King Charles III emerges, well and truly up for the next act

Three cheers for Charles who, at 74, is not only still standing, he’s thriving.

Hail Charles III – from a nervous, almost awkward teenager to a man described as intelligent and well-informed, interested and engaged – a King who seems determined to make his mark. Picture: Jack Hill / POOL / AFP

Three cheers for the King – not so much for being King but for taking on a new job in his 70s.

We know he didn’t have much choice in the matter: like a lot of other 2ICs, he had to wait for the boss to exit before he got his shot. There was a time there, too, when many thought he would miss out altogether and the kingmakers would bypass the loyal lieutenant in the corner palace and go for a younger, glossier candidate a rung below.

So three cheers for Charles for navigating those treacherous waters and emerging clutching Camilla’s hand and with a CV almost as long as the train of a royal bride. The new King could probably make a small fortune on the speaking circuit explaining how he spent several decades transitioning from training wheels to the main role without losing his mind or his enthusiasm for the job.

A young Prince Charles, aged four, with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. Picture: Getty Images/The Times

Charles with his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1969. Picture: Corbis via Getty Images

Queen Elizabeth II and Charles at the Palace of Westminster in 2019. Picture: Getty Images

That’s what’s interesting about the King, just getting started when so many in his cohort are at the end of their careers, and by all accounts he is pretty keen to make a mark. He had a strong role model in his mother, hanging in until the end, but Charles could have turned out to be less engaged, less committed, less suitable – more of an Edward VIII or even a Prince Harry or, heaven help us, more of a Prince Andrew.

Instead we’ve seen him grow from a nervous, almost awkward teenager, a somewhat startled young husband and father, a somewhat shamefaced divorced person, a more dignified and devoted second spouse; to serious promoter of good causes and a patient assistant to Queen Elizabeth. More Prince Philip at his best.

Prince Charles on the cover of Time magazine.

Australian Women’s Weekly cover, 1982.

Many of us feel we have grown up with this King, via 1950s women’s magazines through the 1980s tabloids and then broadsheets and TV specials, his post-World War II life in tandem with the baby boomers bombarded by huge changes over the years.

Divorce, secularisation of society, the evaporation of privacy, the digital revolution, the republican movement – all these developments shaped Charlie as much as they shaped any of us, and unlike his parents, who were protected in so many ways by a different media in a different world, almost nothing in the King’s life escaped close scrutiny.

Only the most heartless anti-monarchist surely would feel that Charles has deserved the indignities and humiliations at times heaped upon him – even if he brought some of them on himself. A life in the spotlight as the price to be paid for royal rule proved too much for Prince Harry but his father did not buckle, and in fact doubled down on issues such as his right to marry Camilla and more recently to insist that she be his queen, not a half-baked “princess consort”.

Charles and his bride Camilla, following the church blessing of their civil wedding ceremony in 2005. Picture: AFP

Of course, he has been entitled, in the true meaning of that word – having the right or permission to do something – to be King eventually. But he appears to have been determined, dogged even, in ensuring he wasn’t knocked off by anyone behind him in the queue.

One way and another, he has used all that waiting time rather well. Many who meet him and chat for any length of time report that he is intelligent and well-informed, interested and engaged. No drip or drongo in other words – which is a bit of a surprise because, growing up alongside him through the 1960s and ’70s, he did seem a bit uncool, even when his PR people tried to up his image.

I first met Charles at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach in 1979 (OK, “met” might be a slight amplification of our interaction that day) when he was on the wrong side of 30 but being marketed as a hottie.

He ran into the surf for an early morning swim, leaving photographers huffing. At the beach for my own constitutional, I swam across for an (unsuccessful) chat with a bloke who looked out of his depth in more ways than one. He was the recipient of advice, the barb of jokes but some in his age group had empathy for the young adult trying to make sense of work and duty at a time when a more liberal approach to sex and marriage came with its own confusion and pressures.

Jane Priest, the bikini-clad model who ‘stole a kiss’ from Prince Charles.

During his stay at the Timbertop campus of Victoria's Geelong Grammar School in 1966.

My beach interaction, during Charles’s last Australian tour, before his engagement to Diana in February 1981, was followed the next day by the notorious set-up in which a model in a bikini rushed the prince as he emerged from the surf and “stole a kiss”, as the media put it. That’s when some of us really did feel sorry for the guy.

In more recent times we’ve seen Charlie has a temper, but there are worse faults and who among us hasn’t had a meltdown in the office at some stage in the past 40 or 50 years when we couldn’t find a pen that works? At least our lad seems to have understood we’ve been put on this world to do more than stay calm and smell the roses – although he’s good at that as well.

Growing into adulthood alongside him, we suspected the prince didn’t really love all that tough love stuff at Timbertop in Victoria and it was a surprise to find him so connected to the outdoors and his estate and the planet, especially when many of us lagged in that area. Yet there he was, a “greenie” also interested in the built environment. He was ridiculed for interventions and suggestions about conservation issues well before they went mainstream, but proved to be ahead of his time.

Leaky pen episode … King Charles gets frustrated while signing the guest book at Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland.

He has tried to be equally farsighted on religion (even as many other baby boomers dumped their beliefs). In Saturday’s coronation, the Protestants got the front pews (metaphorically), which seemed like a backflip for a King who has tried for a more ecumenical approach to his role as Defender of the Faith. Through the years he has tilted at establishing a role as defender of all faiths. On Saturday he took the traditional oath, but there was a significant update, with the Archbishop of Canterbury saying that the Church of England, which is headed by the King, would foster an environment where “people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely”.

‘Greenie’ Charles in 2007, visiting the Great Fen Project in Cambridgeshire. Picture: AFP

It was just a few words, but important for a modern monarchy that claims divine inheritance but must appeal to a much broader electorate. The need to practice D&I (diversity and inclusion) is something many boomers have taken a while to understand but Charles has been with us on the journey with the carefully curated coronation showing his ability to navigate a path in tricky territory. He has prevailed.

Perhaps that’s what the kids who grew up with the new King ought to salute, and even emulate: at 74, Charles is not only still standing, he’s thriving.

Having withstood the slings and arrows of Fleet Street; the horrors of a broken marriage, divorce and death of a former wife; career disappointments; and the ageism of a TikTok world, he is well and truly up for the next act, as the corporates say. 

Hip, hip and all that.