“The truth is that Charles would be much happier living in Tuscany, painting the landscape or studying architecture.”
o said Diana, the late Princess of Wales, shortly after her divorce from her husband. We were talking about the future now that their so-called “fairy-tale” marriage had been officially extinguished.
“I still believe that he’s just not cut out to be king,” she continued. “He has enough problems being Prince of Wales!”
Diana believed that Charles needed time out to reassess his life. “He’s stuck in a rut,” she told me. “Just take a look at his programme... he’s doing exactly the sort of things he was doing 10 years ago.”
But that was where Diana was wrong. It was precisely by banging on about often unfashionable causes – sometimes in the face of open mockery – that Charles proved that he was a man ahead of his time. From his sometimes uncomfortable rut, he confronted issues most of us hadn’t even considered.
“Over 40 years ago,” Charles said in 2018, “I remember making a speech about the problems of plastic and other waste. But at that stage nobody was really interested and I was considered old-fashioned, out of touch and ‘anti-science’ for warning of such things.”
Charles is a man shot through with paradox and contradiction. A progressive mind with an old man’s soul; a Royal surrounded by servants who says his role is to serve; someone who believes profoundly in promoting harmony and yet whose family life has been punctured by conflict; a man whose values are rooted in tradition but who accepts the need for change.
I’ve been reporting on him for 35 years. I’ve observed him in good times and bad.
He has an down-to-earth sense of humour, which stands him in good stead.
Largely because of his marriage to Diana, Charles has been labelled as cold, unfeeling and unfaithful. But, in truth, he is an extremely sensitive man who has proved himself to be unconditionally and faithfully in love with the woman he should have married in the first place: Camilla.
He is a man who thinks deeply and cares passionately. In one of his books, he summed up his philosophy: “All my life, I have wanted to heal things. Whether it’s been the soil, the landscape or the soul.”
The coronation will reflect the man himself: a mix of old and new. Some of the robes will seem quaint, but, for the most part, Charles will forsake the bizarre breeches of his forebears and wear modern military uniform.
And the procession will be a true blend of many a modern family, with both the king and the queen’s grandchildren taking part.
( © Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2023)
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2023]