A BBC interview with King Charles from 2017 resurfaced on TikTok this week, with nearly half a million viewers tuning in to relive the moment the monarch was asked about his grandson Prince George's first day at school.
"Your grandson had his first day at school today, did you give him any advice?" a broadcaster asked the King, to which he joked: "Of course not! He wouldn't take it from me, I don't think at that age."
"I shall be interested to hear how he got on," he continued. "At that age you don't worry quite so much about going to school as you do when you get a bit older. It's all business of meeting new people and wondering, you know."
King Charles was then told that little Prince George looked anxious as he approached the school gates of Thomas's Battersea for the first time.
"Oh, poor old thing," responded the doting grandfather. "But it's being left there to have get on with it when the parents go away that's always the problem. It's good for you in the end I suppose. It's character building."
Royal fans were quick to weigh in on how King Charles appeared to come across as a "doting grandfather" and a man who "loves his family," though several other comments shed light on the monarch's own experience of school.
"He’s actually really perceptive. We know his school years weren’t so great so he’s got a reflective way of looking at how the fear of going to school doesn’t come in yet. It feels personal," wrote one TikTok user.
"Poor Charles had a terrible time at school," added another, while a third wrote: "This breaks my heart when you know how awful his time at school was."
It is well documented that Charles reportedly had a difficult time at Gordonstoun School, where it was "common knowledge" he was picked on by his peers. Former schoolmate Johnny Stonborough told The Telegraph "It might even give some solace to countless British children to know their King was bullied and survived."
The famously "tough" co-educational boarding school in Moray, Scotland, was also attended by Prince Philip and Zara Tindall. During his teenage years, the then-Prince Charles regularly sent letters home detailing his misery.
One said: "I hardly get any sleep in the House because I snore and I get hit on the head all the time. It’s absolute hell."
Another read: "The people in my dormitory are foul. Goodness they are horrid, I don't know how anyone could be so foul."
They throw slippers all night long or hit me with pillows or rush across the room and hit me as hard as they can, then beetle back again as fast as they can, waking up everyone else in the dormitory at the same time."
Despite reports of his experience at the £15,000+ per year school, in 1974 the monarch reflected on his time there. "I am lucky in that I believe it taught me a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities. It taught me to accept challenges and take the initiative," he said.