For more than three decades, Chris Eadie was a quiet constant behind the scenes of royal life, a meticulous decorator whose brushwork helped maintain the grandeur of the Sandringham estate. Colleagues and family say he took deep pride in his craft and in the trust placed in him by the Royal household.

Eadie, 63, was self-employed but effectively part of the fabric of Sandringham. He was repeatedly called upon for high-profile tasks, including painting the bedroom of the Prince and Princess of Wales and undertaking what his family described as “top jobs” for the late Queen and, later, for King Charles.

At an inquest in Norfolk, his brother, Mark Eadie, portrayed him as a “talented perfectionist” whose identity was bound up with the quality of his work and the esteem in which it was held. That pride, the court heard, made a recent episode all the more devastating.

Mark told the coroner that King Charles had been unhappy with Chris’s painting of a pagoda on the Sandringham estate. The project was taken away from him and reassigned to another contractor. “After all his work, the job was given to someone else,” Mark said. “Chris was devastated.”

The inquest heard that this was not an isolated blow. In recent years, management changes at Sandringham and the introduction of new contractors meant that the steady stream of work Eadie had long relied on began to dry up. For a man who “lived for his work,” as his brother put it, the loss of both income and recognition struck hard.

Family members described a marked decline in his mental wellbeing as royal commissions became less frequent. The criticism over the pagoda job, coming after years of loyal service, appeared to deepen his distress.

On October 10, his partner, Joanna, found him dead in the garden of their home on the Sandringham estate. A post-mortem examination concluded that he had died by hanging.

The coroner recorded a conclusion of mental health deterioration, noting the cumulative impact of professional setbacks and emotional strain. For those who knew him, Eadie’s death has raised painful questions about the unseen pressures borne by people whose work, though largely invisible to the public, underpins some of Britain’s most visible institutions.