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Ruthie Henshall is a decorated West End star and choosing a career on the stage over a future with her former boyfriend, Prince Edward, is something she explores in her new memoir. The Olivier Award-winning actor dated King Charles's youngest brother from 1988 to 1993, and she was invited to join the royals on holiday at Balmoral Castle.
Now immortalised thanks to fictionalised accounts in the likes of The Crown, Ruthie has even shared her own account of the infamous, unofficial "Balmoral Test". Whilst some people's accounts of the supposed "test" aren't that flattering, Ruthie fondly remembers her time in Scotland.
Speaking on HELLO’s A Right Royal Podcast, she claimed, "I didn’t know what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect my own maid. I didn’t expect somebody to come and tell me that they were going to draw the bath. I didn’t expect my suitcase to be unpacked."
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"I didn’t know what the weekend was going to bring. I didn’t know I was going to dinner with them all on the Friday," she continued. Thankfully for Ruthie, Prince Edward gave her the heads up once they’d made it to the famous Scottish residence.
"We were going for a cookout with the royals with no protection officers, no nothing, just driving up there," Ruthie added. "They were doing the cooking and the cleaning, that was surreal."
She recalls how surreal it was to watch the Royal Family "wash up and dry up" and to be there with them. That wasn't the only unusual aspect of staying at Balmoral, according to Ruthie, as ghost stories and pranks were seemingly very popular.
People were "jumping out at [her] when [she] went to the loo" and one of the royals who would partake in such hijinks was allegedly King Charles.
From relaxed cooking to pranks together, Ruthie described it as "a family just having a good time", adding that - when he wasn’t enjoying ghost stories - King Charles would also man the bar, with his speciality being rather potent martinis.
Ruthie also recalls how accommodating the royal residences were to her. They even allowed her to bring her pet cats as she’d watch them "run around Windsor and Buckingham Palace".
As for meeting Edward’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Ruthie said the first meeting took her by surprise. Revealing she didn’t know she was going to meet the late monarch, she compares it to the "Mad Hatter’s tea party… it was as exactly as you’d think tea at Windsor would be".
What Ruthie’s first-hand experiences capture so well is how Balmoral truly is a place where the royals can relax. In the past, Princess Eugenie revealed in ITV's Our Queen at Ninety documentary, that the late monarch was "happiest" in the highlands.
King Charles has also paid tribute to the importance of Balmoral to his mother. In the foreword to a new guidebook released earlier this year, the King shared, "Balmoral has been the cherished Scottish home of my family since the estate was purchased by Prince Albert, my great-great-great-grandfather, in 1852."
'Since my earliest childhood, it has held, and continues to hold, a uniquely special place in the hearts of my family and myself, and my late mother particularly treasured her time at Balmoral," he added. "It was here, in these most beloved of surroundings, that she chose to spend her final days."
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