He built a town to show British architects how it's done. He got
sex ed from Stephen Fry. You only think you know King Charles III.
"Prince of Wales" is not a hereditary title but
is traditionally granted by the reigning monarch to their heir apparent. In 1969,
King Charles III's investiture with the title happened amid a surge of Welsh nationalism in
opposition to English rule. The movement inspired people around the then-prince to
suggest he deliver part of his investiture speech in Welsh, which he did not speak.
"I, Charles, Prince of Wales, do become your liege man of life and limb."
Outspoken nationalist Dr. Tedi Millward was hired to tutor the prince, much to Millward's
surprise. The gesture didn't appease the militant factions of the opposition. There
were protests and a bomb plot that claimed the lives of the prince's would-be assassins.
That wasn't the only controversy around the prince's investiture. The coronet used
in the ceremony has changed with time. When it was Charles' turn, the coronet of record
was one made for his great-grandfather George V. It had most recently been used
for the investiture of Edward VIII. But when Edward abdicated in 1936 and left the U.K.,
he took the coronet with him. The royal family had two choices: confront the ex-king and ask him to
return the stolen goods or have a new coronet made. No surprise, they opted for the latter.
The U.K.'s monarch functions as a ceremonial or representational head of state and is expected to
remain neutral in political matters. But there are no such restrictions for the rest of the
royal family. For 900 years, non-reigning royals, including the Prince of Wales,
could sit in the House of Lords, Britain's upper house of Parliament.
Charles took his seat in the Lords in 1970. He made minor history four years later when
he delivered a maiden speech, the first time a royal had addressed the lords since 1884,
when the future Edward VII participated in a debate on slum housing. According to
Parliament transcripts, Charles spoke about how best to use leisure time.
Charles was the last royal to sit in Parliament.
"If you are writing the laws of a country that the citizens have to live under,
then the citizens should have a say in who you are."
With the 1999 House of Lords Act, Tony Blair's Labour government enacted reforms preventing
hereditary peers and members of the royal family from holding Parliamentary seats.
The British monarch still serves as the head of state for 14 former colonies. In each of these,
the monarch is represented by an appointed governor-general who performs the sovereign's
ceremonial and constitutional duties. In modern times, governors-general are from
the countries where they serve, but there's no legal reason a royal couldn't do the
job. A younger son of Queen Victoria became governor-general of Canada, and Prince Henry,
the Duke of Gloucester, a younger son of George V, held the same post in Australia.
On a 1974 visit to Australia, Charles confessed to then-governor-general
Sir John Kerr a feeling of malaise while waiting to inherit the crown.
"Charles, as prince, had a soft spot for Australia,
and more often than not, Australia returned the favor."
Kerr suggested Charles follow him as governor-general of Australia. After the
Australian constitutional crisis of 1975, set off by Kerr dismissing prime minister Gough Whitlam,
the idea received serious consideration. Charles would have been happy for the job,
but it was the opinion of Prime Minister Bob Hawke that Australia wouldn't accept him. Charles
took the rejection hard. In 1994, he expressed his disappointment with a rhetorical question:
"So, what are you supposed to think when you are
prepared to do something to help and you are just told you're not wanted?"
Like other members of his family, King Charles III has an interest in aviation. He requested
flight training from the Royal Air Force while he studied at Cambridge. He went on to train as
a jet pilot in 1971 and qualified as a helicopter pilot in 1974 while serving in the Royal Navy.
The end of Charles' aviation career in 1994 was a less-than-dignified departure. Charles
was a passenger on a Queen's Flight jet when Captain Graham Laurie let him sit
at the controls. Faced with high winds, Charles brought the plane down at Port Ellen — 40 miles
per hour too fast. The aircraft blew a tire, went off the runway, and crashed nose-first.
None of the 11 people on board were harmed, but damage to the plane came to £1 million.
"With hindsight, of course, which is a wonderful thing,
I should have got him to overshoot and make another approach."
An RAF board of inquiry found no fault with Charles on the grounds that he was
a passenger. Laurie was declared negligent for having allowed a passenger — even a royal
one — to take the controls. It cost Laurie work as an instructing pilot. As for Charles,
he announced he was done with flying the following year.
Some of King Charles III's harshest critics over the years have not been British republicans or
admirers of Princess Diana but architects. Charles arguably fired the first shot in his
decades-long war with Britain's architectural community in 1984. He made a speech to the Royal
Institute of British Architects about a proposed addition to the National Gallery, calling it,
"a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend."
It's modern architecture that has most often summoned the prince's ire and colorful insults,
and he hasn't been discreet in lobbying against offensive building projects with some success.
"It is worth building beautifully, in a manner that builds upon tradition,
evolving it in response to present challenges."
Architects working in modern styles, and their supporters,
have been unsparing in their rebuttals. In The Guardian,
Douglas Murphy offered a typical example when he accused Charles of wielding sinister influence
over which buildings get built, dismissed his tastes as "twee" and "inane," and insinuated
that the prince's fondness for traditional architecture aligned him with the dangerous,
reactionary political right. Interestingly, public sentiment is closer to Charles' view.
For his part, Charles has attempted to soften his position at times. He's said that he isn't
against modernity or in favor of retreating into nostalgia at the expense of the future.
The Architectural Review invited him to write an essay summarizing his approach to a human-scale,
eco-and-pedestrian-friendly way of building in 2014. And Poundbury, the planned community
built along Charles' philosophy, received a thoughtful defense in Architect Magazine.
How does a prince pay for his activities? In the U.K., with Duchy of Cornwall. Established
in 1337 by Edward III, the duchy is a private estate specifically intended to
support the heir to the throne, who is also the Duke of Cornwall. It's made up of over
52,000 hectares split among farms, real estate, natural landscapes, and control
of nursery and holiday cottage businesses. According to the duchy's official website,
"The revenue from [the] estate is used to fund the public,
private and charitable activities of The Duke and his immediate family."
According to the duchy's FAQ,
it's considered a private estate granted crown exemption from capital gains tax.
It isn't considered a corporation and so it doesn't pay corporate tax either. When he was
Prince of Wales, King Charles III voluntarily paid tax on his income from the duchy.
But memorandums and willing participation in taxation didn't let Charles and the duchy off
the hook from critics. Its status as a private estate is muddied by the fact
that it has all the protections and privileges it would have as part of
the crown. Charles could veto proposed legislation that affects his management
of the duchy. And a Guardian article noted that the duchy's exemption from
business taxes are a potential advantage when competing with commercial estates.
You probably won't run into King Charles III in a U.K. grocery store,
but you may well see his wares. In 1992, Charles established Duchy Originals,
one of the first organic food companies. Initially, his estate supplied grains, dairy,
and vegetables for the brand. In time, other producers have partnered with the company. Duchy's
goal is to help small-to-medium-sized farms. Profits from the brand go to the King's charities.
Not that Duchy Originals makes much profit. Though it got off to a strong start,
the company struggled in the mid-2000s. It's not the cheapest brand around,
and many weren't prepared to meet its prices during the recession. To keep afloat, Duchy
Originals formed an exclusive partnership with Waitrose, a U.K. supermarket chain.
The brand is now known as Waitrose Duchy Organic and has been riding high ever since.
As with almost everything Charles does, his grocery line has invited controversy.
In this case, it isn't the food at issue so much as Duchy's health products. Charles has
long been a devotee of alternative medicine. In 2009, he put out Duchy Herbals' Detox Tincture,
a mix of artichoke and dandelion extract marketed as a digestive aid. Professor Edzard Ernst,
an investigator of complementary medicine, called the product "outright quackery."
If you subscribe to the idea that comedians should speak truth to power,
then it may seem odd for a comic to befriend a high-ranking member of the royal family.
It could be seen as a conflict of interest; it's not easy to make fun of a friend. But
Stephen Fry called himself a great admirer of the then-prince on Larry King Now and gave a sincere
tribute to him at a charitable function. For an outspoken left-wing secularist, Fry has been a
curious proponent of constitutional monarchy. In an interview with the CBC, he remarked,
"Although it's preposterous, it works terribly well."
Fry praised the late queen's job performance during her Platinum Jubilee. For his part,
Charles spoke fondly of Fry in 2007's Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out.
"I think this country's incredibly lucky to have somebody like Stephen."
But friendship with the king hasn't stopped Fry from having fun with him. He shared a
story about the then prince's naïveté around the term "Prince Albert" on The Graham Norton Show.
"So I had to say, 'Well, sir, it's an item of intimate jewelry.' He said,
'What do you mean?' I said, 'No, further south.'"
And he told Desert Island Discs about a time he snorted cocaine at Buckingham
Palace. Although he was careful to point out that Charles did not partake, Fry said,
"I think he would not be especially pleased with the idea of people doing
that in the Palace. But nor would he leap ... to the exit door to say,
'Never return again' ... It's fair to say that he knows I am naughty."
Queen's consent is a procedure that allows a monarch and their heir to review drafts
of proposed legislation to assess whether it affects them in public or private capacities.
Such bills require crown approval before going forward.
In 2022, The Guardian published a list of examples of Charles' past use of the procedure. In 1993,
he sought an exemption for the village of Newton Saint Loe — part of the Duchy of Cornwall — from
legislation to let tenants more easily buy their homes from landlords. He told prime
minister John Major that his objection was that homes bought in the village would be altered
without a mind paid to the historic nature of the properties or their "special character."
Several ministers felt that there were no grounds for the exemption,
but Whitehall official J.E. Roberts advised the government that the British constitution
had no mechanism for resolving a deadlock between the cabinet and the heir apparent
over a matter of Queen's consent. While the prevailing opinion was that the ministers
would ultimately win out in a fight, they opted to avoid a row and granted Charles his exemption.
It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie, but Operation Golden Orb is the codename
for the committee planning the coronation of King Charles. The operation had been underway
for over a decade when, in 2016, a careless government official left the name unredacted
on a document. Golden Orb's name may have been given away, but its plans remain confidential.
Charles' public statements and additional leaks have given the public some idea of
what's in store now that the Queen has died. It's expected that the next
coronation will be significantly shorter and less costly than Queen Elizabeth's in 1953,
offering the British taxpayers "good value" for their money. The guest list and the number of
people involved in parades and rituals will be slashed, too. According to one source,
"It will be a slimmed–down Monarchy on display throughout."
It's said that the King would like to carve out a place for religions
other than Anglicanism despite the coronation being an Anglican service.
"I personally, you see, would much rather see it as Defender of Faith, not "the Faith."
He has other ideas, as well, like swapping the
crown of St. Edward for the Tudor crown as official royal insignia.