{"id":183538,"date":"2026-04-02T16:46:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183538\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T16:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:46:20","slug":"queen-elizabeth-and-king-charles-played-jokes-on-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183538\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Elizabeth and King Charles Played Jokes on Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

April Fool\u2019s Day is here, and although they might seem like the last people to pull pranks on their employees, former royal butler Grant Harrold<\/a> says that King Charles<\/a> and Queen Elizabeth couldn\u2019t resist a practical joke<\/a>. Speaking on behalf of Heart Bingo Online<\/a>, Harrold, who worked for The King<\/a> at Highgrove between 2004 and 2011, shared some of his favorite royal pranks<\/a>\u2014and they weren’t limited to April 1.<\/p>\n

Discussing one incident in Scotland, Harrold says, \u201cI remember the head gardener was going out for a walk with King Charles, and the joke was The King wanted us to give him a rucksack full of stones.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continues that the royal gardener strapped the heavy backpack on and \u201ccould hardly move,\u201d and on top of the rocks inside, a pair of antlers were attached to the back. \u201cThe King is involved in this joke and meets the gardener at the back of the house, and I promise you, if you’d seen it, you couldn’t stop laughing. It was ridiculous. The way the antlers were positioned were literally at the top of his head.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Queen\n<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth and King Charles share a laugh at the 2010 Braemar Highland Games.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

After walking \u201cfor quite a distance,\u201d the gardener in question \u201cwas really struggling,\u201d Harrold says, causing King Charles to take pity on him. \u201cHe eventually said, \u2018Oh, for God’s sake, take that thing off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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The former royal butler<\/a> adds that King Charles and Queen Elizabeth \u201cused to get up to bits of mischief\u201d and \u201chad a good sense of humor,\u201d but Prince Harry<\/a> \u201cwas one of the biggest practical jokers<\/a>.\u201d Harrold recalls that Harry loved \u201cjumping out and scaring people and winding people up and all that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrold himself once became the target of a prank the late Queen used to play on unsuspecting staff members. \u201cShe came up and stopped in front of me and said something inaudible,\u201d Harrold says, admitting he \u201chad no idea what she said.\u201d Since the late Queen \u201cwas waiting for an answer,\u201d he eventually replied, \u201cYes, Your Majesty,\u201d to which she said, \u201cVery good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"King\n<\/p>\n

Harrold says Prince Harry, pictured with The King in 2014, “was one of the biggest practical jokers.”<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what I had agreed to,\u201d Harrold recalls. \u201cThe chef next to me said, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s amazing. She\u2019s never done this before, The Queen<\/a> normally doesn\u2019t speak to anyone. You\u2019re honored.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Get exclusive access to fashion and beauty trends, hot-off-the-press celebrity news, and more.<\/p>\n

However, Harrold was later clued in to the joke. \u201cI was told that what The Queen used to do, she would come up to you and she would say something inaudible or something that didn’t make sense to see how you reacted,\u201d he shares. \u201cSo it was a bit of fun and innocent\u2014it was to catch you off guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nKing Charles
\n<\/a>
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\nQueen Elizabeth II
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April Fool\u2019s Day is here, and although they might seem like the last people to pull pranks on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-183538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}