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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Prince Charles is like a Shakespeare character – just not the one he thinks | Prince Charles is like a Shakespeare character – just not the one he thinks |
| (about 2 months later) | |
| Just as children like to pretend to be kings and queens, so royals love to flatter their own self-image. In the BBC’s documentary to mark his 70th birthday this week, Prince Charles invoked Shakespeare’s laddish take on Prince Hal to pooh-pooh the idea that as king he’d continue meddling in politics and bothering ministers with his thoughts. As an ageing prince, he has of course spent decades doing just that. | Just as children like to pretend to be kings and queens, so royals love to flatter their own self-image. In the BBC’s documentary to mark his 70th birthday this week, Prince Charles invoked Shakespeare’s laddish take on Prince Hal to pooh-pooh the idea that as king he’d continue meddling in politics and bothering ministers with his thoughts. As an ageing prince, he has of course spent decades doing just that. |
| “You can’t be the same as the sovereign if you’re the Prince of Wales or the heir,” Charles observed. “But the idea somehow that I’m going to go on in exactly the same way if I have to succeed is complete nonsense because the two situations are completely different. You only have to look at Shakespeare plays, Henry V or Henry IV Parts I and II, to see the change that can take place. Because if you become the sovereign then you play the role in the way that it is expected.” | “You can’t be the same as the sovereign if you’re the Prince of Wales or the heir,” Charles observed. “But the idea somehow that I’m going to go on in exactly the same way if I have to succeed is complete nonsense because the two situations are completely different. You only have to look at Shakespeare plays, Henry V or Henry IV Parts I and II, to see the change that can take place. Because if you become the sovereign then you play the role in the way that it is expected.” |
| It’s not a huge surprise that Charles knows his Shakespeare, a playwright who made a living mulling over royal successions. But the Prince of Wales likening himself to Henry IV’s Hal, a fellow prince of Wales and the future King Henry V? | It’s not a huge surprise that Charles knows his Shakespeare, a playwright who made a living mulling over royal successions. But the Prince of Wales likening himself to Henry IV’s Hal, a fellow prince of Wales and the future King Henry V? |
| That’s a bit much, even if Charles did once play Hal in a scene from Henry IV Part I for an audiobook in the 1990s. | That’s a bit much, even if Charles did once play Hal in a scene from Henry IV Part I for an audiobook in the 1990s. |
| I will do things differently as Prince of Wales, says William | I will do things differently as Prince of Wales, says William |
| It seems that Charles believes he shares with Hal an experience of the trials of waiting for the throne. But Shakespeare has him as a louche character who is introduced farting about with friends in a pub and planning a highway robbery. Eventually, he turns into a sober, sensible monarch. It’s hard to see the likeness between that and someone who reportedly demanded that another adult man squeeze his toothpaste (not a euphemism) and, according to Tom Bower’s recent biography Rebel Prince, once “shrieked” at the sight of a mysterious plastic forcefield covering his dinner, only to be reassured by Camilla: “It’s cling film, darling.” | It seems that Charles believes he shares with Hal an experience of the trials of waiting for the throne. But Shakespeare has him as a louche character who is introduced farting about with friends in a pub and planning a highway robbery. Eventually, he turns into a sober, sensible monarch. It’s hard to see the likeness between that and someone who reportedly demanded that another adult man squeeze his toothpaste (not a euphemism) and, according to Tom Bower’s recent biography Rebel Prince, once “shrieked” at the sight of a mysterious plastic forcefield covering his dinner, only to be reassured by Camilla: “It’s cling film, darling.” |
| Perhaps the Shakespearean royal who most easily springs to mind when talking about Charles is hangdog Hamlet, skulking about the house, darting black looks at the monarch and indulging in unprofitable distractions such as amateur theatre productions. Or maybe he belongs in Richard II, the part of the famous tetralogy Charles tellingly omitted. | Perhaps the Shakespearean royal who most easily springs to mind when talking about Charles is hangdog Hamlet, skulking about the house, darting black looks at the monarch and indulging in unprofitable distractions such as amateur theatre productions. Or maybe he belongs in Richard II, the part of the famous tetralogy Charles tellingly omitted. |
| Shakespeare’s Richard infuriates the people with his capriciousness and is accused by the nobility of blowing money on fripperies until his eventual usurpation. For one Highgrove dinner party, Charles reportedly flew in exotic flowers from South Africa as decorations (£100 a stem) and, according to Bower, once took a trip on the royal train from Highgrove to Penrith to visit a pub, a journey that cost £18,916. If Charles thinks all this pomposity and excess can be understood as his Prince Hal heydays, fine – his Henry V is going to blow it all out of the water. | Shakespeare’s Richard infuriates the people with his capriciousness and is accused by the nobility of blowing money on fripperies until his eventual usurpation. For one Highgrove dinner party, Charles reportedly flew in exotic flowers from South Africa as decorations (£100 a stem) and, according to Bower, once took a trip on the royal train from Highgrove to Penrith to visit a pub, a journey that cost £18,916. If Charles thinks all this pomposity and excess can be understood as his Prince Hal heydays, fine – his Henry V is going to blow it all out of the water. |
| • Sian Cain is the Guardian’s books site editor | • Sian Cain is the Guardian’s books site editor |
| Prince Charles | Prince Charles |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Monarchy | Monarchy |
| William Shakespeare | William Shakespeare |
| Theatre | Theatre |
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