King Charles was foraging mushrooms as Queen Elizabeth lay dying: tell-all
King Charles apparently has a fascination with royal dirt — though probably not the gossipy kind.
A new book has alleged that then-Prince Charles was in the woods foraging in the muck for mushrooms on Sept. 8, the day Queen Elizabeth died.
Charles, 74, flew to Balmoral Castle with his sister, Princess Anne, that morning after they were alerted about their mother’s bad health, wrote Robert Jobson in his book “Our King: Charles III: The Man and the Monarch Revealed.”
After spending several hours with the queen, Charles went to his nearby Birkhall estate, as there “seemed no immediate reason for alarm,” according to an excerpt published in the Daily Mail.
Charles then went for a walk in the “surrounding woods, armed with a walking cane and a basket” to scope for vegetables.
“More importantly, he was drawing solace and strength from the trees, the smell of the earth and the murmur of the River Muick,” Jobson wrote.
“Understandably lost in thought, the prince knew that the defining moment of his life, at the advanced age of 73, was fast approaching: the death of his mother and his accession as king,” he added.
While his protection officers had “deliberately hung back to give him some privacy,” they knew which part of the grounds Charles was scrounging for mushrooms.
“It was one of these officers who went to find Charles to inform him that the queen’s condition had dramatically worsened,” Jobson noted, saying that his mother “ebbed away.”
Charles then quickly returned to Balmoral Castle and was able to be by the sovereign’s bedside when she died around 3:10 p.m. GMT.
Also present were his sister Anne, Charles’ wife Camilla and the queen’s doctor, James Glass.
About two hours later, Charles’ son, Prince William, and the queen’s other sons, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, arrived at the royal family’s Scottish residence.
Prince Harry came just before 8 p.m., according to Jobson, who said that his sources revealed the Duke of Sussex, 38, “decided not to fly up to Scotland with his brother and uncles after a disagreement over his wife, Meghan [Markle]. When Harry insisted that she should accompany him, it was his father who told him she couldn’t come.”
Harry is also a lover of ‘shrooms — though not the kind used as a pizza topping.
The Invictus Games founder claimed he has used drugs to overcome his past traumas, according to his chat about taking psychedelics with trauma expert Gabor Maté last month.
“It was the cleaning of the windscreen, the removal of life’s filters — these layers of filters — it removed it all for me and brought me a sense of relaxation, relief, comfort, a lightness that I managed to hold back for a period of time,” Harry said.
“I started doing it recreationally and then started to realize how good it was for me,” he explained. “They’re unlocking so much of what we’ve suppressed.”
Harry, who opened up about his use of cocaine and marijuana when he was a teenager in his bombshell memoir, “Spare,” also described the moment he tried magic mushrooms while attending a party at “Friends” star Courteney Cox‘s home.
Accompanied by a friend, Harry discovered a box of “black diamond mushroom chocolates” and “washed them down with tequila,” leading to wild “hallucinations” and a night full of memories.
