Thenew autumn editionofPEOPLE Royalsis devoted entirely to the life of Charles III, from his childhood as the first son of the sovereign, through his sometimes scandalous past, to his future on the throne that began this week withQueen Elizabeth’s death. What follows is an excerpt adapted from that issue, which is available now.
Of course, the man now styled King Charles III did not have to win election to his new role — he was born to it, 74 years ago. He didn’t need to sell people on his vision. And yet,in the sunset of Queen Elizabeth’s seven-decade reign— the longest in British history — a picture began to emerge of what might follow.
During a long and productive old age, the Queen, who died at age 96 on Sept. 8, projected stability and coziness. During her Platinum Jubilee week, she took tea with Paddington Bear in a video sketch and after the festivities was back to her duties, among them bestowing in-person honors at Windsor Castle to health care workers. When she did, her oldest son was on hand. For, despite Charles being a shoo-in for the top job, there was something of an unofficial campaign at work. The strategy had been to have him start stepping up, both to lighten the load for his elderly mother, and to have people see him occupy a space that he would soon inhabit.
July 1, 1969: Queen Elizabeth II crowns her son Charles, Prince of Wales, during his investiture ceremony at Caernarvon Castle.Hulton Archive/Getty
The State Opening of Parliament earlier this year was a first for him, and the only time in 59 years Elizabeth had missed giving the speech to outline the upcoming year’s priorities. Charles read her words dutifully, if somewhat nervously. “She is in the saddle, but this gets people accustomed to his future role as King,” notes Sally Bedell Smith, author ofElizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Mod- ern Monarch. During the Jubilee, she adds, “there was a feeling of celebrating the past and anticipating the new era.”
April 9, 2005: Charles and Camilla on their wedding day.Tim Graham Photo Library
Those many years as Prince of Wales have also given Charles time to establish his own interests and a career in philanthropy. In 1976, at age 28, he used his Royal Navy severance pay to set up the Prince’s Trust, an organization which has helped more than a million young people gain skills for employment — among them,future actor Idris Elba— and now has offshoots around the world.
“There isn’t a previous Prince of Wales who has done what this one has done,” says a palace insider. “Not to the scale and consistency over time and with the courage with which he has done them, while trying to stay within the guardrails of the institution.” His charitable footprint, while substantial, has not been without scrutiny. It was recently revealed that in 2013 trustees of his foundation received a$1.2 million donation from Osama bin Laden’s half brothers(who had disowned the al Qaeda terrorist leader in 1994). Earlier news broke that Charles himself had, nearly a decade ago, accepted millions in cash from a Qatari politician, which he passed to his foundation. An internal audit found no wrongdoing, yet a palace source said it “wouldn’t happen today.”
Unlike the Queen, who had deftly gone through her reign with only rare acknowledgments of what she really thought about the issues of the day, Charles, as Prince, could be polarizing. “She came to the throne as a young woman, her views not only concealed but largely unformed, and she has largely been able to keep her opinions to herself,” says Catherine Mayer, author of the recently updatedCharles: The Heart of a King. “He has spent a lifetime developing the detailed — and often surprising — philosophy that drives every aspect of his activism and has prompted his numerous interventions in areas as apparently disparate as architecture, medicine and his campaign to get people eating mutton. Like his favorite meat, he is now mature in years and divides the public.”
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Will Charles be able to suppress, or at least tone down, a lifetime of vocal advocacy? “I’ve tried to make sure whatever I’ve done has been nonparty political,” he said in a 2018 BBC documentary. But he allowed that, during the time that he is the heir and not the monarch, he should have leeway to express himself. “The idea somehow that I’m going to go on exactly the same way if I have to succeed is complete nonsense,” he said. “If you become the sovereign, you play the role in the way that it is expected.” In June news leaked that he had privately derided as “appalling” the U.K. policy of deporting some asylum seekers to Rwanda. And on one crucial topic — the disaster of global warming —he remained unapologetically outspoken, warning at the 2021 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, that time had “quite literally run out.”
July 14, 1986: Charles sitting in his garden in Highgrove.Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty
But those who know him say that Charles did down his advocacy as the throne neared. “He is operating with more caution,” says Mayer. As King “he will enjoy weekly meetings with whomever is the prime minister of the day, and he will exercise in those meetings his rights as sovereign to be consulted, to encourage and to warn — the last of these especially vigorously.”
Of equal or possibly more interest will be to watch Charles juggle royal family matters. Just as his split from Diana in 1992 contributed to what the Queen called the “annus horribilis,” Charles will inherit the fallout from his younger son Harry’s departure to California with wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, includingthe couple’s allegations that unnamed members of family treated her unforgivablyand that, for a while, Charles was not taking his phone calls.
March 11, 2019: Prince William, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and Prince Charles chat during a Commonwealth Day appearance.RICHARD POHLE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
“Only a few years ago, I would have said that conditions for his kingship were set,” says Mayer. “Although some people will never forgive or forget his history with Diana, he appeared to be re-creating a new ideal of a happy family within his second, successful marriage and as doting father and grandfather. The rupture with Harry and Meghan has shredded that image and alienated many of his future subjects, irrespective of what you believe his role in these events to be.” During a Jubilee church service, Charles appeared to actively avoid his younger son and daughter-in-law. It was later confirmed, however, that he spent time privately with the Sussexes, includingmeeting 1-year-old granddaughter Lilibet for the first time. “It was a fantastic visit,” a source told PEOPLE,adding that it was “wonderful” to have Harry and Meghan back in Britain.
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That same poll suggests that, despite lingering affection for Diana, the public had warmed to the idea of Camilla’s becoming Queen Consort ahead of Elizabeth’s death. She has done “an exemplary job” an insider tells PEOPLE, pointing to her support “for women’s rights and those fighting domestic abuse. She has plowed her own field in terms of her duties and been well-liked.” When she shared the stage with Charles at the Jubilee concert, “the crowd went with him … and the mood was right,” observes a source close to the household. As Duchess of Cornwall, she lightened the load of public engagements, which she executed with relish, whether visiting school children, sampling local delicacies or picking up dance steps of cultures on virtually every continent — something for which Charles was surprisingly game. And she lightened him. “She is a huge support” says the insider, adding that when he lapsed into occasional “Eeyore moments,” Camilla “jollies him up.” To watch the two of them together was to have a glimpse into this new monarchy.
Sept. 9. 2022: King Charles and Queen Camilla outside Buckingham Palace following Queen Elizabeth’s death.Yui Mok/AP/Shutterstock
source: people.com
