He comes from a long line of infamous royal gluttons, but will ‘Frugal McDougal’ King Charles give his Sandringham guests the Christmas bird?

They call him ‘Frugal McDougal’ because of his frugal ways.

He once passed around a bottle of wine to seven people and believes that lunch is a luxury.

King Charles refuses to eat meat or fish two days a week, and woe betide anyone who continues to eat in his presence when he has – very quickly – put down his knife and fork.

As relatives head to Sandringham (including William and Kate, Beatrice and Eugenie and the Queen’s son – Mail on Sunday food critic Tom Parker Bowles!) you wonder if they shouldn’t pack a few extra sandwiches in their suitcases.

Prince Charles tastes ‘slow food’ in Italy during an official visit

King Charles III visits Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte to learn about sustainable vineyard practices in the Bordeaux region

The fact is that King Charles III doesn’t like to hang around when it comes to food.

All very different from his royal predecessors, princes who preferred to spoil themselves at the table.

King Henry VIII was a great talent when it came to chunks of deer and a bottle of wine, or several, to wash it down, although, to be fair, he followed gluttonous predecessors who made his own appetite seem decidedly spartan.

When King Henry II traveled to Ireland to spend Christmas in Dublin, he decided he better throw a bean festival like no other and built a special palace for the occasion.

Instead of plain chicken – let alone today’s Norfolk turkey with all the trimmings – Henry II’s table groaned with crane meat, heron, peacock, swan and wild geese.

After that you’ll need one or two Rennies.

Not to be outdone, his successor Henry III greeted his Christmas guests at Woodstock with 30 oxen, 100 sheep, five boars, nine dozen chickens, salted venison from Wiltshire, salmon and lamprey from Gloucester, six barrels (huge barrels) of wine from Bristol. and in case that ran out, another 13 tons were transported from Northampton on horseback.

It seems to run in the family.

King George IV’s favorite Christmas breakfast consisted of a few pigeons, three steaks, three-quarters of a bottle of white wine, a few glasses of champagne, then a glass of port and a cup of brandy to settle the stomach.

Less tasty were the cakes, King Charles I’s favorite Christmas dish, containing live frogs or birds.

More tastefully, His Majesty’s chefs turned pastries into eccentric sculptures, such as ships with working cannons and dead deer with red wine for blood.

His son Charles II liked to linger during lunch and it was not unknown for him to be served no fewer than 26 courses.

He had three personal servants to help him eat: a meat cutter, a waiter, and a cupbearer, all of whom made their offerings on their knees. In addition, another flunkey was given the task of dabbing food from the royal mouth.

King Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria, was not called Tum-Tum for nothing

A Gilray cartoon depicting King George III and Queen Charlotte enjoying a ‘frugal meal’

George IV as a caricature of the Prince of Wales from 1792 by Gillray with A Voluptuary under The Horrors of Digestion

King Edward VII was known as Tum Tum thanks to his enormous appetite

A satirical French cartoon showing Edward VII when he became king in 1901

Guests at a state dinner in honor of King Edward VII (seated at the table, left, above the woman with hair in a bun) hosted by Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria (next to him), in the Imperial Villa of Ischgl

His breakfast menu consisted of roast chicken and lobster, while lunch consisted of eight courses and dinner twelve.

Most days he managed to have tea, sandwiches, cakes and meat pies, while preparing a late supper of cakes just before bed.

His Majesty was so devoted to guzzling that he demanded an hour’s intermission in the opera so that he could have a ‘dupper’ – halfway between supper and supper – served in the royal box.

Let’s hope the King’s guests at Sandringham have more modest expectations on Christmas Eve.