Prince Charles at 70: no longer on a mission but ready to rule
As Charles turns 70, the longest-serving heir in waiting admits his mission to “save the world’’ will have to be reined in. But can he restrain himself?
In one of many revealing moments in a television interview last week, the Prince of Wales noted that all his predecessors as heir to the English or British throne had to learn for themselves how to perform the notoriously undefined job of monarch-in-waiting.
The example Charles cited was Edward, the Black Prince, who in the mid-14th century had “rushed about ... fighting battles while his father [King Edward III] sat somewhere else. He was busy winning his spurs.”
That was a polite way of putting the career of one of England’s most rapacious princes, whose “Black” nickname was partly down to his reputed fondness for pillage, plunder and the massacre of French peasants in campaigns from the 1346 Battle of Crécy onwards.
Charles has faced a very different challenge in winning his spurs as heir apparent, a job he inherited at the age of three. He has been Prince of Wales for 60 years, and the longest-serving heir apparent in history. He has certainly fared better than the Black Prince, who waited 46 years to inherit the throne but died of dysentery a year before the death of his father.
Yet, as Charles celebrates his 70th birthday today, it is clear that he still had a case to make to the British people: that he is a worthy successor to his mother; that King Charles III will not be a royal disaster; and that his lifelong urge to “save the world” — as his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, put it last week — will not provoke a constitutional crisis.
That case was laid out with carefully choreographed elan in last week’s BBC documentary, Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70. With his family on hand at every turn to sing his praises and chuckle at his jokes, Charles tackled head-on the most persistent criticisms levelled against him: that he is prone to “meddling” in affairs of state; and that when he becomes king he will not shut up about the myriad causes he has made his life’s work.
How convincing was his promise to “operate within the constitutional parameters” as monarch? Or his blunt insistence that “I’m not that stupid. I do realise that it is a separate exercise, being sovereign”? And his dismissal of “the idea that I’m going to go on in exactly the same way” as “complete nonsense”? In short, has Charles’s timely candour finally won him his spurs?
It was in 2009 that the prince’s friend and biographer Jonathan Dimbleby started dropping hints that Charles intended to keep speaking out as king on the issues that concerned him most — the environment, inner cities, heritage and architecture and alternative medicine, among others.
From the time he dismissed a planned addition to the National Gallery as “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”, to the notorious handwritten “black spider memos” he used to send to ministers, Charles has repeatedly inserted his oar where his critics claimed he should never have paddled.
In 2013, Dimbleby suggested that “a quiet constitutional revolution was afoot”, further spreading alarm that the next king of England might prove a loose cannon, taking aim at any government whose policies displeased him.
The growing popularity of his sons, the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, even encouraged suggestions that the crown should skip a generation and that Charles should abdicate in favour of Prince William (a scenario no one in royal circles has ever taken seriously). Stories that he talked to plants did not help.
Last week’s documentary was meant to be reassuring, but it also confirmed that Charles’ convictions remain very much intact. At one point Prince Harry noted: “When we’re sitting down at dinner . . . you can understand why he gets frustrated because when you’ve been banging the drum for this long [about the environment and other issues] and still no one listens, when you care that much . . .” The Duchess of Cornwall added: “He’s driven by this passion inside to really help.”
Yet the prince has now publicly acknowledged that what his allies have described as his “heartfelt interventions in national life” will have to be reined in. Reviewers of the documentary generally found him persuasive. But will he really be able to restrain himself for long?
“Ten years ago, it would still have seemed premature and disrespectful to the Queen for him to publicly address what kind of king he will be,” noted a source who knows him well. “Perhaps because his reign is nearer than ever before, he felt it was better to address [his critics] before the reign starts.”
The source said it would be “wrong to assume that he will bristle at the restrictions or confinement of that role [as king] — he’ll embrace it wholeheartedly. I don’t think it will be hard at all. I think he may even find it a welcome change of gear in that I think he will relish ‘leading’ in a different way.”
Another source close to the prince argued that he had lived a very different life from his mother, and his knowledge of the modern world might help keep him relevant as king. “She went into the role of monarch at such a young age, she almost knew nothing else,” the source said.
Charles, by contrast, had lived “a life less ordinary . . . getting involved in issues and setting out and putting in the public domain alternative views. That is what he knows. How many people aged 70 can completely change their ways? He will be a king with a difference.”
Perhaps Charles’s greatest advantage is the unswerving support of his sons, both committed to seeing their father succeed, in both senses of the word. “He hasn’t even reached the point (of) being monarch,” said William. “So he’s still got his job to do.”
Harry added: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but his sole job was to sit quietly and wait. He was one of the first people in the family to end up making the most of that role.”
Nor does it hurt Charles’s image that gaggles of grandchildren are beginning to gather, and it turns out that he amuses them by reading from Harry Potter, with lots of funny voices. The documentary showed that at times he can seem slightly out of touch — he did not seem to know that planes fly on Easter Sundays, and one contributor noted of him: “He is incredibly, er, enthusiastic about trying to look after the welfare of British bees.” But he is not wholly divorced from the realities of domestic parenthood. He’s a “stickler for turning lights off”, said Harry. “He took us litter-picking when we were younger,” added William.
“Your children always surprise you really, because you think they pull your leg all the time and appear not to pay any attention at all,” Charles noted, summing up an experience shared by millions of parents. “You then later discover perhaps they did — ‘Good Lord, don’t tell me you actually listened’.”
The prince is understood to have long been “bemused and frustrated” that he still needed to discuss his commitment to the constitutional requirements of monarchy. His communications staff and private secretaries have been issuing statements and writing letters of reassurance on his behalf for years.
The fact that he recognised a problem still existed — and agreed that a milestone birthday was a good time to address it — suggests that Charles is not as impervious to criticism as some of his harsher critics have claimed. Royal aides said that last week’s documentary signalled his acceptance that his kingly intentions needed to be publicly declared “from the horse’s mouth” and not put about discreetly by his courtiers. Yet a hint of chagrin remained in some of his responses to the documentary, notably when he was asked about his “meddling”. Charles replied that he had always thought of it as “motivating” — and mentioned his concerns about life in Britain’s inner cities, first expressed 40 years ago.
“If that’s meddling, I’m very proud of it,” he said. He may yet turn out to be a very different monarch.
The Times
