Restless prince ahead of his time
This year marks half a century since Prince Charles was formally invested as the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in a ceremony that was a strange mix of ancient and modern. The late Earl of Snowdon headed the committee that devised the prince’s modernist, minimalist coronet – Star Trek meets the House of Windsor – while the splendid ramparts of Edward I’s 13th-century castle gave the ceremony some medieval magic.
In fact, the investiture didn’t take place until July 1, 1969 – and Prince Charles was created Prince of Wales by Letters Patent in July 1958. Still, yesterday was deemed the right time for the Queen to throw an anniversary party at Buckingham Palace.
From the moment the nervous
20-year-old Prince Charles appeared at Caernarfon, it was clear that he was going to be a different Prince of Wales to his predecessors. But few could have predicted how much he would reinvent the role.
His mother’s extraordinary reign means he’s the longest-serving Prince of Wales. Over the decades, this has given Charles the chance to emerge as a Prince of Wales unlike any other.
After an undistinguished degree at Cambridge, there came a traditional stint in the Armed Forces, serving in the RAF and the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976. There was a spell, too, in his
20s, when he gained a reputation as the playboy prince, courting female attention including that of his future wife, the then Camilla Shand. So far, so normal.
But, ever since, some restless spark in him has urged him to part from the path trodden by his predecessors. In 1976 he set up the Prince’s Trust to help disadvantaged young people, which now works with 60,000 people a year.
In 1979 he set up The Prince of Wales’ Charitable Foundation, which today raises £100 million (NZ$194m) a year for charity. This has been part of a long-running effort to craft a meaningful role for himself and just like that investiture ceremony in 1969, his career over the last 50 years has been a mixture of ancient duty and progressive reinvention.
Yes, there have been slip-ups – the biggest of them his catastrophic marriage to Diana Spencer in 1981. That was a result of the ancient duty to marry a well-born virgin, rather than the woman he always loved – who, by the time he and Diana married, had become Camilla Parker Bowles.
He managed, though, to avoid the disaster that struck his great-uncle, Edward VIII, who also fell for a married woman, Wallis Simpson. There was a spell of deep unpopularity for Prince Charles after Diana’s death, but he has weathered the storm.
He has also managed not to succumb to the greed that defined two of his more recent predecessors (George IV and Edward VII), or the laziness and aloofness that characterised his great-uncle.
Even his projects that seemed faddy and self-indulgent have proved instead to be ahead of their time. His interests in organic food, the environment and humane architecture were initially mocked but are now mainstream opinion. Poundbury, his model town on the edge of Dorchester, was ridiculed when he began it in 1993. It is now oversubscribed and held up as an ideal example of modern, selfsufficient town living in rural surroundings.
Yes, the Prince can be given to selfpity, frustration, anger and even financial blunders. Still, every time he rattles his collecting tin it is in a good cause: his saving of Dumfries House in 2007 was criticised in some quarters as a risky proposition, but it kept a marvellous collection of Chippendale furniture inside its original Palladian home and has helped to revitalise the surrounding corner of Ayrshire.
Prince William has said he will be a different Prince of Wales from his father but, in his very ability to tailor the role around his own family life, personal interests and charitable causes, he will owe a lot to his old Dad.
Harry Mount is author of How England Made the English (Penguin)
– Telegraph Group