Christopher Sykes (politician)

[7] Sykes entertained the prince and princess in great splendour at Brantingham Thorpe, his country house in Yorkshire, the Doncaster Races, and his London home in Berkeley Square.

[8] One night, at the Marlborough Club, the Prince- who hated the vice of drunkenness- poured a glass of brandy over the inebriated Sykes's head; the latter's only response was to bow and say "As your Royal Highness pleases".

This performance was repeated subsequently, "dutifully obliged" by the "complicit" Sykes, to the sycophantic appreciation of courtiers present.

[8] In the late 1880s he was compelled to take out large loans which led to a long-running dispute with his solicitor and parliamentary agent eventually settled in the Court of Chancery.

[12] Despite this, the Prince of Wales never forgot his devoted friend, and after Sykes' death in 1898, he installed a tablet to his memory at Westminster Abbey.