Media is mauled by Grouse of Windsor

Seated between Princes William and Harry, he appeared unaware that his asides were being picked up by the press pack’s microphones.

"These bloody people," he said, after the BBC’s royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell twice asked how the princes were feeling about their father’s wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles. "I can’t bear that man," he said, clearly referring to the BBC reporter. "I mean, he’s so awful, he really is."

The prince, it appeared, was in no mood for playing up to the assembled media. "I hate these people," he said.

It has been a difficult year for Charles. First, Prince Harry was caught dressed up as a Nazi. Then Charles’s mother said that she would not be attending his wedding, and it became clear that a significant proportion of his future subjects neither liked his fiance nor approved of the marriage plans.

Then, with a week to go to the big day and the pressure mounting, Charles found himself and his family being pursued around the Swiss slopes by paparazzi photographers.

It was all, apparently, too much to take.

Paddy Harverson, his communications secretary, confirmed that it was the antics of the paparazzi that had proved to be the final straw.

Mr Witchell, he said, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. "It wasn’t personal. Nicholas was just first in the firing line," explained Mr Harverson.

"The prince had been upset by the paparazzi, who had been following him from the first day of his holiday and his frustrations just boiled over."

The question of whether the prince would apologise to Mr Witchell, however, would not be addressed in public. "That is a private matter," said Mr Harverson.

The prince just wanted to get on with his holiday, according to Mr Harverson, and he had not been looking forward to the photocall. It was not a question of holding the press in contempt, he added.

For his part, Mr Witchell attempted to laugh off the matter. When he appeared on the lunchtime news on BBC1, he appeared to find it difficult to keep a straight face and was still smirking as he rounded off his piece to camera.

Until yesterday, Mr Witchell was probably best known, outside his role as a royal reporter, for sitting on a lesbian who had burst into the BBC’s Six O’Clock News studio to protest about the introduction of Clause 28.

Less well known is his fascination with the Loch Ness Monster; he wrote a book on the subject in 1974 and was behind an extensive survey of the loch carried out in 1992 in an attempt to resolve the mystery.

He became the BBC’s royal correspondent in 1998.

The BBC was quick to leap to the defence of its correspondent. "He is one of our finest. His question was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances," said a spokesman.

The BBC is the host broadcaster for Charles and Camilla’s wedding blessing in St George’s Chapel. Mr Witchell is not providing the main, studio-based, live commentary, but will be reporting from the scene at Windsor.

Prince Charles’s latest spat with the media came a year after he fell out with a tabloid newspaper over pictures of Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton taken on a skiing holiday in the same resort and published under the headline "Finally Wills gets a girl".

Yesterday, his mumbled comments were picked up on microphones resting in the snow in front of the royals as they answered questions.

He was aware that the microphones were there and had pointed them out as he took his seat.

During the five-minute media event in the village of Monbiel, on the outskirts of Klosters, Prince Charles looked uncomfortable as he was asked about his feelings in the run-up to his wedding.

"I’m very glad you have heard of it," the prince replied sarcastically, before making his asides to his sons. To round off a miserable day for the prince, it later emerged that there was another hitch in his wedding plans.

The Spanish royal family will not be represented at the wedding, after Crown Prince Felipe and his wife decided to see the Chilean president, Ricardo Lagos, receive an honorary doctorate from Spain’s University of Salamanca instead.

‘I can’t bear that man. He’s awful, he really is’

THE mumbled exchange between the three princes began with Charles asking his two sons: "Do I put my arms around you?"

Prince William replied: "No, don’t, but you can take the horrible glasses away."

Charles said: "Do not be rude about my glasses, I couldn’t bear it if you were."

Following a comment by William about a green coat, Charles said: "That’s very unfair. Shh, shh, do not overdo it with me."

Urged by a member of the press to "look like you know each other", the two princes leaned into their father, who put his arms around them.

Charles muttered: "What do we do?" William replied: "Keep smiling, keep smiling." William then told reporters he was "very happy, very pleased" at his father’s forthcoming wedding.

Asked whether he was looking forward to the nuptials in eight days, Charles told the reporter: "I am very glad you have heard of it anyway."

The three princes then chuckled among themselves before Charles launched into his tirade, saying under his breath: "These bloody people. I can’t bear that man. I mean, he’s so awful, he really is."

William then told reporters he was looking forward to his father’s big day.

"So long as I don’t lose the ring, it will be all right. My one responsibility. I’m bound to get something wrong," he said.