Misuzulu's position as king is also being questioned by some and a legal case is currently under way challenging his recognition as monarch by the state.

In theory, it was created to empower everyday people and to prevent the consolidation of power by any one despot or monarch.

The monarch was joined by singer Sir Rod Stewart and his wife, Penny Lancaster, at the ceremony for the organisation which he founded as the Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture in 1990.

Had Ms Pitcher not quit, it is thought she would have been the first public servant in modern times to be sacked by the monarch under such a process.

That the monarch took the news "calmly and without surprise" suggests to Carter that she must have known.