EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Nott Cott is the height of comfort for some 

Harry’s lament about the overcrowding of Nottingham Cottage ‘built for little people, humans of a bygone age’ is contradicted from further afield by Sir Philip Hay, Private Secretary to the Navy, the late Duchess of Kent. He lived there for ten years until his death in 1986, 32 years before Harry and Meghan moved into the Kensington Palace home ahead of their 2018 wedding. Sir Philip’s son Andrew, amused by Harry’s complaint, he says, “My father was 6-foot-4 and he was completely happy and comfortable there, even by today’s human standards.” But he had spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war on the Burma Railway, so he probably knew a little about mental and physical discomfort.

Harry’s lament about the overcrowding of Nottingham Cottage ‘built for little people, humans of a bygone age’ is contradicted from further afield by Sir Philip Hay, Private Secretary to the Navy, the late Duchess of Kent.

There were hopes that the new king would invalidate his late mother and allow DNA testing on the supposed ‘Princes of the Tower’ bones. The Queen refused permission to work on the bones, buried in Westminster Abbey after the princes were allegedly assassinated in the Tower of London by Richard III in his bid for succession. One source says King Charles, who as Prince of Wales wanted to identify Edward IV’s heirs, now wants the bones to rest in peace. “He has been informed that there could be no way of confirming that the remains, even if they are the correct age, are those of Prince Edward, aged 12, and Prince Richard, aged nine,” the source says. And it would be impossible to identify the killer. Will the fate of the medieval heir and the replacement of him ever be known?

Looking into her imaginary crystal ball, Lady Victoria Hervey, pictured, says of the Sussex marriage: “I see it collapsing at some point.” Him coming back to England and it being a really messy divorce. She predicts: “Meghan will end up with a great American billionaire and she will leave Harry.” Any advice for Plumpton today, Mystic Vic?

Looking into her imaginary crystal ball, Lady Victoria Hervey, pictured, says of the Sussex marriage: “I see it coming crashing down at some point.”

One of Harry’s less damaging family revelations is that his father, Charles, keeps a teddy bear, which comforted him during his traumatic years at Gordonstoun school. “He is a pitiful object with broken arms and dangling threads,” he writes. But there is no mention in Spare of the King’s personal toilet, which apparently travels with him everywhere.

The late teen idol David Cassidy was one of Gina Lollobrigida’s conquests after she learned the then-23-year-old’s nickname, Donkey. “She was twice my age, but she was very attractive,” Cassidy wrote in her memoir. “The first time we met he looked me up and down and said, ‘I heard you’re a monster. I want to meet the monster.’ time’.

Evergreen entertainer Jess Conrad, 86, recalls taking cocaine before a morning performance of the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, in which he played Jack. “He was on a two and eight right, but he hoped that by the time he got to the theater, the effect would have worn off,” he recalls. “But instead of the giant chasing me, I chased the giant down the bean stalk.” Happy dazing!