Prince Charles biography: 11 things we've learned
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Version 0 of 1. The publication this week of Charles: The Heart of a King, the unauthorised biography of the Prince of Wales by Time journalist Catherine Mayer, has provided the Times with days of racy front-page stories. Mayer’s grabby extracts, heavily based on anonymous briefings, have been widely followed up, despite a rebuttal from Clarence House. Here are 11 things we’ve learned, according to Mayer’s book. Charles’s household is full of infighting The story which gave rise to those Wolf Hall comparisons. Mayer writes that Charles’s court is “every bit as brutal as in the days when a twitching arras might signal a hidden assassin”. The Wolf Hall comparison was allegedly made by an insider. “One former householder refers to Clarence House as Wolf Hall, in reference to the treacherous and opportunistic world depicted by Hilary Mantel in her fictionalised account of the rise of Thomas Cromwell under Henry VIII”, Mayer writes. Charles nearly jilted Diana at the altar Apparently the Prince of Wales “felt desperate” before his nuptials to then Lady Diana Spencer, realising that she was “not the jolly country girl he had assumed”. Of course, Diana herself was also thought to have doubts. Apparently she was told she couldn’t pull out of the wedding as her “face was already on the tea towels”. Charles did not meet Camilla at a polo match According to Mayer, the famous “My great-grandmother was your great-great grandfather’s mistress, so how about it?” line isn’t true. Or at least, it wasn’t said at a polo match and it wasn’t said by the future Duchess of Cornwall. Mayer writes that the prince’s university friend Lucia Santa Cruz introduced the couple in 1971, at her flat in London, and it was Cruz who made a cheeky comment about the couple’s ancestors: “Now you two watch your genes,” Santa Cruz apparently said. The Queen is worried about Charles becoming king Mayer reports that the Queen is unsure about Charles as monarch. Citing the Prince’s somewhat forthright views, activism and history of interference in social matters – the Guardian is currently battling to have his so-called “black spider memos” to government ministers released – Mayer writes that the Queen is nervous about her son taking the throne. “In defining his role as heir apparent, the prince has signalled a redefinition of the monarchy. Some courtiers – and the sovereign herself – fear that neither the crown nor its subjects will tolerate the shock of the new,” the book states. Jimmy Savile was a close friend Mayer further elaborates on the well-known connection between Charles and Jimmy Savile and even tells of times when the now-disgraced late TV star read over the Prince’s speeches. “One source tells of an occasion when the prince asked his famous occasional adviser to read over a speech he was due to give on a topic unrelated to healthcare or any field in which Savile had expertise.” Anna Karenina may be the only novel Charles has ever read The same friend who allegedly originally introduced Charles and Camilla says she is also responsible for introducing the Prince to Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina – and that it may be the only novel he has ever finished. “He said he liked [Anna Karenina] but he never wanted to read another one [a novel], I don’t think. He always wanted to stick to history or essays”, she is quoted as saying. Charles talks to the dead, not his plants The Prince once joked that he likes to talk to his plants, but according to Mayer, he actually converses with the deceased. The book claims the prince became depressed after the deaths of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, in 2002, and his mentor Earl Mountbatten, killed by the IRA in 1979. Mayer says that the prince “fills his domains with little shrines and memorials; he goes into his gardens not to talk to the plants but to the deceased.” He isn’t a fan of the arms trade Charles “doesn’t like being used to market weaponry”, writes Mayer. This despite the prince’s previous forays into this area. “In Jonathan Dimbleby’s 1994 documentary, Charles defends his appearance at the Dubai arms fair on the basis that he is boosting British trade, arguing without much conviction that the arms will likely be used as a deterrent and if the UK doesn’t sell them someone else will.” Emma Thompson doesn’t like the Prince’s hair The actor Emma Thompson is one of few recognisable names quoted in the book. One area she offers an opinion on is the Prince of Wales’s pate. On the future King’s hairstyle, Mayer quotes Thompson as saying: “I’ve fought him tooth and nail for years. I just want him to move it, up or bloody down, somewhere, because it’s always been in the same place.” Prince Charles wants to help the human condition “I only take on the most difficult challenges. Because I want to raise aspirations and re-create hope from hopelessness and health from deprivation,” the prince apparently said. He identifies with Baldrick from Blackadder In perhaps the most surreal revelation, Mayer writes that the prince identifies with the slapstick, balding, turnip-eating figure of fun Baldrick, from Richard Curtis’s Blackadder. |