Mr Robinson and the team from the BBC, including scholar and historian Michael Jones, were making a program called Britain's Real Monarch.Dr Jones had discovered strong proof that the 15th-century English monarch Edward IV was illegitimate, thus throwing into question the legitimacy of all the kings and queens who followed. It appeared that the royal line should have extended not through Edward, but through his brother George, Duke of Clarence, and his heirs.

"They arrived here and filmed my surprise as they put the family tree down on the table," recalls Mr Hastings. Dr Jones told him he believed Edward IV was the illegitimate son of an archer. "His parents were 200 miles apart at the time he was supposed to have been conceived," says Mr Hastings. "The crown should have gone to Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence, which is our line of the family." The lie was perpetuated for more than 500 years and Mr Hastings, descended from a Catholic Plantagenet on the losing side of the civil wars of the 15th century, has been denied his throne.

"Who would bloody well want it, anyway?" asks the man who should be known as King Mike I. "I feel sorry for poor old Liz. I think she has a very hard life because it is so regimented. I do what I want, but if Liz wants to sit in and watch Fawlty Towers on TV, she can't."

The revelation has changed some things for Mr Hastings. He has received a proposal of marriage. "Some mad tart down in Melbourne wrote to me and wanted to marry me," said the king, who has received thousands of letters since the ABC screened the documentary in May 2004. "I haven't replied to one." The revelations crystallised Mr Hastings' thoughts on his adopted country and he is now a staunch republican. The publicity also generated a personal call from the NSW Minister for Citizenship, Gary Hardgrave. "He called and asked if I would be interested in taking out citizenship. It was really pure laziness, I just hadn't got round to filling out the damn forms.

"I consider myself an Aussie, I cheered for Australia during the Ashes and even bet a slab on it with my brother-in-law in England." Mr Hastings is also the 14th Earl of Loudoun and has passed on to his daughters a castle, manor house and gatekeeper's lodge at the family's Leicestershire seat of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Donnington Hall in Leicestershire and Loudoun Castle in Scotland have been sold off to pay death duties. "I take my title very seriously indeed, but the thing about being the King is a bit of a joke." In Jerilderie, his old maroon Falcon attracts plenty of waves from his neighbours, but that has more to do with his roles on the Shire Council, Historical Society and Football Club than his lofty title. At the Jerilderie Motor Inn, owner Bruce Crittenden insists that the 1000-strong population has been unaffected by the discovery of blue blood in their midst. "We just call him 'Kingsy' if we see him in the street," says Mr Crittenden with a laugh.

A triple-heart bypass operation earlier this year gave Mr Hastings time to reflect on the events of his life. After attending the elite Ampleforth school with Andrew Parker Bowles, the first husband of Prince Charles' wife, Camilla, ("a bloody nice bloke, by the way") Mr Hastings headed to Australia in 1960. "Me and my mate started selling Encyclopedia Britannicas in Bondi, but it was so hot carrying the bloody things around that we started going in the pubs, " he recalls. "We got so drunk that we couldn't remember which one we left them in."

Instead, he headed out bush to a life as a jackaroo. He met wife, Noelene, by chatting her up as she operated the switchboard on the local telephone exchange. Eventually they settled in Jerilderie, 60 kilometres north of the Victorian border. The couple had five children and shared no inclination to return to England. In 2002, Mr Hastings had his annus horribilis, with the death of Noelene from breast cancer, as well as the deaths of his mother and stepfather. "I went back with my daughters and used my Earl title. It is the best way to get attention in the old country."

But the true King of England found he did not like the class system and was glad to return home to his job with Rice Research Australia. "I am a republican. I think we have progressed long enough and far enough to stand on our own two feet.

"Now that might be a job I could do — "I could volunteer to be Australia's first head of state."