ROYALS

Prince Charles
THE FUTURE KING
An Intimate Portrait
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Prince
ROYALS

Charles
THE FUTURE KING
An Intimate Portrait

The heir apparent,

age 7, in 1955.
 THE MAN WHO
WILL BE KING
As Britain’s longest-serving heir
apparent takes center stage—
at last—a look at the journey
that brought Charles & Camilla
to this once-unlikely moment

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE VERSION OF HISTORY

in which Prince Charles never becomes King. In
fact, there are a couple. If his great-uncle hadn’t
been forced to choose between ruling England
and marrying the woman he loved—a divorcée
named Wallis Simpson—Charles’s grandfather
George VI would not have worn the crown. George
then passed it to oldest daughter Elizabeth, and
when her first child, Charles, was born, 73 years
ago, it was understood that he would be up next.
That plan was nearly derailed in the early ’90s. At
the height (or depths) of his adultery scandal, polls
showed most Britons did not want Charles as
sovereign, and the prince himself reportedly indi-
cated a willingness to step out of the line. But Eliz-
abeth’s historically long reign gave the Prince of
Wales time to evolve—and for his public-opinion
polls to improve. The moment is right to consider
what kind of King he will be as England’s next
monarch. This special edition is dedicated to
Charles, whose future is now a near-certainty. His
mother, who is 96, leans on him more: He has
opened Parliament and handled other duties typ-
ically carried out by the monarch. “She sees this as
a great opportunity for the transition to be visible,”
says historian Robert Lacey. The Queen has been
instrumental, including by voicing her wish that
Charles’s wife, Camilla, receive the title of Queen
Consort—a once unthinkable development. Long
ago an heir following his heart changed the course
of the monarchy. But, with his longtime love at his
side, Charles has already shown how things might
be different.

As Charles spoke at a 2022

Jubilee concert, Camilla looked
ON THE COVER Prince Charles in a birthday on, wearing a coat nicked from her
portrait. Cover quote from the 2018 documentary husband’s closet. (It had been a
Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70. gift to him on a Saudi Arabia trip.)

2 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 CONTENTS
Issue 3 FALL 2022

PART I / FUTURE
4 The Kind of King He’ll Be
Charles is an opinionated thinker, a
climate activist, a patriarch facing family
drama—and a not bad dancer. How will
he reign?

20 The Influencers
From family members to the brain trust
and celebrities who now have his ear,
they helped shape the man he is today

24 Crowning Achievement
What exactly happens at a coronation?
And what are the plans for Charles’s
code name: Operation Golden Orb?

28 New Titles
Charles’s accession to the throne could
trigger a whole slew of royal title changes

PART II / PAST
30 A Young Prince
The first heir to attend elementary
school with commoners, Charles went
on to his father’s austere alma maters

40 Rising Son
Charles joined the Navy, toured the
globe for the crown and enjoyed being
one of the world’s most eligible bachelors

46 The Diana Years

The world fell hard for the People’s
Princess. But Charles still had feelings
for an ex—casting him in the role of a cad

56 A Father’s Journey
Charles’s bond with William and Harry
was forged in blood and duty, at times
frayed by scandal and sorrow

PART III / PRESENT

66 Camilla’s Evolution
The Duchess of Cornwall mapped a
path from scandal to a place in history

78 Coming to America
The prince’s special relationship with
both the United States and Canada

86 Their Lives Now

Whatever the future may hold for
Charles and Camilla, today is about
royal duties—and time for each other
 PART I / FUTURE
He’s an opinionated thinker, a
climate activist, a patriarch facing
family drama—and a not
bad dancer. How might he reign?
by RICHARD JEROME & SIMON PERRY

THE
KIND OF
KING
HE’LL BE
 D R E S S R E H E A R SA L
With the Queen sidelined by mobility issues, Charles presided
over the 2022 opening of Parliament. He read her speech while
seated on the Consort’s Throne with the Imperial State Crown
symbolizing the monarchy on a cushion. Elizabeth has done
likewise in the past, opting for a hat rather than the 2.3-lb. crown.
 O
What Ki nd of Kin g He’ ll B e

N THE SAME SUMMER DAY THAT

Britain’s prime minister was an-
nouncing his resignation (having
owned up to, among other mis-
steps, breaking his own COVID
lockdown rules by partying at
pandemic cocktail hours) the fu-
ture King of England was visiting
Narberth, Wales, 230 miles west
of the spectacular political flame-
out taking place in London. He emerged from an
electric car, met with shop owners and greeted
four Ukrainian refugees who had resettled in the
market town of 3,500; he cooed at babies, re-
ceived armfuls of flowers and gifts of cakes and
rum. If you didn’t know better, you could mistake
Prince Charles for a campaigning politician—and a
popular one at that.
Of course, Charles will not have to win election
to his next job—he was born to it, 74 years ago. He
doesn’t need to sell people on his vision. And yet,
in the sunset of Queen Elizabeth’s seven-decade
reign—the longest in history—a picture is emerging
of what might follow. “Most of the issues that mat-
ter to him—climate change, employment pros-
pects for young people, interfaith relations—are
also relevant right across the Commonwealth,”
notes a source close to the prince. Still, as the lon-
gest-serving heir apparent, Charles is familiar to
Britons, many of whom see him as a fussy intellec-
tual—more head than heart. His mother, by con-
trast, is widely beloved. Charles acknowledged as
much while addressing “Your Majesty, Mummy” in
a speech for her Platinum Jubilee: “You laugh and
cry with us and, most importantly, you have been
there for us, for these 70 years,” said he before
throngs outside Buckingham Palace. “You pledged
H OW H E ’ S G R OW I N G
to serve your whole life—you continue to deliver.” A gardener, Charles often plants trees on trips
abroad. In Rwanda in June he went beyond a photo
Well into a long and productive old age, the
op to address Britain’s legacy of enslaving African
Queen has projected stability and coziness. people, saying “I cannot describe the depths of my
During her historic turn in 2022, she took tea with personal sorrow at the suffering of so many.”
Paddington Bear in a Jubilee video sketch and af-
ter 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 be-
ing a shoo-in for the top job, there is something of
an unofficial campaign at work. The strategy has
been to have him start stepping up, both to light-
en the load—the Queen is, after all, 96—and to
have people see him occupy a space that, eventu-
ally, he must inhabit himself.
The State Opening of Parliament earlier this
year was a first for him, and the only time in 59
years Elizabeth missed giving the speech to out-
line the upcoming year’s priorities. Charles read
her words dutifully, if somewhat nervously. “She is
in the saddle, but this gets people accustomed to

6 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 CO M M U N I T Y S E RV I C E
Charles in April 2022 at West London Welcome center, which
serves migrants and asylum seekers. He and Camilla tweeted,
WLW offers “support and advice, English classes, a food bank,
clothing, childcare, and social and creative activities . . . to 650
people from over 50 different nationalities each month.”
8
 Wh at Kin d o f Ki ng He’ l l B e

his future role as King,” notes Sally Bedell Smith,

author of Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Mod-
ern Monarch. During the Jubilee, she adds, “there
was a feeling of celebrating the past and anticipat-
ing the new era.”
For much of the last 70 years, Charles has been
overshadowed: by his mother, then by his lumi-
nous first wife, Diana, and later by his sons Wil-
liam and Harry and their glamorous wives, Kate
and Meghan. Aware since childhood that he
would someday be King, Charles has lived his life
knowing that his accession could come at any mo-
ment. In reality, long decades passed. That time
allowed him to evolve past his tabloid image as an
adulterer with a predilection for naughty phone
calls to one of a grandfather of five settled into a
stable second marriage. His wife of 17 years,
Camilla—once reviled for being the other woman
on the receiving end of those calls—has, since be-
coming the Duchess of Cornwall, impressed Brit-
ons with her warmth, approachability and humor:
At age 75, she shared with Vogue readers her least
favorite color, which she dubbed “menopausal
mauve.”
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 insid-
er. “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 in-
stitution.” His charitable footprint, while substan-
tial, has not been without scrutiny. It was recently
revealed that in 2013 trustees of his foundation re-
ceived 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, ac-
cepted millions in cash from a Qatari politician,
which he passed to his foundation. An internal au-
dit found no wrongdoing, yet a palace source said
it “wouldn’t happen today.”
Unlike the Queen, who has deftly gone through
her reign with only rare acknowledgments of
what she really thinks about the issues of the day,
Charles can 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 Cather-
ine Mayer, author of the recently updated Charles:
The Heart of a King. “He has spent a lifetime
developing the detailed—and often surprising—

R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 9
 Wha t Kind o f Kin g He’ll B e

philosophy that drives every aspect of his activism

and has prompted his numerous interventions in
areas as apparently disparate as architecture, med-
icine and his campaign to get people eating mut-
ton. Like his favorite meat, he is now mature in
years and divides the public.”
Friends cheer his sense of social responsibility.
Critics deride him as a meddler. He has long been
scathing of modern steel-and-glass architecture; in
1984 he loudly opposed early plans for an addition
to London’s National Gallery that he likened to “a
carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend.” The
scheme was scrapped, in one of his notable victo-
ries. When he wasn’t making public statements,
Charles would attempt to flex influence in private
correspondence to government officials. In 2015,
after a 10-year freedom-of-information battle
launched by The Guardian, the British Supreme
Court ordered the release of 44 letters dubbed
“the black spider memos” after Charles’s scrawly
handwriting. The newspaper hoped to expose the
prince’s persistent backstage lobbying, which
some viewed as inappropriate, possibly unconsti-
tutional. Topics ranged from the plight of the Pata-
gonian toothfish to homeopathic medicine—
which Charles unsuccessfully pushed to have
covered by the National Health Service—to his
quixotic campaign against genetically modified
crops and salmon.
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 A 2017 audience
political,” he said in a 2018 BBC documentary. But with Pope Francis.
he allowed that, while he is the heir and not the
monarch, he should have leeway to express him-
self. “The idea somehow that I’m going to go on
exactly the same way if I have to succeed is com-
plete nonsense,” he said. “If you become the sover-
eign, you play the role in the way that it is expect-
ed.” 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 cru-
cial topic—the disaster of global warming—he re-
mains unapologetically outspoken, warning at the
2021 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, that
time had “quite literally run out.”
But those who know him say that Charles has
toned down his advocacy as the throne nears. “He
is operating with more caution,” says Mayer. As
King “he will enjoy weekly meetings with whom-
ever 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
CO NTINU ED O N P. 15

10 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 The Dalai Lama in
London, 2012.

With Sikh leaders,

New Delhi, 2019.
K E E P I N G T H E FA I T H
A strong advocate of religious tolerance, Charles
has met with clergy around the world.
“Faith leaders have . . . a responsibility,” he said in
2014, “to ensure that people within their own
tradition respect people from other faith traditions.” In Jerusalem with
Russian Orthodox
Father Roman, 2020.

11
 B L AC K T I E N I G H T O U T
Charles and Camilla joined William and Kate at the
2021 premiere of No Time to Die. The prince, who re-wears suits
for decades, told Vogue his sense of style is “like a stopped
clock—I’m right twice every 24 hours.” Clothiers who get his
warrant now must meet sustainability requirements.
12
 Wha t Kin d o f Ki ng He’ l l B e

How Much Will Charles

Rely on William and Harry?
Sons of Monarchy: One dutiful heir is likely to
play a key role. His expatriate brother, perhaps less so

Unveiling of a
portrait of his father,
Philip, in 2022.

The princes were

united at a WWII
memorial event, 2017.

Speculation has swirled around how Charles’s sons may

fit into his reign. William and Kate are working royals who
focus on local mental health initiatives close to home.
Harry and wife Meghan now run Archewell, a media
company and charitable foundation, from California.
They speak out on social issues, such as the reversal of
Roe v. Wade in the U.S. They are unguarded about
sharing family issues, and Harry’s memoir will be
published in late 2022. The siblings’ public rift left
Charles “shell-shocked,” a friend told People. But in
early 2022 he praised both men for their shared stance
against global warming. “As a father, I am proud that
my sons have recognized this threat,” he wrote in
Newsweek. But the contrast between them is “stark,” says
historian Robert Lacey. “Harry has found his freedom.
William . . . remains focused on the royal destiny ahead.”

R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 13

DUTY AND HONOR
In March 2022 Charles, a navy veteran,
awarded medals to Welsh Guardsmen who
fought against ISIS in Iraq as part
of Operation Shader. He has been a colonel
in the Guards since 1975.
Wha t Kin d o f Ki ng He’ l l B e
“I feel more than anything
else it’s my duty to worry
about everybody and their
lives in this country”
—CHARLES
CO NTINU ED F RO M P. 1 0
will inherit the fallout from his younger son
Harry’s departure to California with wife Meghan,
Duchess of Sussex, including the couple’s allega-
tions that unnamed members of family treated
her unforgivably and that, for a while, Charles was
not taking his phone calls. “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, including meet-
ing 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.
During a Charles reign, expect to see much more
of firstborn son William, who is next in line to the
throne, and will become Prince of Wales when his
father becomes King. Charles’s activism and foun-
dation-building has meant he has “done a lot of the
hard work in establishing the space for the next
Prince of Wales to maneuver in,” says a source who
knows him. “William is more reserved by nature,
not in his character but is more careful and consid-
ered. [His father] was careful, but he took things
on.” Another asset is Williams’s wife, Catherine,
Duchess of Cambridge, who is, after the Queen, the
second-most popular member of the family, ac-
cording to a May 2022 poll. (Kate is followed by her
husband, with Charles trailing in fifth place.) That
same poll suggests that, despite lingering affection
for Diana, the public has warmed to the idea of Ca-
milla’s becoming Queen Consort. She has done “an
R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 15
 S TA R P OW E R Charles and Dame
The line between royalty and entertainment is sometimes Judi Dench, 2021.
thin, and while Charles may not generate the blinding
wattage of Diana in the ’80s or Princess Kate today—he has
more than held his own while mingling with the showbiz set.

In Barbados with
Lionel Richie, 2019.

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 him at the Jubilee concert,
“the crowd went with him . . . and the mood was
right,” observes a source close to the household.
She lightens the load of public engagements,
which she executes with relish, whether visiting
school children, sampling local delicacies or pick-
ing up dance steps of cultures on virtually every
continent—something for which Charles is surpris-
ingly game. And she lightens him. “She is a huge
support” says the insider, adding that when he
In 2019 Daniel Craig
showed off James Bond’s
Aston Martin to Charles,
who owns a similar model.
lapses into occasional “Eeyore moments,” Camilla
“jollies him up.” To watch the two of them togeth-
er is to have a glimpse into the next monarchy.
Ultimately, though, it is Charles’s reign alone,
and the road toward it is marked by stops like that
visit to Narberth, Wales, where the future King was
greeted with flags, cheers and Welsh-language
songs from schoolkids. “The whole community
came out to support him,” says local butcher An-
drew Rees, who showed the Prince around. “We
gave him a nice hour in the town. Standing back
and watching him greet people and seeing the
happy faces—and him having time for everyone—
was great. He is well-loved.”
R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 17
 In Guyana, 2000.

B U S T I N G M OV E S
In the Brazilian
“If I hear rhythmic music, I just want to get up and dance,”
Amazon, 2009.
Charles, then 26, told Australia’s Women’s Weekly in 1974. The
prince has boogied all over the world ever since. The song that
gives him “an irresistible urge” to get down? According to a
2021 interview, it’s “Givin’ Up, Givin’ In,” by the Three Degrees.

Clog dancing in
Mexico in 2014.

Tangoing in
Argentina, 1999.
A 2017 tea dance with
Camilla in Scotland.

Greek folk dancing

in Crete, 2018.
 PEOPLE WHO SHAPED HIM
THE INFLUENCERS
From the family members with whom he was closest as a boy
to the brain trust and celebrities who now have his ear, these people have, each in their
own way, helped make Charles the man he is today
by SIMON PERRY

Camilla,
Duchess of
Cornwall
His longtime love and
wife of 17 years is the
prince’s closest
confidante. Camilla
shares his passions for
art and reading and her
official causes (she now
has more than 90 royal
patronages) reflect
shared passions,
including rescue dogs
(hers are Bluebell and
Beth), wildlife preserva-
tion via the Elephant
Family charity and
support of military
regiments. “He’s a better
person for it, having
her there,” says a source
close to the couple’s
household. “He’s happier
in himself.” And
although they are
working often
separately, they find
the time every day to
talk, Camilla told British
Vogue recently. “It’s not
easy sometimes, but
we do always try to
have a point in the day
when we meet,” she
said. “Sometimes it’s
like ships passing in
the night, but we
always sit down together
and have a cup of tea
and discuss the day.”

Elizabeth, When they are in

each other’s company,
the Queen Mother they often simply
“sit and be together,”
A doting maternal grandmother inspired his love of the arts. The former Elizabeth she said, or read their
Bowes-Lyon began collecting as a child on trips to Italy with her own Gran. When she died respective books. “It’s
in 2002, Charles inherited her Clarence House home and kept many of its rooms in very relaxing because
the Edwardian style in her honor. “She was . . . the most magical grandmother,” he said then. you know you don’t have
“I was utterly devoted to her.” to make conversation.”

20 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
Lucia Santa
Cruz
Never a girlfriend,
despite rumors, she met
him at Cambridge and
introduced him to
Camilla. She told
biographer Catherine
Mayer that she said to
the pair, “Now, you two,
watch your genes”—
a reference to Camilla’s
great-grandmother
Alice Keppel, who was
Edward VII’s mistress.

Richard
Chartres
Now a member of the
House of Lords, the
former Bishop of London
has been close to the
prince since their
Cambridge University
days. Charles is a deeply
spiritual man, and
Chartres supports him in
his interfaith initiatives
that, both believe, shore
up social cohesion. Also a
trustee of Diana’s will, he
acted as an intermediary
between Charles and
the Spencer family.
 Lord Louis
Mountbatten
Charles once wrote, “In
some extraordinary way
he combined grandfa-
ther, great-uncle, father,
brother and friend.” His
beloved uncle Dickie was
Charles’s most influential
mentor—some would say
too much so. It was
Mountbatten who
infamously encouraged
his great-nephew to sow
his oats—but marry a
virgin, putting forth his
granddaughter Amanda
Knatchbull for the role.
(Charles did eventually
propose; she turned him
down.) In 1979
Jonathon Porritt Mountbatten was
murdered by the IRA,
Former director of Friends of the Earth, Porritt was which devastated
also an environmental adviser to Charles. Their Charles. “My heart bled
30-year association raises eyebrows among those for you,” Diana Spencer
who feel royals don’t belong in politics. But, as told him after watching
Porritt told the BBC, Charles’s advocacy on climate the funeral. Soon she was
“doesn’t fall into a particular party political camp.” the girl he married.

Laurens van der Post Clive

Charles, an intellectual and a dreamer, immersed
himself in philosopher and adventurer van der
Alderton
Private secretary since
Post’s books such as The Lost World of the Kalahari returning to Clarence
and frustrated Diana by toting them on their House in 2015, the
honeymoon. Charles then enlisted van der Post to long-trusted Alderton is
counsel his wife when she was depressed and akin to a chief of staff. In
getting “thinner and thinner.” It didn’t help: that role he helped
“Laurens didn’t understand me,” Diana told author navigate one of the
Andrew Morton. But devout fan Charles made van monarchy’s biggest
der Post one of William’s five godparents. upheavals of recent
years, the exit of Prince
Harry and Meghan
Markle. He was also a key
adviser at the so-called
Sandringham Summit
that formally ended the
couple’s royal duties.

Patrick
Holden
The organic farmer and
founder of the Sustainable
Food Trust has advised
the prince on sustainable
agriculture for years.
Charles’s own farms have
been organic, and he
supports rare breeds of
cattle and other animals.
When the prince set up
a drive to make business
green—the Sustainable
Markets Initiative—
Holden became a key
member of his Task Force.

22 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
Michael
Fawcett
Variously a valet,
catering chief and
all-round fixer, Fawcett
was, in the Prince’s words,
the man “I can’t do
without.” But does he
still hold sway? In 2022
Fawcett resigned as head
of the charitable Prince’s
Foundation, amid an
investigation over official
honors given in return
for gifts. A spokesperson
has said the Prince has
“no knowledge” of the
alleged exchanges.

Emma
Thompson
During the dark days of
the collapse of Charles’s
first marriage, the
actress, a decades-long
friend, would write “as
funny a letter as I could
think of” to cheer him
up, she told his
biographer Catherine
Mayer. Thompson
remains a key member
of his court, as he and
Camilla share her love of
theater and Shakespeare.

Stephen Fry
No surprise that Charles chose actor-author Fry to introduce him
at the Platinum Jubilee concert speech. The prince has always
surrounded himself with comedians and actors, but Fry is a special
friend, one whom William and Harry called upon to write a birthday
play for their dad in 1998. (The performance starred Fry, Emma
Thompson and the then-teenage princes.) A fan of the wacky BBC
radio Goon Show, Charles was also friendly with Spike Milligan and
enjoys classic British madcap comedy; in July he performed six min-
utes of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood for the BBC in Cardiff.

23
 CROWNING
ACHIEVEMENT
A coronation requires deep and detailed planning, and Charles’s
someday ceremony is already being laid out. Here’s a look inside the ancient rite—
and how it might be made modern
by MONIQUE JESSEN

or pageantry, nothing tops a corona- Reportedly dubbed Operation Golden Orb,

F tion. The occasion, both solemn and

spectacular, is also bittersweet—one
is crowned only after the death of
the preceding sovereign (and in most cases, a
parent). Prince Charles, next-in-line to the throne
since he was a toddler, is the longest-serving heir
apparent in British history, thanks to his mother,
whose reign began Feb. 6, 1952, upon the death
of her father, George VI. Elizabeth II’s longevity
has made modern-day coronations as rare as a
comet’s return. But, discreetly, plans are afoot for
Charles’s someday ceremony.
the program is expected to be more modest than
the Queen’s June 2, 1953, coronation, which saw
8,251 guests in Westminster Abbey for a service
that, at three hours, was so long women had vials
of smelling salts tucked in their gloves in case
they felt faint. Now insiders say the day will be
shorter and more budget-friendly. “Royal pomp
and circumstance, which people love, can sway
very easily into royal extravagance in the view of
critics,” one expert tells People, adding that once
Charles becomes King, the event “will happen in
a matter of months . . . three to six at the most.”

24 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 IN THE ABBEY
As with coronations for 900 years (including Elizabeth ll’s,
above), Charles’s will be held at Westminster Abbey
and conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a tradition
since 1066. Like a bride, the Queen (being crowned,
left) was attended by six maids of honor.
 I N T RO D U C I N G T H E Q U E E N
Elizabeth ll was still wearing the Imperial State Crown
and the Robe of Estate when she and her family
(that’s Charles to her left, in front) greeted the cheering
crowds coronation ceremony.

The core of the ceremony has changed very

little since 1066; the order of service was pre-
served in an illuminated manuscript written
around 1382, the Liber Regalis. The church ser-
vice consists of six parts: the Recognition, in
which guests acknowledge the sovereign, and
the oath, when the sovereign signs (with an
ivory-and-gold pen) a pledge to serve God and
her subjects. Then follows the most sacred rite,
the anointing, when the sovereign is consecrated
with a dab of holy oil under a gold canopy held
by four Knights of the Garter. Then the investing,
which bestows the symbols of sovereignty, cul-
minating in the crowning, the homage when
church and peerage pledge loyalty. And lastly the
holy communion—the ceremony is structured
within the Anglican Church Eucharist.
“There are elements that are fundamental,”
says Caroline de Guitaut, curator of “Platinum Ju-
bilee: The Queen’s Coronation” at Windsor Cas-
tle. However, “there might be parts that are
modified because we live in a very different era.”
For one, “it will be a much more multi-faith cer-
emony than the last one, to reflect [Charles’s]
personal tastes,” says the expert. But Elizabeth
herself has made some wishes known, including
that Camilla be styled Queen Consort (page 84)
—and crowned alongside her husband. A mod-
ern update? No, Charles’s beloved grandmother
the Queen Mother was, too, in 1937.

26 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
P R E S E N TAT I O N O F T H E S Y M B O L S
During the investiture, the monarch is presented with the symbols
of authority: the orb (to remind them that their power is derived from
God), the scepter (symbolizing kingly power), the rod with the
dove (symbolizing justice and mercy) and the coronation ring. Lastly
the crowning takes place with the St. Edward’s Crown.
27
 Coronati on

NOBLE TITLES
New Addresses
The current Prince of Wales will become King Charles, right?
Not necessarily. Here, our predictions of title—and name—changes
for the royal family in its next Monarchical Era
by MONIQUE JESSEN

Charles,
Prince of Wales
B ECOME S

King
The title is set but not
so the name. He could,
as his mother did, keep
the name he is known
by and become King
Charles III. Or, say
some insiders, he may
honor his grandfather
and call himself King
George VII. In any
event, the British and
territorial landmarks
and post boxes
currently carrying the
royal cypher “ER” for
“Elizabeth Regina”
would eventually get titles, including Duke
either “CR” or of Cornwall and likely
“GR”—the “R” Prince of Wales, which,
standing for “rex,” although not inherited,
Latin for “king.” And is customarily given to
the adjective for the heirs apparent. If this
Age of Charles, should happens, Kate’s official
he stick with that title will match her
name? Carolean. husband’s. Her use of
the title so associated
with Diana is unlikely
Camilla, Duchess to cause resentment; in
of Cornwall many ways she is seen
B ECOME S as carrying on Diana’s
Queen Consort legacy. Colloquially,
she may follow in the
When Camilla wed lead of her late mother-
Charles, the palace sovereign is Queen her popularity rose William & in-law and be known as
announced that Consort. It was used over the years and Catherine, Princess Kate.
she would, on her by Elizabeth’s mother, by February 2022 she Duke and Duchess
husband’s accession, who became, after her got a show of support of Cambridge Anne,
be known as Princess husband’s death, the from Elizabeth, who
Consort. The unusual Queen Mother. said in her Accession BECO ME Princess Royal
styling nodded to the Camilla recognized the Day speech that Prince and NO CHA NG E
fact that, in 2005, not thorny issue, as she Camilla would be Princess As the Queen’s only
all Britons were ready
to accept Charles’s
had already decided to
forgo one title that
known as Queen
Consort after all. With of Wales daughter, Anne was
granted the title of
former mistress as came with her her mother-in-law’s The moment his father Princess Royal in 1987.
their future Queen. marriage—Princess of blessing, it is likely that becomes King, William Her brother’s elevation
The standard title Wales—in deference to she’ll simply be called picks up most of doesn’t change that, as
given to the wife of a Diana’s memory. But Queen Camilla. Charles’s many current Charles has no girls.

28 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
Edward & Sophie,
Earl and Countess
of Wessex
MAY B ECOM E

Duke and
Duchess of
Edinburgh
With Edward and
Sophie Rhys-Jones’s
nuptials in 1999,
Buckingham Palace
announced that Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh,
hoped his youngest
son would eventually
receive that title, which
he himself had been
given when he wed
Elizabeth in 1947.
Whether Charles, who
automatically inherited
it after Philip’s death
in 2021, will honor his
father’s wishes, remains
to be seen. Sophie and
Edward have said their
children Lady Louise
Windsor and James, Prince George, kept his dukedom, and
Viscount Severn, Princess Charlotte Meghan still uses the
should decide for and Prince Louis honor—her 2021 debut
themselves if they wish children’s book, The
N O CH ANG E
to have HRH titles. Bench, is credited to
Third in line to the Meghan, the Duchess
throne, Prince George of Sussex. Unless they
of Cambridge will come back into the
likely retain that title, fold, their titles will
as will his siblings, even remain as is.
as William and Kate
are restyled as the Archie & Lilibet
Waleses. When
Charlotte’s father
Mountbatten-
someday becomes Windsor
King, she may become BECOM E
the Princess Royal, as Prince and
is customary for the
oldest daughter of a Princess
sovereign. Harry and Meghan’s
children inherited no
Harry & Meghan, titles, owing to a 1917
Duke and Duchess decree by George V,
who felt that
of Sussex
great-grandchildren
N O CH ANG E of the monarch should
In 2018 the Queen not be princes and
gave the Sussex title to princesses, save for
her grandson Harry, the oldest son of the
making Meghan oldest son of the
Markle the first Prince of Wales (now
American duchess their cousin George).
since Wallis Simpson. They’ll get their titles
After stepping away automatically when
from royal life in 2020, Charles is King. But
the couple, who now his grandkids will
reside in California, lost likely still call him
the right to use their what they do now:
HRH titles, but Harry Grandpa Wales.

29
 NICE HEAD OF HEIR
A month after his November 1948 birth,
Charles was photographed with his mother,
then-Princess Elizabeth. Opposite:
In July 1949 Charles, then 8 months old, was
visited during an outing by his father, Philip.
 PART II / PAST

A YOUNG
PRINCE
Born to inherit his mother’s daunting role and to be schooled at his father’s
austere alma maters, young Charles would forge new milestones, including
becoming the first heir to attend elementary school with commoners
by LISA RUSSELL
F
A Yo u ng P r ince

OUR WEEKS AFTER HIS BIRTH

on Nov. 14, 1948, Charles Philip
Arthur George, the first child of
Princess Elizabeth and Prince
Philip, drew his first public audi-
ence. On Dec. 15 a crowd gath-
ered outside Buckingham Palace,
hoping to catch a glimpse of the
christening performed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury with
water from the River Jordan. A Movietone
newsreel from the time claimed “that the baby
Prince behaved with exemplary fortitude
throughout the christening . . . remaining per-
fectly calm while the cameras produced the re-
cords we’ve all been so anxious to see.”
From that day forward, the usual touch-
stones of childhood were chronicled by an en-
tranced press. His infant schedule: “Each morn-
ing at 6, he awoke for a breakfast of milk and
cereal. Three other meals and long naps fol-
lowed in due course under the watchful eye of
Nurse Helen Lightbody before 10 p.m. when
little Prince Charlie was tucked in for the
night,” said Time. At 9 months, he got his first
haircut. “He sat up like a little man while I went
at it with the scissors. Didn’t even squirm,”
crowed Felix West, barber to Charles’s grandfa-
ther King George. At his 1st birthday party,
Time quoted him as saying during the cake cut-
ting: “Papa, Mum-mum.”
Philip and Elizabeth were at that party, but
during large stretches of Charles’s childhood
they were absent, in far-flung locales for weeks,
even months, at a time. While Philip was sta-
tioned in Malta with the Navy, Elizabeth fre-
quently went to be with him (and was chas-
tised for it in the papers), leaving Charles and
his sister Anne, younger by 18 months, in the
care of a beloved nanny, Mabel Anderson. “It
was his misfortune to need his mother’s affec-
tion at the time when her job was also de-
manding that she give herself to her people,”
biographer Robert Lacey told People in 2018.
His early years were bolstered by Anderson
and his adoring grandmother, the Queen Mum,
Elizabeth. “For me, she meant everything,”
Charles said in his 2002 eulogy for her. “She
seemed gloriously unstoppable and, since I
was a child, I adored her.”
His primary education was overseen at home
by Scottish governess Katherine Peebles, who O F F TO S C H O O L
taught Charles the three Rs as well as French Above: Age 9, heading back to Cheam boarding school in July 1958,
and Bible studies. In 1956, at age 8, he became the day after his mother announced he would become the Prince of
Wales. Opposite top: on a second birthday pram ride with his beloved
the first heir to the throne to attend elementary
nanny Mabel Anderson. Opposite bottom: Flanked by his grandmother
school with commoners. He spent a year at the Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (left), and aunt Margaret, the 4-year-old
Hill House School in Chelsea, where he was ad- was underwhelmed at his mother’s June 1953 coronation.
dressed as Prince Charles but required, like all

R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 33

THE SPORTING LIFE
Above: All smiles during a 1964 ski vacation in Malbun,
Liechtenstein. (Shortly afterwards he wiped out.)
Below: Sailing with famed British boat designer Uffa Fox (a favorite of
Prince Philip) during a 1967 regatta at Cowes, off the Isle of Wight.
the other pupils, to obey all the rules, keep si-
lent during the meal, and clean his plate. “The
boys have to eat every scrap put in front of
them,” a fellow student told Time magazine.
The following September Charles was off to
Cheam, an all-boys’ boarding school in Berk-
shire, which Philip had attended, where he
“will get caned in the ‘customary place’ if he
doesn’t behave, be limited to 35¢ a week
spending money and will sleep with six or sev-
en boys his own age in an unheated dormitory
on a wooden, springless bed covered with a
thin mattress,” noted Time in 1957. Said Queen
Elizabeth II to her son when she saw the bed:
“You won’t be able to bounce on that.”
The worst was yet to come. At 13, Charles
was trundled off to another of his father’s alma
maters, Gordonstoun, in remote northern
Scotland, where “the sons of the powerful can
be emancipated from the prison of privilege,”
according to its then-mission statement. It em-
ployed an atmosphere of deprivation and phys-
ical challenges to do it. Philip, handsome, con-
fident and athletic, had found himself and
flourished at the school, where each day began
with a mile-long run in all weather and frigid
cold showers, and where boiled potatoes were
the staple food at lunch and dinner. For
Charles, the vicious bullying started the first
day and never let up, fellow student John Ston-
borough told Vanity Fair. Charles sent an-
guished letters home begging to be rescued.
“He had a horrible time,” said biographer Pen-
ny Junor. “He had a difficult relationship with
his father, who cut the rug from under him.”
One bright spot, at 17, was playing the lead in a
1965 school production of Shakespeare’s Mac-
beth, led by a sympathetic English teacher.
(While at Gordonstoun, Philip scored only a
secondary role in the same play.) With his par-
ents in the audience, Charles “mastered a great
variety of moods,” headmaster Robert Chew
told Time in 1965. Before graduating, he played
the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, but
for decades Charles had nothing positive to say
about Gordonstoun’s chilly austerity. Even his
parents, said biographer Dermot Morrah, had
to finally admit putting their sensitive son in
that environment had failed, like “trying to put
a square peg in a round hole.” Still, Lacey told
People, “Philip has been depicted as cruel for
sending him to the school, but [he] did it with
the best of motives.”
University at Trinity College, Cambridge—
where Charles became the first heir to earn a de-
gree (in history, after switching from anthropol-
ogy and archeology)—went somewhat more
smoothly. Somewhat. “As his fellow students
 A Yo u ng P r ince

H O R S E S F O R CO U R S E S
Charles and dad Philip shared a love for polo,
which the two enjoyed during a Jamaican
getaway in 1966. Charles passed his love of the
sport on to sons William and Harry.
 A You ng P rin ce

quickly discovered, Charles is not an easy person

to get to know,” said Time. “Though he has the
hands-behind-the-back stance and long stride
of his father, he lacks Prince Philip’s talent for
light banter. Prince Charles is, in fact, shy, with-
drawn and, like his mother, painfully reserved.
. . . He will probably mix eventually.” Correct, but
it took a while. Soon after arriving, he com-
plained in the student newspaper about being
awakened at 7 a.m. by the “head-splitting clang” ‘He used to spend hours playing
of a garbage man banging bins beneath his win-
dow while singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” But with them in the nursery. At 20,
two years later he was a highlight of the annual he had written The Old Man of
Trinity Revue. “He played a dozen roles in the
romp, from parson to pop singer, at one point Lochnagar for their bedside reading’
had himself wheeled onstage in a garbage can to — C H A R L E S B I O G R A P H E R J O N A T H A N D I M B L E B Y,
mimic the local dustman,” said Time. “He tossed ON HIS YOUNGER SIBLINGS
off some real grabbers. . . . Then, at the finale, he
strode offstage with a pretty girl and the line: ‘I
must admit I do like giving myself heirs.’ ” Said
one impressed attendee: “If he doesn’t want to
be king, he can always fall back on acting.”
Instead it was time to formally become the
Prince of Wales, the title publicly promised to
him by his mother when he was just 9. Packing
only his cello, a record player and some papers,

FA M I LY M AT T E R S
Charles, then 19, joined (from left) dad
Philip, Anne, Edward, Queen
Elizabeth and Andrew for a family portrait
at Windsor Castle in spring 1968.

36 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 B I G B ROT H E R
In 1969 Charles, 20, took brother Edward, 5, on a go-cart in Windsor.
Nearly 16 years his junior, Edward followed Charles to Cambridge, served in
the Royal Marines and became a TV and theater producer. He is 14th in line
for the British throne, but in 1994 a political party in Estonia asked if he would
like to be the country’s king now that it was leaving the Soviet Union.
37
 S C H O O L DAYS
Clockwise from above: Charles and fellow Cambridge
students rehearsed for a 1969 revue, in which he
appeared in several sketches; at university he often
kept to himself, according to friends, and practiced
the cello; preparing a snack attack in his dorm.
Charles, then 20, decamped to a dormitory at
the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth
to spend 10 weeks studying Welsh language,
culture and history before the July 1969 investi-
ture. The ceremonial rite was not without con-
troversy: Two Welsh nationalist extremists were
killed the night before when explosives they
were carrying went off, and the train carrying
the royal family was stopped as authorities in-
vestigated bomb threats. But the four-hour rite,
steeped in ancient pageantry, was nonetheless
thrilling to the 80,000 who crowded the town
outside Caernarfon Castle. Charles knelt before
his mother and was given the symbols of his
new office: a sword, a gold scepter, an amethyst
ring, an ermine-topped robe and a gold crown.
Speaking first in Welsh and English, he ad-
38 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
dressed the Welsh people: “The demands on a
Prince of Wales have altered, but I am deter-
mined to serve and to try as best I can to live up
to those demands, whatever they might be in
the rather uncertain future.”
His own future had been certain from the
day he was born, but the future king of En-
gland had to grow into the steadfast sense of
duty that would come to define his whole life.
“I think it’s something that dawns on you with
the most ghastly, inexorable sense,” the
20-year-old told BBC radio in 1969. “I didn’t
suddenly wake up in my pram one day and say,
‘Yippee.’ But I think it just dawns on you, you
know, slowly, that people are interested in one,
and slowly you get the idea that you have a cer-
tain duty and responsibility.”
 A Youn g Pr ince

F O R M A L LY R OYA L
“I, Charles, Prince of Wales, do become your liege
man of life and limb,” Charles said at his formal
investiture in July 1969, pledging
“to live and die against all manner of folks.”
40 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 RISING SON
As a young man, Charles took his place as a working royal, serving in
the Navy and traveling the globe on behalf of the Crown. He also found time
to enjoy being one of the world’s most eligible bachelors

by RICHARD JEROME

N SEPTEMBER 1971 PRINCE CHARLES sublieutenant on the destroyer HMS Norfolk. He

I underwent a family rite of passage

and enlisted in the Royal Navy. He
had a couple of tough acts to follow:
His father and great-uncle Louis Mountbatten
were both World War II heroes—dashing naval
officers straight out of central casting. Charles
doggedly applied himself during a six-week stint
at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, plowing
through seamanship drills and courses in leader-
ship, engineering and navigation. The latter
proved a slog for the prince, who was known to
doze off in class. Nevertheless Charles passed his
exams and set off for a seven-month tour as a
had rough spots—a chronic weakness in mathe-
matics hampered his ability to earn his
bridge-watching certificate, necessary were he
given command of a ship.
Some who knew Charles questioned whether
he was temperamentally suited to a naval career.
“I don’t know how Charles survived his life in the
navy,” Mountbatten’s younger daughter Pamela
Hicks told biographer Sally Bedell Smith. “The
private person was too strong, and he couldn’t
enter into the spirit of the service.” Nonetheless
the prince generally made good. Promoted to
lieutenant, he was assigned to the destroyer HMS
 I N T H E N AV Y
Charles takes the long view while commanding
minesweeper HMS Bronington in 1976. Opposite: In an RAF
helicopter. He was never happier than in the cockpit.

Minerva, bound for the Caribbean, morphing into
a royal goodwill ambassador at Commonwealth
ports (and squeezing in some polo). Next Charles
served as communications officer on the frigate
HMS Jupiter in the Far East and won admiration
for his compassionate leadership. Charles yearned
to prove himself under fire, in the tradition of his
father and uncle, but to no avail. “I never had that
chance to test myself,” he later lamented.
One bright spot: He qualified as a helicopter
pilot. Charles had loved flying since the start of
his service, when he’d learned to operate jets at a
Royal Air Force base. Soaring solo in the cockpit,
he wrote, gave him the sensation of “smooth, un-
worried power.” In February 1976, his final tour
with the navy, Charles secured a command—of
the coastal minesweeper HMS Bronington, pa-
trolling the North Atlantic and the North and
Irish seas. It was “excruciatingly dull,” he wrote
Mountbatten, the anticlimactic end to an un-
eventful naval career. Still, Charles had done his
bit and by all accounts served the Crown well.
44 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
CHARLIE’S ANGEL
The prince hobnobbed with Farrah Fawcett
(then married to Lee Majors, left) and Sophia
Loren at a hospital benefit in Beverly Hills
in 1977. Below, with Goldfinger singer
Shirley Bassey at a 1978 concert in Wales.
By then he was also a working royal—that gru-
eling regime of globe-trotting and glad-handing.
Charles had represented the monarchy solo at the
1967 funeral of Australian prime minister Harold
Holt and the next summer made his first official
overseas visit, to Malta, followed in 1970 by a
monthlong swing to Australia, Hong Kong, New
Zealand and Japan. Hundreds more such trips
would come. “Patterns emerged in his travels,”
Smith writes, “offering his strong opinions to pol-
iticians and diplomats, chafing at the demands of
protocol and the noise of police escorts, bristling
at intrusive reporters and photographers.”
At home Charles enjoyed the celebrity that his
position afforded him. He was a frequent guest or
host for film premieres and parties, photographed
alongside Barbra Streisand, Farrah Fawcett and
other stars of the day. If Mountbatten inspired his
military path, Charles’s great-uncle also informed
his social life. In 1974 Mountbatten wrote him a
letter with some advice: “I believe in a case like
yours, the man should sow his wild oats and
have as many affairs as he can before settling A Single
down.” He was also sending another message:
that his bride—a future Queen of England—could
not herself have a history of oats-sowing. “For a
Prince
wife,” the letter continued, “you should choose a
‘I’ve fallen in love
suitable, attractive and sweet-charactered girl be- with all sorts of girls,’
fore she has met anyone else she might fall for.” Charles said in 1975.
The prince would zip about town with his Here, a few notables.
dates in a blue Aston Martin convertible and had
little trouble finding company. “Tall, elegantly
1/ Jane Ward
handsome and blue-eyed, he has an assurance
Tabloid reporters “broke 1
and grace beyond his years,” People wrote in 1974. into my house, left notes,
When Charles had visited Washington, D.C., with followed me everywhere,”
his family, President Richard Nixon, perhaps she told People of dating
hoping for a transatlantic dynasty, sat his daugh- Charles (in 1978).
ter Tricia next to the prince at several functions. 2/ Sabrina Guinness
(For his part, Charles considered Tricia “artificial The brewery heiress
and plastic.”) More significantly, Charles spent (at a 1979 polo match)
90 minutes with Nixon in the Oval Office, talking is now married to
distinguished playwright
world affairs—including the Vietnam War. Nixon
Sir Tom Stoppard.
advised the prince to be a “presence” in public
life. But Charles aspired to more. “To be just a 3/ Sarah Spencer
presence would be fatal,” he wrote in his diary. “A “I’m not in love with
him. And I wouldn’t marry
presence alone can be swept away so easily.” anyone I didn’t love,
whether he was the
dustman or the King of
England, ” said Princess
Diana’s sister (in 1977).
2
3

4
4/ Caroline Longman
The daughter of publisher
Mark Longman and
granddaughter of the
10th Earl of Cavan
(with Charles in 1979)
wed art conservator Peter
Zevenbergen in 1982.
 THE DIANA
YEARS
Even before the Wedding of the Century, the world fell hard for
Lady Diana Spencer. But the groom still had feelings for someone else
and found himself in the role of the cad to the People’s Princess
by LISA RUSSELL
 E N G AG E D
Opposite: Charles and Diana after sharing the
big news on Feb. 24, 1981. In May they
repaired to Craigowan Lodge, on the Queen’s
Balmoral estate in Scotland.
 A
T he Di an a Yea rs

‘ RE YOU IN LOVE?’ “OF COURSE,”

answered Diana Spencer, all of
19 and newly affianced to a
prince. “Whatever ‘in love’
means,” added Charles, 32, at
the side of his blushing future
bride as they announced their
engagement in a Feb. 24, 1981,
interview. Just a year earlier
she’d been a London kindergar-
ten assistant, who lived with roommates and
loved Duran Duran. He, meanwhile, was Brit-
ain’s most eligible bachelor, who lived with his
family and loved polo. After a string of relation-
ships, he was now facing pressure to pick a mate
worthy of the title of Queen.
In many ways Diana fit the bill, as both a fa-
miliar aristocrat and as a fresh face. Born in July
1961, she was the third daughter of the Viscount
Althorp, a descendant of Stuart kings who was
an equerry (an officer in the royal household) to
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The Spen-
cer home was on the grounds of the Queen’s
Sandringham estate, where Diana, her brother
Charles and sisters Jane and Sarah, grew up call-
ing the monarch Aunt Lilibet. In fact, Charles
had first been interested in older sister Sarah.
But when he remet Diana in 1980, “they just
clicked,” Sarah told biographer Penny Junor.
After a six month engagement, on July 29,
1981, the ingenue dubbed “Shy Di” in the papers
was center stage as some 750 million viewers
watched her arrive at St. Paul’s Cathedral in a
glass carriage, swathed in a billowing gown
made of 40 yds. of silk and embroidered with
10,000 sequins and pearls, its 25-ft. train the
longest in royal history.
Behind the breathtaking pictures was a less
enchanting reality. Days earlier Diana had discov-
ered a bracelet engraved with the letters “G” and
“F,” for Gladys and Fred, the pet names given to
each other by Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.
The pair had dated in the early ’70s before Camil-
la (née Shand) married Andrew Parker Bowles, a
cavalry escort at Diana’s wedding. As a friend of
the groom, Camilla attended as a guest. But it
seemed to the bride that there was more going
on. Despite Diana’s misgivings, it was too late. As
her sisters put it: “Your face is on the tea towels.”
In time Diana overcame her shyness and lifted
her down-turned eyes to dazzle the public.
Charles got an image boost as he indulged his
young wife’s sense of fun. But the balance tipped.
The public was enthralled with Diana’s beauty
and common touch and began expressing disap-
pointment when Charles showed up at official
duties solo. Shrugged the prince good-naturedly,
“I’m afraid there is only one Princess of Wales.”

48 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 T H E B I G DAY
Clockwise from opposite bottom: At the altar;
leaving the ceremony; a carriage ride from
St. Paul’s cathedral to Buckingham Palace; a kiss
for fans on the palace balcony with the Queen.
 PA RT Y O F F O U R
Left: Diana brought 10-month-old
William along on a 1983 tour of New Zealand.
Right: Harry arrived in 1984. “Royal
firstborns may get all the glory, but
second-borns enjoy more freedom,” she said.
In June 1982 they welcomed son William. Be-
fore his arrival, the couple made it clear that
theirs would be a new kind of royal family. Break-
ing with tradition, Diana chose to deliver at Lon-
don’s St. Mary’s Hospital rather than at Bucking-
ham Palace, and Charles was at his wife’s side
during her six hours of labor. (His father, Prince
Philip, was famously playing racquetball when
Charles arrived.) The family was rounded out in
September 1984 with son Harry. Diana proved a
an unabashedly loving, joyful mum who made
sure her boys knew life outside the palace, taking
them to both amusement parks and homeless
shelters. In the first years of the marriage there
were, biographer Jonathan Dimbleby observed,
“interludes of happiness.”
Alas, those were over by 1987. “More and
more, from now on, it will seem as if we are go-
ing our separate ways,” she told friends. “And we
will be.” Overshadowed by the increasingly con-
fident Diana and frustrated that the public
showed more interest in her activities than in
causes he held important, such as the environ-
ment or his crusade against modern architec-
ture, Charles cut back his engagements. “He can
no longer see rhyme or reason in continuing the
tireless rounds of ceremonial appearances,” ob-
served Daily Mail royal watcher Nigel Dempster.
R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 51
 GOOD TIMES
Above: The newlyweds visited Gibraltar as part of their
honeymoon cruise of the Mediterranean. Below: In July 1985
Diana awarded her husband a happy smooch after
presenting him with a prize at a polo match in Cirencester.

“He doesn’t know what to do with himself.”

Diana was also unhappy. Over the course of
1991 she made sure journalist Andrew Morton
had enough information about the worst as-
pects of her life—eating disorders, self-cutting,
aloof, unhelpful in-laws—to write Diana: Her
True Story, which exploded the next year in
headlines like “Diana Driven to Five Suicide At-
tempts by ‘Uncaring’ Charles.”
Their union was over, and the palace tried to
broker a dignified detente. Soon even that unrav-
eled. Diana was caught on tape cooing on the
phone to old friend James Gilbey, heir to the gin
fortune, who called her Squidgy 53 times, sparking
rumors of an affair. Days later a former lance cor-
poral claimed to have seen Diana embracing her
riding instructor James Hewitt, as far back as 1988.
After Charles and Diana agreed to separate in late
1992, it was his turn to squirm: A London tabloid
published excerpts from another clandestinely re-
corded phone call, this time a raunchy conversa-
tion between him and the married Camilla

52 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 T WO - S T E P
Though looking happy at a 1985 Australian
state dinner, the couple still had to dispel
rumors of a rift. Said Charles: “I suspect most
husbands and wives find they often have
arguments.” Countered Diana: “But we don’t.”
 BAD TIMES
During a 1992 tour of South Korea, the strain between
the two was obvious. On December 9 British Prime
Minister John Major announced to a hushed House of
Commons that the two were separating “amicably.”

Parker Bowles. (Charles: “I want to feel my way

along you, all over you and up and down you . . .”)
He taped a documentary fessing up to his affair.
Diana, under pressure, then gave her own tell-all
interview with the BBC’s Panorama, which in-
cluded her infamous line: “There were three of us
in the marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
As aghast as the public, the Queen urged the
pair to divorce in 1995. When it was finalized the
following year, Diana received $600,000 per
year, her apartment in Kensington Palace and a
$27 million settlement. As a former member of
the royal family, she was henceforth to be
known as Diana, Princess of Wales, but no lon-
ger addressed as “Your Royal Highness.”
Charles was free to return to Camilla (who di-
vorced Andrew Parker Bowles in 1995) and Di-
ana to search for new love. She was with Egyp-
tian film producer Dodi Fayed, her beau of two
months, when the two were killed in an August
1997 car crash while fleeing paparazzi in Paris.
Stunned Britons laid some 60 million flowers in
tribute, most of them outside Kensington. A
stricken Charles joined William, Harry, Prince
Philip and Charles Spencer to walk behind the
carriage carrying her casket to her funeral at
Westminster Abbey. A marriage that began with
the Archbishop of Canterbury intoning to the
world, “Here is the stuff of which fairy tales are
made,” was fully, and finally, a tragedy.

54 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 T H E D I A N A S H OW
From the early days of their marriage, Diana was “finding it very
difficult to cope with the pressures of being the Princess of Wales,
but I am learning,” she said. But soon she was dazzling crowds
across the globe, including these New Zealanders. The future King
of England seemed to find it chilly in her shadow.
 Charles has maintained a
complex bond with sons William
and Harry, forged in blood
and duty, and at times frayed by
scandal and sorrow
by RICHARD JEROME

A
FATHER’S
JOURNEY
 PUCKISH PRINCES
Charles cast some unserious side-eye at a
mischievous William, 7, and 4-year-old Harry at the
Beating Retreat military ceremony in 1989.
 A Fath er ’s Journey

HE PRINCE CAN’T STOP TALKING

about the baby!” reported a Brit-
ish paper days after Charles was
seen dabbing drool from the
chin of his newborn first son,
William, at the boy’s christening
in the summer of 1982. “He’s
very well but very noisy,” said the
new dad during an appearance.
Asked if the baby resembled
him, he replied, “No, he’s lucky enough not to.”
Whatever apprehensions he may have had
about becoming Diana’s husband were not at all
evident around this new role: Charles, at 34, was
thrilled to be a father.
His relationship with his own father, Philip,
was often fraught. The Duke of Edinburgh was
known to be undemonstrative, at times critical.
By the time Charles had grown, it was clear they
were very different men—Charles inherited little
of his father’s macho swagger and resolved to be
a different kind of parent. He was the first senior
royal to be at his wife’s side during labor. “I am, af-
ter all, the father, and I suppose I started this
whole business,” Charles had said. “So I intend to
be there when everything happens.”
He and Diana were hands-on parents, taking
turns bathing Wills and telling him bedtime sto-
ries. As a father, Charles was affectionate in pri-
vate, but unlike his wife, he generally refrained
from being touchy-feely in public. As a result, his
biographer Sally Bedell Smith pointed out, the
press gave him “no credit for paternal devotion.”
On Sept. 15, 1984, Henry Charles Albert David
was born. “Oh God, it’s a boy!” moaned Charles,
jokingly, though he had said he hoped for a
daughter. Big brother William was so rambunc-
tious he was dubbed “Billy the Basher” at nursery
school; little Harry, by contrast, was
“sweet-natured” according to biographer Katie
Nicholl. But the disintegration of Charles’s mar-
riage colored his relationship with his sons. By
the late 1980s, the prince was spending nights
with his old flame Camilla Parker Bowles. Mean-
while Diana began an affair with Guards officer
James Hewitt. According to Christopher Anders-
en, author of Diana’s Boys, William especially
showed the strain. “His first impulse was to com-
fort Diana,” Andersen told the Daily Beast. “Wil-
liam blamed Charles for making his mother mis-
erable. . . . More than once he was seen clenching
his fists . . . shouting, ‘I hate you, Papa!’ ”
Throughout the soap opera, however, Charles
and Diana showed up together for parent meet-
ings at their sons’ schools. When Will went to
Ludgrove boarding school, his father regularly
came for “sports days,” when they’d shoot clay pi-
geons together, and to see William in school plays.

58 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 Q UA L I T Y T I M E
“William has taken to the new baby
like a duck to water,” said an approving
Charles after Harry’s birth (opposite,
in 1985). Above: The princes cycling
at Sandringham in 1990.
59
 When Charles and Diana separated in 1992,
each was assigned times to stay with their sons.
Charles liked to see them in private settings, like
the Windsors’ country homes at Highgrove, Bal-
moral and Sandringham. Charles introduced Wil-
liam and Harry to hunting—and they took to it.
Both young princes were sent to board at Eton,
the storied public high school for Britain’s elite.
Their world came crashing down in the ear-
ly hours of Sept. 1, 1997, with Diana’s shocking
death at 36 from injuries sustained in a Paris
auto accident that also killed her lover, Har-
rod’s heir Dodi Fayed, and their driver. William
and Harry, then ages 15 and 12, were asleep at
Balmoral when word came of the tragedy, and
the deeply shaken Charles waited till morning
to break the news. Then he traveled to Paris to
accompany their mother’s body back to En-
gland for burial.
As thousands lined London’s streets, the
bravely stoic William and Harry walked with
Charles behind Diana’s horse-drawn casket
along the funeral route to Westminster Abbey.
After that, Charles largely kept his sons out of
the public eye, so they could grieve privately.
“One of the hardest things for a parent to have
to do is tell your children that your other parent
has died. How you deal with that, I don’t know,”
Harry said in a 2017 BBC documentary. “But he
MALE BONDING
was there for us . . . he tried to do his best and to Above: The Wales boys strolled along Scotland’s River Dee,
near the Balmoral Estate, in 1987. Below: William attended to
make sure that we were protected and looked his dad at a 1989 polo match Cirencester, England. Both Will
after. But he was going through the same griev- and Harry inherited Charles’s passion for the sport.
ing process as well.” In 2001 William went off to
St. Andrews University in Scotland. Struggling at
first, he considered withdrawing, but Charles
urged him to give it another crack. He would
leave with academic honors and a future wife—
fellow student Kate Middleton, whom his father
came to like immensely.
At the same time, the Prince of Wales had to
deal with his younger son’s growing pains. Harry
was caught drinking underage and holding wild
parties in a basement room at Highgrove known
as Club H. Tabloids dubbed him “Hedonist Harry”
and the “Bad Boy of Buckingham Palace.” Charles
stepped in to suggest Harry visit a South London
rehab center—where the young prince sat in on
therapy sessions with hardcore heroin addicts—
and set stricter limits on his son’s social activities.
The Prince of Wales was mortified, however,
when in 2005 Harry dressed for a costume party
as a member of Germany’s World War II Afrika
Korps, complete with swastika armband. Harry
later apologized. With some maturity he would
earn distinction in the army, serving in Afghani-
stan and rehabbing his rakish image. Both princes
became known for charity work, in particular their
advocacy for mental health, in the course of which

60 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 A Fa t her ’s Jou r ne y

H I T T I N G T H E S LO P E S
Above: Charles, William (left) and Harry in 1993 on one
of their many ski trips to Klosters, Switzerland. The
Prince of Wales has loved the Alpine resort since his first
visit (with Sarah Spencer) in 1978.
61

UNITED FRONT
Separated spouses Charles and Diana
joined the boys—and school house­
master Dr. Andrew Gailey—for William’s
first day at historic Eton College in 1995.
A Fat her ’s Jou r ney
H E A R T B R O K E N FA R E W E L L
Charles and his sons (with Diana’s brother
Charles, left) at her 1997 funeral. Devastated,
William and Harry were reluctant to take their brave
walk in the procession until Prince Philip offered
to join them, according to Princess Anne.
they openly discussed their struggles after Diana
died. In 2014 Harry launched the Invictus Games
to positively impact the lives of wounded service-
men and women through sport. Speaking to
People in 2022 about his devotion to the organi-
zation, Harry said, “I am my mother’s son.”
Over time Charles’s relationship with his
younger son suffered. Trouble began after Har-
ry’s 2018 marriage to American actress Meghan
Markle and grew amid the couple’s bitterness
over her alleged poor treatment, their move to
California and ultimate estrangement from the
royal life. In a 2021 interview with Oprah Win-
frey, Harry accused Charles of not returning his
calls and cutting him off financially. “Tension
between Charles and the boys has always sur-
rounded money, because Charles is the one
who holds all the power,” an insider told Peo-
ple. Harry has also revealed how stressful it had
been to be thrust into the limelight at a young
age—and alleged that Charles offered him no
comfort. “My father used to say to me when I
was younger . . . ‘Well, it was like that for me, so
it’s going to be like that for you,’ ” Harry said.
“That doesn’t make sense—just because you
suffered, that doesn’t mean that your kids have
to suffer.” There appeared a brief detente when
Harry returned in 2021 for the funeral of Prince
Philip, who died at age 99, where Charles
R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 63
 SPICING THINGS UP
Above: Charles took Harry, then 13, to a November 1997 Spice Girls
concert in Johannesburg. Below: on Buckingham
Palace’s balcony for the Queen Mother’s 100th-birthday
celebration in 2000. Opposite: future Kings in 2000.

spoke warmly of his “Dear Papa.”

In June 2022 the Sussexes made a highly an-
ticipated return for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
celebrations. Harry appeared to avoid his father
and brother, and when Charles walked down
the aisle at St. Paul’s Cathedral for the Service of
Thanksgiving, he was photographed looking
away while passing Harry and Meghan in their
pew. Privately, however, there may have been a
thaw. During the Jubilee, Charles enjoyed two
“emotional” visits with the Sussexes’ children Ar-
chie, 3, and Lilibet, who had just celebrated her
first birthday. “The prince was delighted to see
his grandson and meet his granddaughter for
the first time,” a source told People.
Meanwhile Charles and William have grown
closer, united in part by their special status as fu-
ture Kings. Throughout the Jubilee, father and son
often appeared together standing in for the
Queen. Assembled on the Buckingham Palace bal-
cony with Her Majesty, they presenting a tableau
of British monarchy, past, present and future.

64 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 PART III / PRESENT

CAMILLA’S EVO
 HIGH FIVE! PUMP UCHEL!
In Wales (where “high five” sounds even better in the
local language) Camilla met kids in the town of
Treorchy. The July 2022 trip also took her to Newport,
where she opened a library and revealed the book she
most liked to reread is Pride and Prejudice.

LUTION No map shows the way from

the center of a scandal to
a place in royal history. The Duchess
of Cornwall drew her own
by SIMON PERRY

Cam il la’s Evo luti on
M R . & M R S . PA R K E R B OW L E S
In 1984 Andrew Parker Bowles, with his wife and children Tom
and Laura were at Buckingham Palace when he received
an OBE honor from the Queen. The commanding officer of the
Household Cavalry remained in good standing with the family after
the divorce. He was in the royal box for Ascot 2022, seated with
Princess Anne, whom he had dated before Camilla.
68 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
O
H, IT COULD HAVE BEEN AWK-
ward! On March 8, 2022, the
Duchess of Cornwall was hosting
an International Women’s Day
reception at her London home.
There, mixing among luminaries
who ranged from three female
Afghan judges to Spice Girl Mel
B, was Emerald Fennell, the ac-
tress who played Camilla Parker
Bowles on the Netflix series The Crown during
the seasons that dramatized her affair with
Prince Charles—the chapter of her life the duch-
ess would most want people to forget.
“I was nervous I might be thrown in the Tow-
er,” Fennell quipped. In fact, the two women
chatted happily, posed together for photos and,
when it came time for the duchess to deliver re-
marks, she began by diffusing any tension. “For
me, it’s very reassuring to know that if I should
fall off my perch at any moment, my fictional
alter ego is here to take over. So, Emerald—be
prepared!” Later Fennell added her admiration
for Camilla: “She’s been in the spotlight for a
long time and has always weathered it with
grace and good humor.”
That grace has been well-earned, the result of
an unlikely journey that began back in the 1970s
with her and Charles’s first flirtations, wended
scandalously through his marriage to Diana, and
reached a remarkable pinnacle just about a
month before Camilla came face-to-face with
her Netflix double. When Queen Elizabeth’s Ac-
cession Day message was published on Feb. 5,
2022, she made news by stating it was her “sin-
cere wish” that Camilla be titled Queen Consort
when the time comes for Charles to be King.
Along with a skeptical public, Elizabeth took
years to arrive at that determination. But her de-
cision carries weight. “It had to come from the
Queen herself,” an insider tells People. And so
the King’s wife will not be Princess Consort, as
was announced when the couple wed in 2005.
Rather the woman once dubbed the Rottweiler
by her romantic rival will be known, familiarly,
as Queen Camilla.
For decades, that would have been unthink-
able. From the time they began dating in 1972,
the former Camilla Shand was judged ill-suited
to be the wife of a future King of England. In the
parlance of the day, “she had a history,” says
Windsor family biographer Sally Bedell Smith.
But Charles, who had been introduced to Ca-
milla by a Cambridge friend, was smitten with
this fox-hunting, horse-riding debutante. (The
story is that she came on to him with the pro-
phetic line “My great-grandmother was the mis-
tress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we
T HE P R I NC E ’ S C LO S E ‘ F R I E N D’
Charles and Camilla (left, in 1972) dated briefly before
her marriage. Then he often saw his friends the
Parker Bowleses, including at the opera on Valentine’s Day 1975
(above). But within years of the prince’s own wedding, it
was clear Camilla was more than a pal. Dubbed the Most Hated
Woman in Britain, she kept her humor and would
answer her phone using Diana’s epithet: “Rottweiler here!”
 Ca mi l l a’s Ev o lu tio n

O U T O F T H E S H A D OW S
In July 1997 (above) Camilla arrived to her birthday
party separately from Charles, but there was no
question that they were together—he was the host.
By 2000 (right) it was usual to see them out
as a couple—though not yet at royal family events.

have something in common.” That’s hearsay,

though it is true that her ancestor Alice Keppel
had been the love of King Edward VII’s life.)
“She was this eccentric person, the only wom-
an who understood his soul,” says Bedell Smith.
“Everything about her was compatible with
him.” They saw each other for several months
before Charles left on an eight-month Royal
Navy tour. In his absence Camilla accepted a
marriage proposal from Andrew Parker Bowles,
with whom she had been involved on and off for
years. (During an off period, Parker Bowles brief-
ly dated Charles’s sister Anne.) The couple wed
in 1973 and became parents of a son, Tom, to
whom Charles is a godfather, and daughter Lau-

R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 71
 B L E N D E D FA M I LY
The Queen and Philip posed for a wedding photo (along with
the couple’s children and the bride’s father, Bruce Shand) but
did not attend the April 9, 2005, nuptials. William, then 22,
and Harry, 20, did and said, “We are both very happy for our
father and Camilla and wish them all the luck in the future.”
72
 Ca mi l l a’s Ev ol ut io n

ra. Camilla’s marriage did nothing to break her

bond with Charles. Bowles was a military officer
whose rank was on the rise. In 1980, with her
husband handling advance work for an official
royal visit to Zimbabwe, Camilla served as the
prince’s escort on the trip.
Soon Charles was courting Lady Diana Spen-
cer, whom he would marry in July 1981. On the
eve of the wedding, Diana later told author An-
drew Morton, she discovered Charles had gift-
ed his ex-girlfriend a bracelet engraved “GF,” for
their pet names Gladys and Fred. Sometime af-
ter the honeymoon she found a set of cuff links
sporting entwined letter Cs, which he acknowl-
edged were a present from Camilla. According
to an account Charles gave about a decade lat-
er, the two began an affair in the mid-’80s
when his relationship with Diana, by then
mother of his two young sons, had become “ir-
retrievably” broken, he said.
Even as the marriage disintegrated further, di-
vorce seemed out of the question. “It is not go-
ing to happen,” one expert, Brian Hoey, told Peo-
ple in 1991. “The Prince of Wales considers
himself to be the rightful successor to the
Queen. And as head of the Church of England,
he cannot divorce.” Their parallel lives carried
on: Diana in London with her sons, Charles of-
ten at his country estate with Camilla, still mar-
ried to Andrew Parker Bowles, acting as hostess.
“When they aren’t riding together, they each
take watercolor lessons,” said a former body-
guard in the summer of 1992. When he “throws
dinner parties, Camilla steps right into Di’s
shoes. She organizes the menu and sits along-
side Charles.” By December that year Britain’s
prime minister, John Major, announced the
prince and princess had separated.
The next year brought the ignominy of the
so-called “Camillagate” tape, an illicitly recorded
1989 phone chat between the pair when Charles
spoke of, among other things, wanting to be re-
incarnated as his lover’s tampon. Earlier Camil-
la had coolly weathered the day that explosive
excerpts from Morton’s Diana tell-all published.
In fact, she and her husband spent that after-
noon in the royal box for a polo match, guests
of the Queen. “I’m certainly not going to bury
myself away because of what the papers say,”
she said. “Why should I?’’ But with these revela-
tions, Camilla went into hiding and her father,
Bruce Shand, addressed the press, saying “It is a
terrible time for our family.”
No doubt also for the monarchy. Pundits sug-
gested that Charles could not possibly become
King now. According to one, Princess Anne
might be named regent (a proxy monarch)
should the Queen die before William turned 18.

R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 73

IN WITH THE BOSS
In her endorsement of Camilla as a future Queen consort,
Elizabeth (with her in 2019, above) wrote that she was “blessed that
in Prince Philip I had a partner willing to carry out the role
of consort and unselfishly make the sacrifices that go with it.”
Below: Camilla’s 2022 portrait was snapped by Kate,
the Duchess of Cambridge, for Country Life.
‘’It is my understanding,’’ an insider told Today,
“that Charles has signaled his willingness to ab-
dicate his right of succession.’’
By the end of 1995, Camilla was divorced and
the Queen had ordered the same for Charles and
Diana, following the princess’s “there were three
of us in this marriage” interview. Although he
was free to date, Charles knew a public relations
operation lay ahead. There was no talk of his
someday Queen—all he wanted was for people
to accept Camilla as the woman at the center of
his life. The first stage of that campaign culmi-
nated on a balmy evening in July 1997, when she
was driven into her 50th birthday party at
Charles’s Highgrove House at a slow speed so
that photographers could get a clear shot of her
in the back of the car.
The image of Camilla celebrating her half cen-
tury worked in their favor: It bucked the cliché
of a man’s new lover being younger and more
glamorous than his cast-off wife. The weekend
of the party, Diana, 36, was pictured in a swim-
suit on holiday with her sons aboard Dodi
Fayed’s family yacht. Charles was happy, Diana
was happy. Could the public not be happy for
them and stop seeing his longtime love as a
homewrecker? Before they might find out, trag-
edy struck in Paris. In the early hours of Aug. 31
Diana, Dodi and their driver died in a car acci-
dent. Moves to promote Camilla ceased; Charles
had the more pressing demands of looking after
his now motherless sons.
After some time, the prince’s senior staff
worked behind the scenes courting friendly
press to reinforce the idea that Camilla’s position
in his life was “nonnegotiable.” At home he
would initiate a relationship between his girl-
friend and his family. In 1998, when William was
16, a tea with Camilla was arranged. Thirteen-
year-old Harry met her a few weeks later. “They
don’t see her as a villain,” royals author Judy
Wade told People then. “She too has had a rough
time.” Others did not warm as easily. The Queen,
said a royals correspondent, “sees her as a prob-
lem she would rather not have to deal with.” Not
until 2002 was Charles’s steady invited to attend
a public royal family event—a pop concert cele-
brating Elizabeth’s 50 years on the throne. The
moment demonstrated the Queen’s support of
the relationship and also that Camilla, singing
along from her seat to Phil Collins and Tom
Jones, knows the words to both “You Can’t Hur-
ry Love” and “Sex Bomb.”
The more they got to know of Camilla, the
more Britons grew to accept her. Sensing the
mood of the country changing, the Queen gave
the couple (who had been cohabitating at Clar-
ence House) her blessing to be married in April
 Ca mi l l a ’s E vol ution

ROYAL DUTIES
A Duchess in Action
She may not have won over every Briton, but she did
set out to prove she’s game for all aspects of her titled job
1 2

3 4
1/ Greeting a dog, Lucca,
in Scotland, 2021.
2/ Camilla, president of
the Royal Osteoporosis
Society at a “Healthy Bones”
dance, 2009.
3/ Joining a samba band,
Whitstable, 2013.
4/ Essex pub darts on
an official visit, 2014.
5/Pool at the Commonwealth
games, Australia, 2018.
6/ With Ollie, a donkey,
and Harry, a pony, at
a charity event, 2018.

5 6

R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 75
 Cam ill a’s Evol uti on

2005 at Windsor. They were not allowed to wed

in the castle itself nor in a church, owing to both
being divorced. The Queen did not attend the
civil ceremony, though she did host a reception
where, in a toast, she likened the couple’s
romance to a horse race. “My son is home and
dry with the woman he loves,” she said. “Wel-
come to the winner’s enclosure.” While a poll
showed 65 percent of Britons favored the union,
only 7 percent said that if Charles became king,
Camilla should be Queen.
If that public opinion ever bothered her, she
didn’t speak about it. Instead, from the time she
began official duties as Duchess of Cornwall, Ca-
milla kept her head down, eventually taking on
more than 90 organizations, from Battersea
Dogs and Cats Home to cancer charities, military
regiments and literacy initiatives—she has her
own Reading Room book-club style site. “She
has signaled a very determined attempt to over-
come people’s prejudices,” says her biographer
Christopher Wilson, author of A Greater Love.
“She’s shown courage in tackling that prejudice
with a smile on her face.”
One of her key causes is supporting women
affected by domestic and sexual abuse. “I think
we all know somebody who it’s happened to,”
the duchess told British Vogue in 2022. “I thought
maybe I ought to look into it to see if there was
somewhere for me to help.” Yvonne Traynor,
CEO of two U.K. Rape Crisis centers, told People
of the duchess’s private visit: “She was really hu-
man and approachable. She put people so at
ease that they felt comfortable talking to her.”
This is the Camilla that Charles had wanted
everyone to know: a woman who cares for those
in need, who shares his passion for gardening
and horses and who has a keen sense of humor.
“They laugh a huge amount,” says her pal author
Jilly Cooper. “They’re people who love each oth-
er and are good for each other.”
A quarter century after her tentative first
steps into the spotlight, Camilla approached
her 75th birthday. Unlike her 50th, orchestrat-
ed to introduce her to the world, this time, she
told Vogue, “I shall spend it with my family and
a few friends.” She did allow for some fanfare,
including guest-editing an issue of Country Life
magazine and appearing on its cover (photo-
graphed by Kate). The image of a grandmother
of 10 might have supplanted the old image Ca-
milla as an intruder in someone else’s fairy-tale
marriage if, say, The Crown didn’t stream her
past into living rooms. Why wasn’t she more
irked by the show’s portrayal of her? Perhaps
because it told a different kind of fairy tale, one
of enduring love and of a surprising route to a
happy ending.

76 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 G O O D S H OW !
Camilla was on hand for Charles’s Opening of Parliament
debut in 2022. He read his mother’s speech, but it was a
milestone for them too. Says a close source to People: With
moments like this, “they are making the point. She’s done a
great job. Remember in years gone by when she had to hide.”
77
COMING TO AM
 At the
White House
/ 2015
From left: Camilla,
Charles, President

ERICA
Barack Obama
and then-Vice
President Joe Biden
in the Oval Office.

Charles, who has popped across the pond

regularly since 1970, savors a special relationship
with both the United States and Canada
by LISA RUSSELL
 With the
Nixons / 1970
Above: In July U.S.
President Richard
Nixon and First Lady
Pat welcomed Charles,
21, and sister Anne,
19 (in yellow), to the
White House. The
two-day visit included
a barbecue at Camp
David, a Washington
Senators baseball game
and a dinner dance.

New York City

/ 1997
Charles joined (from
left) U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan,
Annan’s wife, Nane
Lagergren, Princess
Sumaya Bint Hassan
of Jordan and U.S.
President George
Bush at the Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art
for the “Glory of
Byzantium” exhibit.

80 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 Com ing to Am er i ca

Diana Dazzles D.C. / 1985

President Ronald Reagan took to the dance floor with Princess Diana on her first trip to the States while Nancy Reagan
danced with Charles during the much-publicized state dinner in honor of the Waleses’ visit to Washington. Later Diana famously
took a spin with John Travolta, a move orchestrated by the First Lady herself after Diana told her which guest she’d
like a turn with. Travolta had told her he couldn’t possibly ask the princess to dance, to which she replied, “Oh, yes you can.”
And at the stroke of midnight, with her husband looking on, he did.

81
 Com ing to Am eri ca

Harlem / 2007
In New York City, Charles tried his hand at basketball at the Harlem Children’s Zone. He sank one of two shots
and was cheered by the crowd at the Zone, a community center that runs programs for kids from
infancy through college. The choice of venue reflected one of the themes of the prince and wife Camilla’s two-day
visit to New York City: youth development. (Urban regeneration and environmental conservation were the others.)
In Britain, the Prince’s Trust, which he founded in 1976, is one of the U.K.’s leading youth charities.

82 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
New York City
/ 2007
Charles (with Meryl
Streep and former Vice
President Al Gore) on
receiving Harvard’s
Global Environmental
Citizen Award from Gore,
a previous winner: “We
had great fun talking
about all these issues . . .
To receive this award
from him really has been
a particular privilege.”

Washington,
D.C. / 2015
Camilla looked on
amusedly as Charles
did a bit of bowling
while visiting the
Armed Forces Retire-
ment Home near the
Capitol. It wasn’t a
gutter ball, but it wasn’t
great: two pins down.
 I N C A N A DA
Since 1970 Charles has made 19 visits to the
Commonwealth nation, where his mum is Queen
of Canada (and her face is on the money).
Ahead of his and Camilla’s most recent trip in May
he called it “a place that is very dear to us both.”

Kainai Nation / 1977

Even as Britain colonized North America, the Crown recognized Indigenous land rights dating to George III’s
Royal Proclamation of 1763. During a tour for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, Charles visited the Kainai people in southern Alberta,
where he was made an honorary chieftain and given the name Red Crow.

84 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
 Com in g to A mer i ca

Ottawa / 2022
Charles and Camilla
traveled to Canada’s
capital to celebrate
Queen Elizabeth’s
Platinum Jubilee
honoring her 70-year
reign, and to meet
the local schoolkids at
the Assumption School,
where the emphasis
was on literacy.

Dettah / 2022
The couple visited a
Dene community,
where they learned
about traditional
hunting tools. Charles
later urged Canadians
to hear “the truth of
the lived experiences”
of Indigenous people
who were forced into
schools meant to wipe
out their cultures.

85
 S I D E BY S I D E
Charles and Camilla (in June 2022) are a united team
in public and in private. “He is a better person for having
her; he’s happier in himself,” Camilla’s biographer
Christopher Wilson told People. “She has proved how
good she is at being the wife of the Prince of Wales.”
Whatever the future may hold,
Charles and Camilla know
that today means royal duties,
family and time for each other
by LISA RUSSELL

THEIR
LIVES
NOW
 W E A R I N G M A N Y H AT S
The couple often fill in for the Queen, as they did by leading the carriage
procession to June’s Royal Ascot (above). Earlier that week Camilla
was installed in the ancient Order of the Garter by her mother-in-law,
who skipped the procession (right). In March the pair visited a reenact-
ment group celebrating Waterford, Ireland’s Viking past (below).
 T he ir Liv es Now

R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2 89
 C A M E R A - R E A DY
In March the Prince of Wales and Duchess
of Cornwall ventured to the fictional
town of Walford and filmed cameos with the
cast and crew of EastEnders, the BBC soap
opera that has run since 1985.

90 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
91
 T H E FA M I LY B U S I N E S S
Anne and Charles (presenting education awards with trustee
Damon Buffini) are rivals for the title of hardest-working
royal. (In 2021 she had 387 official engagements to his 385.)
Though Charles envisions a slimmed-down monarchy, Anne,
says one expert, “will continue in her role.”
 WITH THE KIDS
Between them, the couple have 10 grandchildren, including
George, Charlotte and Louis (below). “I love being with them,
eating together, going to see a film or a play,” Camilla told
The Australian Women’s Weekly of her five, who lead less public
lives. “It keeps you abreast of young people’s feelings and ideas.”
 T H E R OA D PA S T A N D A H E A D
Charles and Camilla used a 2021 trip to Egypt (their first
overseas since the start of the pandemic) to stress
ongoing environmental and preservations concerns. Standing
at the pyramids in Giza, Charles said they “remind us of a
connection to our planet that we have over time forgotten.”
94
CREDITS ROYALS

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 ‘ YO U R M A J E S T Y, M U M M Y ’
In a warm speech during Platinum Jubilee celebra-
tions, Charles used both titles to address the Queen.
At the weekend’s Trooping the Color (below) she
reduced her duties as monarch—Charles inspected
the troops—but this gesture says she’s still Mum.

‘The Queen has a main imperative: ensuring that there

is a clear line of succession. That’s in good shape if
you look ahead to William and Kate. And Charles will
be a strong monarch. The succession is solid.’
—BIOGRAPHER ROBERT HARDMAN

96 R OYA L S FA L L 2 0 2 2
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 ROYALS

FAMILY BONDING
Kate and William
joined Camilla and
Charles for the
London premiere of
the latest 007 film.

INSIDE Charles and America: A special relationship • Camilla’s Evolution:

From the center of a scandal to future Queen Consort • Charles and Fatherhood:
Understanding his bonds with William and Harry PLUS The Dancing Heir