After a lifetime of preparation, Charles takes the throne
Thursday, 8 September 2022, 21:53
Last update: about 2 hours ago
Prince Charles has been preparing for the crown all his life. Now, aged 73, that moment has finally arrived.
Charles, the oldest person ever to assume the British throne, became King Charles III on Thursday after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. No date has been set for his coronation.
After an apprenticeship that began as a boy, Charles embodies the modernization of the English monarchy. He was the first heir who was not educated at home, the first to get a university degree and the first to grow up in the ever-intensifying media glare as deference to royalty ended.
He also alienated many with his bitter divorce from the much-loved Princess Diana, and by pushing back on rules that prohibit royals from intervening in public affairs, they entered into debates on issues such as environmental protection and the preservation of -architecture,
“Now he finds himself in the autumn of his life, if you will, and he has to think carefully about how he projects his image as a public figure,” said historian Ed Owens. “He’s nowhere near as popular as his mother.”
Charles must figure out how to generate the “public support, a sense of affection” that characterized Elizabeth’s relationship with the British public, Owens said.
In other words, will Charles be loved by his subjects? It’s a question that haunted him all his life.
A shy child with a domineering father, Charles grew into a sometimes awkward, understated man who is nevertheless confident in his own opinions. Unlike his mother, who refused to publicly discuss her views, Charles gave speeches and wrote articles on issues close to his heart, such as climate change, green energy and alternative medicine.
His accession to the throne is likely to fuel debate over the future of Britain’s largely ceremonial monarchy, seen by some as a symbol of national unity and by others as an outmoded vestige of -feudal history.
“We know the monarch and certainly the monarch’s family – they are not meant to have political voices. They are not intended to have political opinions. And the fact that he was flexing, if you like, his political muscle is something that he has to be really careful with … so that it’s not seen as unconstitutional,” said Owens, who wrote “The Family Firm: Monarchy, Mass. Media and the British Public, 1932-53.”
Charles, who will be the head of state for the United Kingdom and 14 other countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, defended his actions.
“I always wondered what the interference was, I always thought it was motivating,” he said in “Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70,” a 2018 documentary. “I was always intrigued if it is an interference to worry about the inner cities, as I did 40 years ago and what was happening or not happening there, the conditions in which people were living. If this is interference, I am very proud of it.”
In the same interview, however, Charles acknowledged that as king, he would not be able to speak or interfere in politics because the role of a sovereign is different from being the Prince of Wales.
Charles said he intends to reduce the number of working royals, reduce costs and better represent modern Britain.
But tradition is also important to a man whose post previously described the monarchy as “the focal point for national pride, unity and loyalty.”
This meant a life of palaces and polo, which drew criticism that Charles was out of touch with everyday life, being denounced for having a valet who allegedly squeezed toothpaste on his toothbrush.
But it was the disintegration of his marriage to Diana that led many to question his fitness for the throne. Then, as he got older, his handsome young sons stole the limelight from a man who had a reputation for being as gray as his Saville Row suits.
Biographer Sally Bedell Smith, author of “Prince Charles: the Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life,” described him as constantly overshadowed by others in the family, despite his fate.
“I think the frustrations are not so much that he had to wait for the throne,” Smith told PBS. “I think his main frustration is that he’s done so much and that…it’s been kind of grossly misunderstood. He is kind of caught between two worlds: the world of his mother, revered, now beloved; and Diana, whose ghost still casts a shadow; and then his incredibly glamorous children.”
It took years for many in Britain to forgive Charles for his admitted infidelity to Diana before “the people’s princess” died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. But the public mood eased after he married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 and she became the Duchess of Cornwall.
Although Camilla played a significant role in the breakup of Charles and Diana, her disdainful style and salt-of-the-earth sense of humor eventually won over many Britons.
She helped Charles smile more in public by tempering his reserve and making him seem approachable, if not happier, as he cut ribbons, visited houses of worship, unveiled plaques and awaited the crown.
Her service was rewarded in February 2022, when Queen Elizabeth II said publicly that it was her “sincere wish” that Camilla should be known as “Queen Consort” after her son succeeded her, answering questions once and for all about her status in the Royal. Family.
Prince Charles Philip Arthur George was born on November 14, 1948, at Buckingham Palace. When his mother ascended the throne in 1952, the 3-year-old prince became the Duke of Cornwall. He became Prince of Wales at the age of 20.
His school years were not happy, with the future king being bullied by his classmates at Gordonstoun, a Scottish boarding school that prides itself on building character through vigorous outdoor activities and educating his father, Philip .
Charles studied history at Trinity College, Cambridge University, where in 1970 he became the first British royal to obtain a university degree.
He then spent seven years in uniform, training as a Royal Air Force pilot before joining the Royal Navy, where he learned to fly helicopters. He ended his military career as commander of the minesweeper HMS Bronington in 1976.
Charles’ relationship with Camilla began before he went to sea, but the romance blossomed and she married a cavalry officer.
He met Lady Diana Spencer in 1977 when she was 16 and was dating her older sister. Diana apparently did not see him again until 1980, and rumors of their engagement swirled after she was invited to spend time with Charles and the royal family.
They announced their engagement in February 1981. Some awkwardness in their relationship was immediately apparent when, during a television interview about their boyfriend, a journalist asked if they were in love. “Of course,” Diana immediately replied, while Charles said, “Whatever ‘in love’ means.”
Although Diana laughed off the response, she later said that Charles’ remark “threw me completely.”
“God, she absolutely traumatized me,” she said in a recording made by her voice coach in 1992-93 that was featured in the 2017 documentary “Diana, In Her Own Words.”
The couple married on July 29, 1981, in St. Paul’s Cathedral in a globally televised ceremony. Prince William, now heir to the throne, was born less than a year later, followed by his brother, Prince Harry, in 1984.
The public fairy tale soon crumbled. Charles admitted adultery to a television interviewer in 1994. In an interview of her own, Diana drew attention to her husband’s relationship with Camilla, saying: “There were three of us in this marriage.”
The revelations dented Charles’ reputation among many who celebrated Diana for her style as well as her charity work with AIDS patients and mine victims.
William and Harry were caught in the middle. While the princes worshiped their late mother, they said Charles was a good father and praised him as an early advocate for issues such as the environment.
Tensions persist within the royal family, highlighted by Harry and his wife Meghan’s decision to step back from their royal duties and move to California in 2020. In a televised interview, they later said that a member of the royal family had raised “. concerns and conversations’ about their baby’s skin color before it was born. The explosive revelation forced William to publicly declare that the family was not racist.
Charles continued to soldier on, increasingly standing up for the queen in her twilight years. In 2018, he was named the queen’s designated successor as head of the Commonwealth, an association of 54 nations with ties to the British Empire. The process accelerated after the death of her husband, Prince Philip, on 9 April 2021.
As Elizabeth declined, he sometimes stepped in at the last moment.
On the eve of the state opening of Parliament on May 10, 2022, the queen asked Charles to preside, delegating to him one of her most important constitutional duties – evidence that a transition was underway.
In a 2018 documentary Camilla said that Charles was comfortable with the prospect of being king.
“I think his destiny will come,” she said. “He’s always known to come, and I don’t think it weighs much on his shoulders.”