Born to Be King: Prince Charles on Planet Windsor (37 page)

None of this will happen during the reign of the Queen, who has always commanded her son’s allegiance, or the lifetime of her consort, who still inspires his love, fear, and respect in equal measure. But after the coronation of the new King—conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and with a form of words that reflects the value the sovereign places on all faiths, whether or not this is directly signaled by a change to the coronation oath—his siblings, nieces, nephews, and cousins are likely to recede further into the background. At the court of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, immediate family will be easily adequate in skills and numbers to fulfill the toe-scrunching aspects of the royal job, smiling through presentations and speeches, pinning medals, cutting ribbons, cracking bottles against the hulls of ships, exchanging pleasantries, on an endless shuttle through Britain and the Realms.

The King’s Trust can expect to continue to benefit from its founder’s input, even if his time to raise funds or present achievement awards to graduates of Trust programs is more limited. Most of his charities and initiatives will survive in some form; a few are likely to struggle and fade.

Charles will never be neutral, just as he will never be party political. For better or for worse—in my final analysis, more often for better than for worse—the Prince is a man with a mission, a knight on a quest. His overarching goals—saving his adopted planet and the monarchy—underpin pretty much everything he does and are sometimes at odds with each other. He accepts that he will not be able to campaign from the throne room as he has campaigned from its antechamber, but if he no longer speaks up quite so often, or intervenes quite so vigorously, he’ll have his weekly audiences with the Prime Minister instead. Whether he uses those audiences to lobby for additional reforms of the monarchy and health-giving transparencies will depend on his ability to emulate his mother, not by being like her, but by keeping Planet Windsor in close orbit to Earth.

If he never becomes king, he has already achieved a substantial legacy and left a huge trail. In researching this book I have waded through morasses of material—books, clippings, pamphlets, documents. I’ve pored over pretty much everything he’s written that’s in the public domain and every speech he’s delivered that I could get my hands on. I’ve perused the odd black spider. I have interviewed many people who have been party to multiple stages or segments of Charles’s highly variegated life, seeking to look beyond the competing claims of his proponents and his critics, while listening intently to both fragmented camps. I have observed him as closely as he and Clarence House permitted, and in doing so come to admire his achievements, regret the missteps that undermine them, shake my head over parts of his philosophy. I agree with some of his views, recoil from others. I have laughed with him and, not infrequently, at him, and almost every day stifled laughter at situations that brewed up around him. His planet is the funniest place I have ever visited, and the strangest. I like the Prince. I feel sorry for the child he once was. I am gladdened that in resolving the tensions of his personal life, Charles appears coming closer to reconciling the different strains and duties of his position, closer to seizing the grail he most often describes but rarely has glimpsed: harmony.

He and his aides are understandably frustrated that some of the best things he does go unrecognized. This book has shone light into those corners, but also caught in its beam some things that Clarence House might perhaps have preferred to keep in darkness. My aim throughout has been to portray the Prince fairly and accurately, without fear or favor, and to provide fresh insights. I have also done my best to clarify the transactional relationship between monarch and subjects so that these subjects can better judge whether they’re getting enough out of the transaction and how the calculation might alter—because it would alter—under King Charles III. Two years of trailing the Prince—and they have been long years; “I can’t wait to stop thinking about you,” I once told the bemused focus of my attentions—have increased my appreciation for the positives he has brought to his role and my understanding of how he might invest the monarchy with fresh meaning. But research has also heightened my awareness of existing negatives and how this process could go wrong.

Like Don Quixote and Hamlet, the Prince faces tangible opponents but also just as frequently tangles with shadows and specters. A frivoling Prince would never have fought so many battles, polarized opinion, or roused such passions. The man who would be King of Hearts has never been able to take the path of least resistance. “I like to think that it’s no accident that a man who feels such a profound sense of service and stewardship should be in his position on our planet at this time,” says Patrick Holden. “He’s a visionary, he’s a remarkable human being.”
11
“The thing that I would say about him is that he’s genuine,” says Fiona Reynolds. “It’s all felt in a really deep way and I think that’s the thing that above all I admire. Heavens, if he’d wanted an easy life he wouldn’t have gone the route he has, but because he cares so passionately he’s backed these sometimes very unpopular causes, but done so out of genuine conviction.”
12
“I would much rather have a monarch who is concerned and interested and tries to do something to help people than someone who is completely disinterested and simply deals with the ceremonial and doesn’t care,” says John Major.
13
Emma Thompson gives a trenchant summation: “All of the movements that he’s spearheaded and supported for years that have slowly become more mainstream are an example of how difficult it is for the press in this country to support anything the royal family does that isn’t being nice to children or small furry animals. He wouldn’t have had any shit from the press if he had been looking after donkeys or dogs.”
14

Prince Charles hasn’t done much for donkeys or dogs. Some professions will say he hasn’t done much for them either; indeed that he has actively harmed them. There will always be critics who take him for a parasite, an eccentric, a plant whisperer. He knows what he’s trying to achieve but it’s hard enough to make his aims understood, much less to capture his grails. “It’s everybody else’s grandchildren I’ve been bothering about,” he says, sadly. “But the trouble is if you take that long a view, people don’t always know what you’re on about.”
15

Notes

The page numbers for the notes that appeared in the print version of this title are not in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for the relevant passages documented or discussed.

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1