New light on what the butler saw

The Prince of Wales is very particular about his morning routine. His early wakeup tray of tea and toast - which

The cup and saucer are to the right, a silver spoon always pointing outwards at an angle of 5 o'clock. Plates must be placed with the Prince of Wales crest pointing to 12 o'clock. Butter must come in three balls (no more) and be chilled; and the royal toast is always in a silver rack, never on a plate.

If Charles, as he sometimes does on weekends, requires a lightly cooked breakfast of his own Duchy of Cornwall organic sausages, then the mustard jar must be placed on the left, pepper pot (freshly ground and black) directly behind it and the salt (flakes not fine) on the right.

Precise, rigid and a touch fussy, much like the Prince himself.

It says much about the perilous state of the current lascivious royal saga that attention is now focusing on what Charles has on his breakfast tray, when it is delivered (by 8am) and - most important of all - by whom.

Yesterday, Simon Solari, a former valet who worked for Prince Charles, poured scorn on the claims by George Smith, a former employee, that he had witnessed an incident involving the Prince and a servant when he brought Charles his morning "wake-up" tray.

"The royal household operates on a strict system on military lines, with specific servants having specific roles," Mr Solari told the Evening Standard, going on to claim that Smith, who worked as an orderly, was too far down the pecking order to have been given such a task.

Whatever the truth - Smith's brother maintains that he did serve breakfast to the Prince - what the latest twist illustrates is the utter dependence the royals have on the backroom brigade. The Queen refuses to call them "servants", preferring the word "staff ", but they are the people who organise their daily lives and who are privy to their habits and, most dangerously, their secrets.

Charles himself is certainly notorious for two things regarding his private staff: the large number he requires and the manner in which each one must follow a clearly defined routine. The Prince employs 85 people, with an annual wage bill of £2.5 million, many of them in vital clerical and administrative roles at his new London base, Clarence House, and across the road at St James's Palace.

His greatest indulgence - and even the Prince's friends admit he has many - is his gardening staff at Highgrove: head gardener, four full-time assistants and four part-time helpers.

But attention is now focused on the workings of what royal insiders refer to as the "G-branch", the "general" household staff comprising valets, butlers, footmen and drivers, of whom Charles employs more than 20 (apart from G-branch, there is "F-branch" - for food and drinks, comprised of chefs and waiters - and "H-branch", for housekeeping and cleaning).

George Smith was most certainly a member of G-branch but a very junior one. Rather - and crucially - the "breakfast run" is the remit of G-branch's senior figures: Charles's head valet and a deputy.

These men work alongside the other "seniors" of G-branch: two butlers, plus two assistants, two full-time chauffeurs and a further full-time one for Camilla Parker Bowles; plus junior members such as three orderlies at Clarence House in charge of odd general duties and a further one at Highgrove.

The highest Smith had risen within the Household was an assistant valet, the lowest rank in Gbranch, a job which would now command a salary of under £13,000.

"The two main valets work it out in regards to their days off," a Palace official said. "It really wouldn't fall on the most junior valet or orderly to look after the Prince.

"They're definitely behind-thescenes, hanging up the ties if you like." Charles, who chooses one tie from a selection of six laid out each morning, is said to have a collection of more than 200. In what is certain to bolster Charles's claims that the current allegation is "ludicrous", some former Palace staff are adamant each has a defined role.

"It is run along the lines of a business, with each person having a very particular job," says Sandra Morgan, 45, who was head dresser to Princess Margaret for 11 years.

"Every household, for all the senior royals, is the same: your role, from the very first day you walk through the doors of the Palace, is very clearly defined."

Certainly, Charles is also notorious as the fussiest of the royals. The Prince's fastidiousness - or rather obsessiveness - even applies to things such as his bathroom towels: when one of his senior valets - and note the crucial word, senior - draws his bath, the large white towel must be placed lengthways over a chair so that the Prince can wrap it around himself easily. What Smith in his former role would have been involved in, Palace officials supportive of the Prince admit, is his wardrobe.

Here, again, Charles is particular: each morning, the shirt for the day is folded and placed on his bed, with all of his buttons undone and cufflinks already in place; shoes with the laces undone are by a chair in front of his bedside table, socks always on top of the chair itself.

It is precisely this sort of task that would have fallen to someone like Smith.

Even before the current controversy, the relationship between the royals and their staff has been a complex and tricky one.

"It is upstairs-downstairs," says Sandra Morgan, who often accompanied Princess Margaret to Balmoral and Sandringham, "but it's not the case that if you saw a member of the family coming towards you, you had to somehow hide. They would always have a quick chat."

Miss Morgan says that protocol was applied to the kind of bathroom servants had. "Ensuite the higher you went," she says. Given the close proximity between master and servant, it is inevitable that tensions arise.

The Queen is said to have been the most furious she has ever been recently on discovering that a junior butler - part of her own " Gbranch" - had been taking the odd swig of gin from the royal drinks cabinet at Sandringham. "All hell to pay," a Palace official laughed.

In his much-maligned book, former butler Paul Burrell reveals how Princess Margaret would try to catch the servants out after returning with the Queen from a day's shooting at Balmoral: she would place her hand on the back of the television sets to see if they were warm.

"Lillibet, they've been watching TV again," she would joke to the Queen.

The dependency on their staff is highlighted by the story of how Prince Philip, having invited some friends for a mid-shoot barbecue at Balmoral, instructed his own staff to have everything ready. The Prince then proceeded to take over.

"But no one had thought to bring matches and none of the party was a smoker," a guest said. One of Gbranch was sent back to the main house to fetch a light.

Charles would doubtless wish that his own firestorm could be dealt with just as easily.