CHARLES HATES BOXING... IS HE GAY?

JANUARY 3, 1956

AT THE Beefsteak [dining club], talk to James Pope-Hennessy who is writing the official life of Queen Mary. James is most amusing about little Prince Charles [then seven]. Says he may turn out to be another Edward II [thought to be gay], as he hates boxing and other rough games!

NOVEMBER 22, 1966

MARTIN CHARTERIS lunches with me at the Guards Club. We discuss the future education of the Prince of Wales.

Martin agrees with me that the Navy seems to leave its officers rather immature for life. He says: ‘What Prince Charles really must learn is the importance of the intellect. For Gordonstoun [Charles’s school] certainly does not teach its boys that.’

FEBRUARY 22, 1970

A DRINK in Cambridge with [Master of Trinity College] Rab Butler. He talks about the Prince of Wales [then an undergraduate at Trinity] saying that he is really beginning to see too much of his parents [in him].

‘The Queen, although she does her job exceedingly well, never reads a book, and you know how tiresome Prince Philip is,’ he says.

‘The trouble is that adulation is going to his head. We’ve given him the best room in college, yet he’s hardly ever here. The week before last, he spent three days in Strasbourg, of all places, and last week he went to Wales for two days.

‘Now he is going off to Australia and New Zealand. He seems to forget he has an exam to do soon, and at the present rate he will only just scrape through. I have written to the Queen about it, but she doesn’t really understand how a university works.

‘He also spends a lot of time acting. I don’t mind that. His whole life will have to be spent acting. He is very cautious in choosing his friends. He thinks most undergraduate opinions are too drastic and insane.’

MARCH 18, 1978

TO CAMBRIDGE to lunch with [ history professor] Jack Plumb. He thinks highly of the Prince of Wales, who is determined to model himself on his father but remains in awe of his mother.