They did, however, need a little help opening the bottles, and that's where footman Matthew King, 28, came in. Having the uniquely British job description of both manning the Queen's drinks trolley and walking her eight dogs (four corgis and four corgi-dachshund crosses), King would reportedly give the pooches nips of gin and whisky with their fresh chicken dinners, then call in fellow servants to titter as the pooches stumbled hither and yon.
In the royal family you can date a porn star but you don't mess with the Queen's beloved corgis. "They are the closest thing to her," says Paul Burrell, Diana's former butler. "Her Majesty's children are often not around, her husband is not always there, but you can guarantee her corgis are always around."
The Queen, apparently tipped off by a staffer, was not amused, and King was demoted with a $3,000 cut in pay. "It's equivalent to a young child having alcohol," says Brendan Robinson, a London vet. Adds Dr. Roger Mugford, an animal shrink who treated the royal corgis for aggression: "Corgis are big dogs in little bodies. So if you had a drunk one you are likely to get the 'wee man' syndrome of a man acting up a bit."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
