USA TODAY International Edition
Royal birthday
Prince Charles, the longestserving heir apparent to the British throne, will turn 65 Thursday.
Prince Charles, the man who waits, clicks over into another year in his peculiar life and into history Thursday.
He turns 65, and no matter whether he succeeds his mother soon or years from now, he becomes a historic, singular figure for the United Kingdom.
Not that Charles is making a big deal of it. He’s too busy, wrapping up a successful nine- day tour of India. Plus, he’s about to represent Queen Elizabeth II at the high- level Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that begins Friday in Sri Lanka.
But attention should be paid: Charles is the longest- serving heir apparent ( 61 years) to the British throne in its 1,000- year history. When he replaces his mother, now 87, and becomes King Charles III, he will be the oldest monarch to take the throne, surpassing William IV, who was just short of his 65th birthday when he became king in 1830.
At last, things are looking up for the man once widely despised after his marriage to popular Princess Diana fell apart in the 1990s. Now he’s widely respected for his good works, if not beloved.
“As he once said to Nancy Reagan, ‘ I made it up as I went along,’ ” says best- selling royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, who is at work on a new book about the prince. “Happy at last,” read a recent
Telegraph headline about Charles’ birthday.
Charles himself told Time magazine: “I feel more than anything else it’s my duty to worry about everybody and their lives in this country, to try to find a way of improving things if I possibly can.”
LESS UPTIGHT, MORE MODERN Charles’ standing has already improved. He has raised two sons, William, 31, and Harry, 29, who are hugely popular, well- adjusted, charming and public- spirited. They clearly adore him, “and the credit for that has to go to Charles,” says Charles’ biographer Penny Junor. “It is partly through his sons that he has redeemed his reputation,” she says.
He’s loosened up from his stuffed shirt image. Now he’s delivering the weather report in Scotland, cuddling koalas in Australia and getting his picture taken with a couple of Daleks from Doctor Who in Wales. These “modernizing” moves will help the monarchy adapt to the new century by balancing accessibility with the still- important royal mystique.
His pals have helped. Actress Emma Thompson mischievously told
Time that dancing with Charles is “better than sex.”
Last year’s Diamond Jubilee tribute to the queen, when he made an affectionate speech about “mummy,” did wonders. “Instead of that formal, stiff guy, suddenly you saw someone much warmer, cozier, more humorous, a real human being,” Junor says.
In part, that’s because he appears happier in his personal life, with a solid eight- year marriage to his down- to- earth second wife, Camilla, now the Duchess of Cornwall and the future queen consort.
And he’s a first- time grandpa, to William’s son with Duchess Kate of Cambridge, Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge, born July 22. Charles has done what an heir must do — produce more future heirs — but he has made it publicly clear he’s over- the- moon delighted with little “Georgie.”
And meanwhile, he waits, but not idly. “He’s made a full life for himself, and he’s done far more as Prince of Wales than any of his predecessors. Ever,” Smith says.
Charles is not yet the longest- serving official Prince of Wales — greatgreat- grandfather Edward VII served from birth for 59 years, Charles since he was 9. But Charles already has waited three years longer to succeed than Edward VII waited to succeed his mother, Queen Victoria.
“I feel more than anything else it’s my duty to worry about everybody and their lives in this country.” Prince Charles in Time magazine
Moreover, Charles has been much less dissolute. Edward VII was a “voluptuary,” Smith says. He mostly ate, drank, smoked, shot critters and collected mistresses for decades while he waited to become king, thanks to his mother’s cranky refusal to give him anything to do.
But Charles’ working and personal relationship with his queen and mother led to his being able to carve out an effective role for himself — as a world- class philanthropist, a passionate environmentalist, a savvy businessman and a serious man interested in serious ideas about architecture, spirituality, urban planning and sustainable farming, who can convene decision- makers in rooms to get things done.
As a sign of his success, Charles recently provided a comprehensive public account of his charitable work and financial affairs. It showed, among other things, that he had raised $ 160 million last year for charity. His Duchy of Cornwall saw pre- tax profits increase by nearly a fifth last year to about $ 19 million, making him one of the top 100 earners in the country.
“I feel he continues to be misrepresented and undervalued in ( Britain),” says Catherine Mayer, an American- born British journalist who has covered Charles for years and wrote Time’s cover story. “He has a vast area of influence, and that influence is much more benign than he’s given credit for.”
There are still a few Brits, republicans or die- hard loyalists of Diana, who would rather not think about Charles, or who wish that he would go away, or that the crown would pass him by and go directly to his son Prince William. But short of revolution or tragedy, that’s not going to happen.
IT’S BEEN ‘ A STEADY CLIMB’
Meanwhile, historians and journalists are writing about Charles more than ever. The Time story, featuring a rare interview for him with an American publication, was his third solo appearance on the newsmagazine’s cover.
“He’s actually very comfortable in his skin now,” Mayer says. “When I first encountered him in the 1980s, he had deep concerns about being useless, sitting there waiting. But that is long resolved, and he’s so busy and absorbed with what he’s doing now.”
It’s a long way from the furious hostility that prevailed when his marriage broke up and Princess Diana was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997.
“He’s made enormous progress,” Smith says. “He has made a steady climb out by dint of his hard work and the success of a whole array of charities about which he is passionate and the recognition of the success in the role he created for himself as Prince of Wales.”
Charles remains a soft target for some in the British press, even the pro- monarchy media, who never stop mocking or misinterpreting him, Mayer says. The widespread “caricature” of him being anxious, impatient or even unwilling to be king is nonsense, she says. “Being king is what he was born to do. It is what he will do.”
What kind of king will he be? He has given some hints. “A Caroline Britain,” as the Telegraph recently put it, will have a more streamlined monarchy. Charles’ siblings, nieces, nephews and cousins already are less prominent in the “Firm.”
As king, Charles won’t be able to do all of the things he’s done as Prince of Wales. Once he takes the throne, Smith predicts, affection for him is likely to follow. But “it’s going to be a more constrained life for him,” she says.
Meanwhile, it will be tricky to balance his current job with increasing demands of kingship in all but name, Mayer says. “He won’t be able to do all he does now, but it’s wrong to assume he will try doing it exactly the same way as the queen.”