A Brief History of the House of Windsor (28 page)

After university he went into the armed forces. He had already had flying training at university, but now took this a stage further at the RAF College at Cranwell, earning his pilot’s wings. He then went straight to another Service academy and underwent officer training all over again. This time he attended Dartmouth, as his father and grandfather had done. He was to make the Navy a more-or-less full-time commitment for the next five years, serving as a junior officer at sea on a destroyer, on frigates, and on the aircraft carrier
Hermes
– for he qualified as a helicopter pilot. In 1976, his final year in the Senior Service, he was given his own command, captaining the minesweeper HMS
Bronington
– a minesweeper so given to pitching and tossing that, according to her crew, she would ‘roll on wet grass’. For several years the media would be filled with pictures of him in a variety of military uniforms: in RAF blue, being presented with his ‘wings’; in a naval pullover and cap aboard ship; undertaking parachute training with the Army; crossing a river by rope during a training exercise. The press dubbed him ‘Action Man’ at this time, and he deserved the title. He was obliged, as future Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, to gain credibility and respect in advance by undergoing certain rites of passage.
He became Colonel-in-Chief of the Parachute Regiment, for instance, the good opinion of whose members is not easily won. It is not especially easy to pilot an aircraft, and jumping out of one – even with a parachute – is not something everyone is willing to do. There is no doubt that Charles pushed himself to gain these qualifications, and that he deserves respect for having done so.

His brother Andrew followed him into the Navy as a career officer, becoming a successful helicopter pilot and seeing action in the Falklands campaign. Their younger sibling Prince Edward also opted for military service, but his choice of the most difficult branch of the forces – the Royal Marines – was unfortunate. When Charles left the Navy it was to chair a committee that planned events for the Silver Jubilee of 1977. From that time on he has devoted himself full-time to royal duties and to the numerous charities he has set up.

From his university days onward he was increasingly guided by his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten. It is difficult to overestimate the influence of the older man upon the younger. An indulgent, avuncular figure during Charles’s boyhood, a naval hero and a man who had held high office in both war and peace (as Supreme Commander South East Asia and as Viceroy of India), he was what Charles aspired to be – supremely confident but without Philip’s brash and sometimes offensive manner. His urbanity, his wide interests, even his implausibly left-wing views (which may have given Charles a certain liberal bent), made him mentor of choice for the prince. At his funeral in 1979, Charles’s wreath bore a handwritten message: ‘To my HGF [Honorary Grandfather] and GU [Great-Uncle] from his loving and devoted HGS and GN Charles.’

Mountbatten had indeed occupied the place in Charles’s life that had been left empty by the early death of his grandfather, but ironically he was nothing at all like George VI. Notoriously, overwhelmingly vain, he had none of the late king’s innate modesty, and was characterized by a restless
ambition that kings do not need to possess. He was also far more intelligent, and more worldly, than Charles’s actual grandfather had been. King George, for instance, would never have advised Charles, as Mountbatten did, that: ‘In a case like yours, the man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down.’ Charles was to follow this advice, though he always sought to be discreet. There is no doubt that he enjoyed a number of close friendships while single. Lucia Santa Cruz, the daughter of the Chilean Ambassador, was the first whose name was bandied around by the press, while he was at Cambridge. Some of these relationships were serious enough to heighten speculation, but upper-class young women such as Anna Wallace or Lady Jane Wellesley did not relish the thought of life in the royal family, and though countless girls have dreamed of marrying a prince it is worth remembering that some of those who have been in a position to do so have rejected the fairy tale out of hand. They know that beyond the glitter of the wedding awaits a lifetime of routine and formality and intrusion by the media. Spirited young women who are used to being independent naturally find this an unwelcome prospect, as did Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon two generations earlier.

Modern women were also likely to have a ‘past’. After advising his nephew to sow some wild oats, Lord Mountbatten had gone on to say that for a wife he should ‘choose a suitable, attractive, and sweet-charactered girl before she had met anyone else she might fall for’. Mountbatten had already engineered one of the most successful marriages in royal history by bringing Elizabeth and Philip together, and now had in mind a candidate for Charles. This was Amanda Knatchbull, his granddaughter. Critics saw this, as they had seen the previous wedding, as an attempt to raise the standing of his own family. (‘The House of Mountbatten reigns!’ he had boasted when his nephew became consort to the monarch.) Charles, moreover, genuinely liked the young lady. Respectful of his uncle’s judgement, he actually proposed to her in 1979, but
the death of Mountbatten himself – as well as her grandmother and youngest brother – in a terrorist attack that summer is likely to have caused her to reconsider her future. After such a personal tragedy, the notion of life in a high-profile family may well have seemed too daunting.

Charles, in any case, was always more attracted by mature women. The most important friendships he developed were with two women who were already married. Dale Tryon was the Australian wife of a businessman. Charles, who gave her the nickname ‘Kanga’, delighted in her irreverent sense of humour. The other woman was Camilla Parker Bowles. He had first met her while she was single and they had found a mutual empathy that promised well. Charles had been a serving naval officer at the time and, preoccupied with his duties, had not pursued the relationship – or at least not fast enough to prevent her from marrying elsewhere. Her husband was an officer in the Household Cavalry and, in the value system that still applies within the world of the mess, the greatest sin that an officer can commit is to steal the wife of a colleague. Given his innate decency and desire to please, as well as his awareness of the scandal that could result from any such liaison, it can be assumed that the prince agonized over this relationship for years. The friendship was sometimes chaste and sometimes not, but they developed a rapport that was likely to make for a successful marriage, and which spoiled him for any other woman. The public was largely unaware of these two relationships though
Private Eye
, the satirical magazine, reported them all along.

When Charles had reached the age of thirty without marrying, both his family and the nation at large became increasingly impatient. There must be no echoes of Edward VIII, and an heir to the throne who remained steadfastly single suggested a lack of seriousness that was not acceptable. The public would wink at a certain amount of philandering while a prince was young, but they expected him to settle down soon and not have too much fun. The privileges the royal
family enjoy have to be seen to be balanced by the observance of routine, duty and formality if public resentment is to be avoided.

The young woman who became his wife was actually the sister of a former girlfriend, Lady Sarah Spencer. They met at a shoot held on the Spencer family’s estate, Althorp. Charles was drawn to her girlish shyness, her sense of humour, sympathetic nature and love of country pursuits. There was no question of his being struck by instant passion. He developed a fondness for her, while she was overwhelmed by him. His greater age – there was twelve years between them – as well as his position were somewhat awe-inspiring for a schoolgirl, even one who belonged to the aristocracy. Lady Diana Spencer was unacademic, athletic, and of a classic English beauty that was just beginning to ripen as she emerged from adolescence. Her lack of education (she was later to describe herself as being ‘as thick as a plank’) was compensated for by a natural charm and winsomeness that instantly won people over. Despite her upper-class credentials she seemed to be precisely what the public wanted – an ordinary girl, chosen almost by chance from among their daughters, modest enough to be a dutiful wife and mother. It was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon all over again.

Charles proposed, she accepted. The engagement was announced at the beginning of 1981 and the wedding – the greatest royal spectacular since the coronation – took place in July. ‘This is the stuff of fairy tales’ announced Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who conducted the service. No one was to remember, until much later, that when interviewed for television and asked if they were in love, Diana had gushed: ‘Of course!’ while her fiancé had said, with apparent cynicism: ‘Whatever “in love” means.’

Though they were visibly happy at the beginning, the affection soon wore thin. They had so little in common. Charles’s earnest desire to do good was something his wife could appreciate – she was to give notable service to charities
herself – but their attitudes toward this, as to everything else, were very different. She proved not to be shy at all. Instead she was strong-willed, demanding and confrontational. Their rows became legendary. He saw her, increasingly, as tiresome and juvenile. She did not share his cultural interests, or like his friends, and he was irritated that the media – enchanted by her glamour and accessibility, which contrasted strongly with the formal aloofness of her husband’s family – increasingly showed more interest in her than in him. Though the couple had two sons, and were united by affection for them, their approaches as parents were as different as everything else about them. She wanted the boys to grow up amid as much normality as possible. She dressed them casually, took them unannounced on visits to public places, and involved them in charity work so that they could see another side of life. Charles got them interested in polo and shooting. As they grew up they came to look more and more like him, dressing in the same way in charcoal-grey suits and slip-on shoes.

There was little affection left in the Waleses’ marriage by the beginning of the 1990s. The simple fact was that Charles had not given up his friendship with Mrs Parker Bowles, and would not do so. She was, apart from any other status she had had in his life, an old personal friend, and he would not think of doing without her company. Diana had known all along that this would be so, and was to confess that she had been obsessed even at her wedding by the thought of this rival. She and Charles, equally stubborn, clashed head on over this issue, which was never resolved. She in any case found she hated the gilded cage in which his family lived. She sought distraction not only in the philanthropy that brought her such a wealth of public affection but in romantic friendships of her own.

The ‘war of the Waleses’ broke out in 1992 with the publication of a book:
Diana: Her True Story
, by the journalist Andrew Morton. This made public what had been half known and hinted at for years – that the marriage was at an
acrimonious stalemate. It also revealed that Diana’s ‘fairy tale’ had been such a sham that she had actually attempted suicide. She depicted her husband in a particularly unflattering light: as a man who was uncaring, unsympathetic, and preoccupied with someone else. The sources from which this narrative was assembled were supposedly friends of the princess who had been authorized to speak for her. Only later did it transpire that she herself had given extensive interviews to Morton; Diana was the source.

The next few years were a time that monarchists would like to forget. It was revealed that Diana had had at least two extramarital relationships and that Charles’s friendship with Camilla was intensive and intimate. Though Diana was able to win a good deal of public sympathy as a wronged wife, no one emerged from these revelations with any credit. Matters simply went from bad to worse as the prince, in an interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, allowed himself, like a defendant being cross-examined in court, to be cornered into admitting adultery. Diana responded with an interview of her own – a stage-managed soul-baring in which she too conceded unfaithfulness, but within the context of a loveless marriage. She threw in for good measure the observation that she thought her husband would not make a good king. Though Charles did not want to put his side with the same directness, he fired back a few salvos through his friends. He had initially held back, in part, because of the effect of this squabbling on his sons. The public was appalled, and well-wishers of both parties were braced for an ugly confrontation that might last the rest of the couple’s lives. Given that Anne and Andrew both divorced in 1992, the royal family’s previous air of rigorous respectability was badly compromised. While the queen remained above criticism, the press now seized on their chance to comment freely on the younger generation of royals to whom they did not feel obliged to show any deference. So spectacular was the damage done by the family to itself that the press lost all restraint. The Waleses announced their
separation in 1992, and on 28 August 1996 they divorced. One year later, Diana was dead.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, death brought her almost instant sanctity, while Charles endured an opprobrium such as he had never known. As he followed her coffin down The Mall, he could feel the hostility in the crowds and hear the shouts of: ‘You didn’t deserve her!’ No one could be sure his standing would ever recover, or whether public opinion would allow him the future for which he was destined.

Yet he kept his head down, carried on with his work and his official duties – and continued his friendship with Camilla. He remained stubbornly determined throughout that this would remain the case no matter what it cost him in terms of popularity. And gradually he won. The relationship was eventually accepted by the queen and the public. The fact that Camilla never openly uttered a word about her part in the affair was helpful, as was the fact that she took to royal duties effortlessly and with genuine flair. As time passed, people grew accustomed to his new consort and their marriage, at Windsor Guildhall in 2005, while not a national celebration, was at least seen as putting the family back on a normal footing. It can now be seen that Camilla is the companion he should have had all along, and that there is in their marriage a contentment that would never have been attainable between Charles and Diana. The war of the Waleses was bruising and traumatic for the people of Britain and the Commonwealth as well as for the participants. Most are simply relieved it is now over.