Prince Harry ‘jumped the fence’ at Glastonbury and partied until 4am, the festival founder joked after he was knighted at Windsor Castle today.

Sir Michael Eavis, 88, hosted the first festival on Worthy Farm, Somerset, in 1970 and was honoured for services to music and charity on Tuesday.

Speaking after the ceremony, which was presided over by the Princess Royal, the event’s founder said both the King and Harry had attended the summer festival before.

Sir Michael said: ‘The King came once, Prince Charles. And Harry – I think he jumped the fence I should think.’

When asked how he knew this, Sir Michael chuckled and said: ‘I’ve got spies everywhere. No, I’ve got security all over the place actually.’

He continued: ‘He enjoyed it!

‘[The then] Prince Charles enjoyed it as well actually.’

Regarding the duke’s visit, the festival founder said: ‘He only came once. That was the old Prince Harry, before he went to America.’

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In 2013, Harry was spotted backstage watching The Rolling Stones headline the Pyramid Stage and partying until the early hours of the morning with Sir Michael.

Speaking at the festival that year, the dairy farmer said: ‘Prince Harry was great actually.

‘I recommended that he should go on into the night, because the nightlife is what Glastonbury is all about.

‘At three o’clock in the afternoon, you don’t get it.

‘I told him to get his taxi driver to come back at five o’clock in the morning and do you know what? He lasted until four in the morning.

‘His friends were all having a great time. He didn’t want to make a formal thing of being here.’

Greenpeace, Oxfam and WaterAid all receive donations from the festival and the event aims to raise around £2 million per year, which also helps hundreds of local causes.

In 2023, the festival donated more than £3.7 million to a range of charitable causes and campaigns including homelessness organisation Centrepoint, food redistributors Fareshare, several refugee charities and mental health charity Mind.

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Sir Michael said that more than three million people wanted to attend the festival this year, more than 50 years after the event was founded.

He said: ‘I’m so pleased that it became a success after all the grafting it took to get there.

‘Trouble with the authorities and police and accountants and licensing and everything – in the end I had the last word!’

On his legacy and the future of Glastonbury, Sir Michael said he hoped the festival’s organisation would remain ‘in the family’ and called it the ‘best job in the world’.

Glastonbury is the largest greenfield festival in the world, drawing around 200,000 people each year, the biggest musical talent and a raft of celebrity guests.

In an interview with the official Glastonbury website, Sir Michael said his daughter Emily, with whom he runs the festival, had brought him the official letter about his knighthood, adding: ‘I was really surprised to see it, actually. Why did they choose me, I wonder?

‘What can I say, really? I’ve done quite a lot of stuff in my life and I’ve always been fairly sure that I was doing the right thing.’

Last year, Eavis sat in an office chair in front of hundreds of fans as he ‘kicked off’ the festival after recent health fears.

The crowd chanted ‘Michael’ as the 87-year-old was brought on to The Park Stage to perform a collection of classics at the festival in Somerset, as he recovered from an operation on his leg.

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After her father’s performance, his daughter Emily Eavis said: ‘It was brilliant, wasn’t it? That was such a lovely moment. It’s really nice to see him here just to kick off the festival.’

Michael greeted the crowd by saying: ‘Hello there – are you ready for this? It’s a warm up for the show, it’s not the real thing.’

Last year’s festival saw Arctic Monkeys, US rockers Guns N’ Roses and Sir Elton John headlining on the famous Pyramid Stage.

This year will see Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA will headline the iconic festival. Shania Twain will play the legendary Sunday slot meanwhile.

The hotly-anticipated festival will be taking place from Wednesday June 26 to Sunday June 30.

It marks the first time in the event’s history that female acts have taken two of the three headline slots.

Other acts on this year’s line-up include Brit Award-winning rapper Little Simz and Afrobeats star Burna Boy, making his Pyramid Stage debut.

Big names like LCD Soundsytem, PJ Harvey, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Kiwanuka, Janelle Monae, Paul Heaton, Keane, Paloma Faith, Olivia Dean and Ayra Starr will also be hitting the stage.

Thirteen-member boyband Seventeen are set to become the first K-pop band to perform on the Pyramid stage.

Tickets for the event have sold out with the final wave of resale tickets selling in just 22 minutes last week.

Those who missed out on buying tickets in November were given two more chances to buy them this week, although tickets were ‘very limited’.

The cost of getting into the 2024 festival was £355 per person plus a £5 booking fee, up from £335 for 2023’s event.