prove his innocence. ‘Lucky I’ve got an OCD [Obsessive-compulsive Disorder] filing system and could locate a statement from 2003 from a bank that has since closed,’ she says.
Despite Jemima’s support for the cricketer-turned politician, whom she divorced in 2004 after nine years of marriage, there’s no hope of a romantic reconciliation. In 2015, Goldsmith gave a teddy to her godson for his first birthday, and was told by the child’s mother the bear was a ‘transitional object’. Goldsmith, 43, replied: ‘My transitional object was Imran Khan.’
Is Tom Bradby no longer setting the agenda at ITV?
First the News At Ten anchor had to see off a challenge from the The Nightly Show. Now The Agenda, his political chat show, has been replaced by After The News, another ‘new live ITV topical discussion programme’.
Does Bradby, who introduced a new conversational tone to the 10pm bulletin, need a conversation with his ITV bosses?