The Man Who Will Be King

If Charles Philip Arthur George Mount-batten-Windsor did not exist, who could invent him? Consider. He can pilot a jet fighter and knows enough about helicopters to help repair them. He has skippered a Royal Navy minesweeper through North Atlantic gales with the skill of a yachtsman handling a racing sloop. He plays an aggressive, three-plus-handicap game of polo and is a qualified paratrooper. He is a gifted amateur cellist who can be moved to tears while listening to the music of Berlioz. He has scuba-dived in the Caribbean, schussed down Alps, sambaed into the night with Brazilian beauties. A keen student of history, he can discourse persuasively on the neglected virtues of his ancestor King George III, and is host and interviewer on a TV series on anthropology.

Conservatively estimated, his income is about $420,000 a year. He is master of a stately home on 3,000 acres in Kent, which he calls "the most desirable bachelor pad in Europe." He has a mischievous, urbane wit, an infectious smile.

At 29, he is trim (5 ft. 11 in., 154 Ibs.) and --yes--unmarried. As if this were not enough to thrill every mother (and every mother's daughter) in the entire United Kingdom, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, Earl of Chester and Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland, is also heir to the classiest preserve of royal pomp and privilege left on earth: the British throne.

Given the robust good health of his mother Queen Elizabeth, chances are that it will be some years before Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes King. But as he approaches his 30th birthday (Nov. 14), this scion of the House of Windsor has clearly come into his own, not so much a monarch in waiting as a mature royal Prince who is a man of his times despite those anachronistic titles. Relaxed and at ease in his ceremonial chores, Charles has worked to extend the influence and interests of the royal family during a time of change for Britain.

Something of Charles' concern for contemporary problems was apparent last week when he held a Buckingham Palace press conference to announce the results of the Queen's Silver Jubilee Appeal, his special activity during the year of celebration that ended last December. Jamming a hand into the pocket of a not-too-well-tailored suit, the Prince explained in his husky baritone that his mission had been "to drag a certain amount of money screaming out of everybody's pockets."

The appeal, it turned out, had raised about $30.5 million. The purpose of the fund is to assist community programs for young people who get into trouble with the law--"to reach the unreachable," as the Prince put it. Asked if the new programs would try to do something for the youthful hooligans responsible for Britain's recent outburst of football violence, Charles answered deftly, "We have not had a group identifying themselves as football hooligans apply by that name, but I hope that gently one might wean a few away from hooliganism."

The Prince's easy wit was still shipshape that afternoon when his red helicopter dropped out of a gray sky into the grimy valley town of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. He had come to dedicate the $11 million Prince Charles Hospital, a 362-bed facility that some valley residents fear will shut down local hospitals. "Not to worry," said Charles, striding up to a sign-carrying demonstrator. "We have to put this hospital somewhere." Plowing along a line of well-wishers, he joked with a mother of six children ("You're going to heavily populate the pediatrics ward"), then moved inside to greet ranks of giggling student nurses and other hospital workers before popping into a ward to visit patients. Exclaimed one, as he moved on: "What a wonderful bedside manner!"

Outside again, the Prince ducked into the pilot's seat of his chopper, hovered long enough for an expansive wave to the crowds below and then aimed for Cardiff Castle, where the Royal Regiment of Wales waited for him to open a museum.

When Charles' mother was crowned Elizabeth II in 1953, here were many--even among her own cheering subjects--who felt that they were seeing the last of those great coronation pageants, that a tide of egalitarianism was swiftly making obsolete the very concept of monarchy. Now, except among a minority of zealous anti-royalists in Britain, that feeling has almost disappeared. Elizabeth's own gentle, wise and dutiful reign and the growing popularity of her Crown Prince son almost ensure that the foes of monarchy will not have their way. Even if he has to wait at the footstool of the throne for decades, Charles will almost certainly one day become King. Reflects Marge Davies, a cleaning woman in Oxford: "Charlie would really be good for the country. We need someone like him."

So does the royal family. The public dalliance of Princess Margaret, 47, with Roderick ("Roddy") Llewellyn, 30, a sometime landscape gardener and would-be pop singer, has been a deep embarrassment. The Queen's headstrong sister-- permanently embittered, friends feel, by the royal orders that ended her romance with R.A.F. Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1955--raised a furor two years ago with her official sep aration from her husband Lord Snowdon. Last month criticism flared again after a flood of publicity about Margaret and Roddy at their favorite retreat, the Caribbean island of Mustique. The royal family was due for a salary increase on Parliament's "civil list," and critics, both royalist and republican, asked sharply whether Margaret was pulling her princessly weight. Since then Margaret has been unusually visible on the royal circuit.

Princess Anne, 27, Charles' sister, has also piqued the public lately, although on much less serious grounds. A petulant young woman, she stunned a photographer not long ago by spitting out four-letter vulgarities precisely timed to the clicks of his motorized camera. She alienated some of her Gloucestershire neighbors by sacking a milkman who refused to deliver milk for her six-month-old son more than three times a week. Anne has since tried to mend fences by appearing at a village fete, but she is not the sort who is likely to be beloved.

Even so, the royal family has the affection of the British public. Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (King George VI's widow), is still unfailingly gracious and good-natured and, at the age of 77, every Briton's good old mum. Prince Philip's occasional bits of bad public temper have long since been forgiven by Britons, who admire his spirit. They also recognize his steadfast support of the Queen and his own independent accomplishments as a champion of environmental causes and lobbyist for British technology. Prince Andrew, 18, the handsomest of the royal progeny, is beginning to attract notice by bringing home dazzling young women for weekends at Windsor and following in his older brother's bootstraps as a daredevil: last month, in fact, he preceded Charles in qualifying as an army parachutist. Schoolboy Prince Edward, 14, has not yet reached the age of publicity, but is reputed to be the family's budding intellectual; he is fascinated by history and photography and given to nothing more strenuous than cricket.

Charles, though, is by far the most popular of the young royals. "He is first-rate," says Jack Diment, a porter and World War II veteran. "He is sensible, down to earth--of that there is no doubt.

He is a thoroughly good bloke."

It is sobering to remember that another Prince of Wales--Charles' greatuncle David, Edward VIII, who was to abdicate the throne and live out a sybaritic life as the Duke of Windsor--once inspired similar enthusiasm. Photographs from early in the century, of the young Prince of Wales donning Indian headdress or greeting tribal chiefs in colonial Africa, bear an eerie resemblance to pictures of Charles on almost identical missions. But the resemblance is superficial:

David was later seen as a dandified snob with pro-fascist leanings who probably did his country a favor by abdicating. If Charles is different, it is the happy result of a carefully wrought education for kingship and, perhaps more important, of the Prince's good-natured response to it.

Charles was already an heir apparent once removed when he was born at Buckingham Palace in 1948, four years before his mother became Queen. The world nodded democratic approval when she and Prince Philip decreed that Charles should become the country's first heir to the throne to be packed off to school like other upper-class British lads rather than shielded at home among royal tutors. His first boarding school was Cheam in Berkshire, then Gordonstoun in Scotland, both schools that Philip had attended. At Gordonstoun, students start each day, rain or shine, with a brisk, shirtless outdoor run followed by a cold shower; the school was designed in 1933 by its late founder, Berlin-born Kurt Hahn, to be a place where "the sons of the powerful can be emancipated from the prison of privilege."

During Charles' years at Gordonstoun came another royal first: six months at Timbertop, a wilderness school run by the Church of England in Australia. Charles, who in his early teens had seemed somewhat fearful and plodding, responded gamely to the tough regimens of both institutions: "The idea is to challenge a person so they find something within themselves they didn't realize existed," he later explained. "This can have an electrifying effect on somebody who normally, perhaps, was doubtful about his own ability. I know it has had an effect on me, which has lasted ever since. There are a lot of things in life which need doing that you may not like the idea of doing.

This is the whole idea of duty."

If Gordonstoun and Timbertop helped mold the young Prince's sense of duty, Trinity College at Cambridge--his next stop, by family decree--opened up his personality. Charles is a slow but dogged study; his bachelor's degree from Trinity was only an undistinguished "second class, division two"--a sort of gentleman's C. But Lord Butler, master of Trinity, praised the student Prince for what was, in fact, a considerable accomplishment: he was the first member of the royal family ever to earn a degree. Not only had Charles taken time out for state visits abroad and his elaborate investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, but he had also spent a term at University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, taking a cram course in Welsh to cool nationalist resentment in his titular fief. Even so, a large part of Charles' education at Cambridge was extracurricular. His happiest hours at Trinity were apparently spent performing in a series of comic revues, in which Charles showed a talent for daffy comedy and self-deprecating good humor.

Even as a schoolboy, Charles had a penchant for mischief. He once sent classmates at Cheam into a frantic search for the right-sized headgear when he switched their unmarked school caps around on a wall of name-plated pegs. His sense of the zany owes much to a long devotion to the Goon Show, an innovative British radio comedy program of the 1950s whose routines he has memorized. He often emulates the show's outrageous punning style. (Sample royal groaner, after a dogsled ride in Canada: "That just sleighed me.") He loves to deflate Establishment airs, and once showed up to address a banquet of the Master Tailors' Benevolent Association in a shabby tweed jacket over his proper white tie. "I am often asked if it is because of some generic trait that I stand with my hands behind my back like my father," he told them. "The answer is that we both have the same tailor. He makes the sleeves so tight that we can't get our hands in front."

The Prince defends his clownishness:

"I would probably have been committed to an institution long ago were it not for my ability to see the funny side of life." His wit helps him make the best of bad situations. Thrown twice during a rough cross-country horse race last month, he cheerily observed: "That was excellent practice for parachuting."

Charles has surely needed that sense of humor during the relentless press pursuit of his romantic life and marital plans.

As one source close to the family tells it, British reporters very nearly destroyed a budding friendship with Lady Jane Wellesley, 27, the darkly attractive journalist daughter of the present Duke of Wellington. Charles and Lady Jane still see each other occasionally, but marriage now seems unlikely. Another press favorite, a vivacious blonde named Davina Sheffield, 28, was removed from the royal marriage sweepstakes by a former fiance, who ungallantly blabbed that Davina and he had been lovers.

Lady Sarah Spencer, willowy, red-haired and 23, spent a skiing holiday with Charles and other friends last winter at a Swiss chalet. She, however, insists they are only chums. In an interview with Woman's Own magazine she gave a rare close-up view of the bachelor Prince. Charles, she disclosed, makes his own dates (not, as some have said, through third parties). He may pick up the woman in his Aston Martin or invite her to meet him at one of the royal residences.

A weekend at Windsor Castle, Sarah confided, requires a suitcase of clothes--riding habit for morning, day dress for lunch, skirt for tea, long dress for dinner. A bit of formality too: she claims she always calls Charles "Sir."

"Charles makes me laugh a lot. I really enjoy being with him," Sarah said, adding firmly that "there is no chance of my marrying him. I'm not in love with him.

And I wouldn't marry anyone I didn't love whether he were the dustman or the King of England." According to Sarah, Charles is a "romantic who falls in love easily."

The Prince once admitted that "I've fallen in love with all sorts of girls." But he also cautioned that "falling madly in love with someone is not necessarily the starting point to getting married. Marriage is a much more important business. It's essentially a question of mutual love and respect for each other."

Charles remains lightheartedly coy about his marital prospects. "If I got married, I wouldn't be able to do the samba like I did the other night," he told reporters on his visit to South America in March. Meanwhile, he has turned increasingly serious about his royal duties since retiring from active duty in the navy last year with the rank of commander.

In South America, he observed, "people think I'm 22 or 23 years old, not very flattering when you think about it." The Prince, points out a defender at the Palace, "had three years at the university, then six years of military service. He came out just in time to be totally involved in the Silver Jubilee Year. He is only now emerging into a role of his own."

The command center for that role is Charles' desk in his suite at Buckingham Palace. There are suites for the Prince at Windsor, Balmoral, Sandringham and other castle-homes, and the new digs at Chevening House in Kent, still under renovation. Charles has both his lodgings and office in his third-floor palace apartment overlooking St. James's Park. A few years back, Designer David Hicks redecorated the suite, but Charles has added his own touches and a good bit of clutter. The bathroom is hung with favorite cartoons, the sitting room crammed with memorabilia from his journeys. There are books on history, art and archaeology, as well as sound and video equipment, including a video tape recorder that he uses to replay and critique his appearances.

At Buckingham Palace, the Prince often spends the morning in private meetings: as honorary colonel in chief of ten regiments, active officer in three others and patron of 147 societies, he must receive an endless procession of visitors. Among callers trooping in may be parachute officers from the army regiment in which he has just earned his jumping wings; delegates from the Men of the Trees society, a conservation organization; administrators of his private conglomerate, the Duchy of Cornwall. Business luncheons often end the morning, with more meetings, or princely visits to worthy institutions, consuming the afternoon. Basically shy, Charles has perfected what one palace observer calls "all the little hypocrisies of the royal trade. When you meet him, he really makes you think he's only interested in you."

When his schedule permits, the Prince likes to spend his evenings with a small circle of discreet friends, who call him simply "Wales." He telephones them to join him for the theater, a shooting weekend or dinner at a favorite London restaurant, like Boulestin in Covent Garden. Among his cronies: Merchant Banker Lord Tryon and his Australian wife; Lord Tollemache, heir to a brewing fortune; Insurance Broker Nicholas Soames, a grandson of Winston Churchill; Barrister Richard Beckett. When dining alone, Charles favors light meals (one favorite: scrambled eggs and smoked salmon). He does not smoke, keeps fit by jogging in Windsor Park, seldom drinks anything stronger than dry white wine.

"Charles needs to justify his actions to himself in moral terms," observes a friend. To that end, his personal concerns are earnest, international, multiracial (see TIME INTERVIEW). Britain's royalty is expected to steer clear of partisan political positions but need not avoid controversial ones: on race, a particularly hot issue in Britain, Charles outspokenly supports an open society. He agreed to act as interlocutor in the current BBC anthropology series Face Values partly to promote his vision of racial harmony. He is also a disciple of the late E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, with its plea for alternative economic systems and technologies.

To aid hard-core problem youngsters, Charles works assiduously to build the Prince's Trust, a charity that will aid people normally beyond the royal gaze: young ex-criminals, immigrant youths, juvenile delinquents. Thanks largely to Charles' insistence, black and white social workers, a youth and a woman are being placed among the usual Establishment elders on the board of Charles' other major benefit, the Silver Jubilee Trust.

In his earnestness, Charles can sometimes walk in where even constables fear to tread. Last summer, visiting a London youth club, he encountered a clash between black demonstrators and the police.

Confronted by the Prince, Socialist Workers' Party Member Kim Gordon, a British Ghanian, explained that the demonstration was against police harassment. "Couldn't you come together and discuss it?" Charles asked. To the police at his elbow, he said, "What about it?" Before leaving, he accepted a protest leaflet and pleaded, "See if you can sort things out. You cannot go around like this." The intervention drew fire. "I don't care who he is," snapped the head of the police union. "He should not have said anything."

The incident revealed a certain princely naivete, but also showed that Charles shrewdly understands the real source of royal authority in a democracy. "The first function of any monarchy," he has said, "is the human concern for people." Charles inherited this appreciation: the smashing success of the Queen's Silver Jubilee was in part a thank-you note for all the gracious concern she has lavished on her subjects for the past quartercentury. Over the years Prime Ministers have come to cherish their weekly meetings with her, knowing that her assessment of what Britons will tolerate, and what they will not, is particularly acute.

Although forbidden by custom to intervene in partisan politics, she has fully exercised the rights of the monarchy that the 19th century historian Walter Bagehot described in his classic The English Constitution: "The right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn."

From time to time the Queen has used these rights incisively. In 1974, for example, she blocked Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath's attempt to form a minority coalition government after a Conservative defeat in the general elections; under the constitution, she told Heath bluntly, she was required to summon the leader of Commons' biggest party--Labor's Harold Wilson--to form a Cabinet.

Britain has no written constitution--simply a collection of precedents embodied in acts of Parliament and historic understandings that have grown out of political crises and conflicts over the centuries. In the accepted framework of British politics, Heath had no choice but to accept his sovereign's verdict. The Queen, for her part, could not have spoken out publicly; she would have seemed to be usurping the power of Parliament. There is a built-in fiction to the British system: namely, the Cabinet is no more than the servant of the Crown. The reverse is closer to the truth.

Nonetheless, the myth works well enough in real life, although perhaps not so perfectly as ardent monarchists claim.

Critics argue that the monarchy is a keystone of the British class system, which over the years has stifled a good deal of individual initiative in a nation that now so sorely needs it. But Socialist George Orwell, writing in 1940, envisioned a future in which the "King and Common People" might forge "an alliance against the upper classes." This could yet happen. "Prince Charles is well aware that the role of government may change radically by the time he inherits the throne, because of changing social and political forces," observes the Sunday Times's Anthony Holden. Yet the very hopes pinned on Charles point up how fragile the royal edifice is. It is still a hereditary monarchy whose worth is at the mercy of all the disasters and disappointments that can befall any family. Britain has seldom been so fortunate in its heirs to the throne.

The country's present good fortune is also the world's. Though shorn of empire and struggling to survive economically, Britain remains a cradle of modern Western democracy. Even with all its trappings, its monarchy is a living lesson for other nations seeking to strike the proper balance between ceremony and service, tradition and change, authority and freedom.

Prince Charles has spoken blithely of serving a "30year apprenticeship" for the monarchy. It is a prospect to daunt a young, energetic royal heir, and once it did: Queen Victoria's son was a frustrated debauchee by the time he ascended the throne as King Edward VII at the age of 59. Windsor watchers insist that abdication in favor of her son is out of the question for Elizabeth, barring, of course, incapacitating illness. But the Queen is doing her best to see that Charles' long apprenticeship will be a useful one, and so is Charles, who has sat down with advisers to chart an independent career akin to his father's. He is already privy to the red "boxes," locked leather cases of official state papers, that Westminster and Whitehall dispatch daily to the Queen (even Prince Philip does not receive them). Charles can also expect to act more and more as the Queen's "vice president, embarking for foreign capitals on the good-will trips and, tied in with them, trade missions that he handles so well.

His March trip to South America was more than a social success; it cost $21,000, but he brought back an export deal worth nearly $2 million.

One job that might suit him for a while would be Governor General of Australia, a country that Charles has loved since his six months there as a student. The post has been a touchy one ever since Governor General Sir John Kerr, in order to break a parliamentary deadlock in 1975, used long dormant powers to sack Conservative Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and call for new elections. Kerr last year resigned, turning the job over to the Australian-born academic Sir Zelman Cowen. But after Cowen has had another four or five years in office, says a source close to Buckingham Palace, the Queen would like to appoint Charles to the position.

That would require an invitation from Australia, and probably some domestication for Charles. Says the source: "It's the sort of job that demands a wife to help out with all the ceremonial chores."

Life is what I make it," says the Prince, who clearly intends not to waste his years of waiting.

"In these times the monarchy is called into question," he said recently. "It is not to be taken for granted. One has to be far more professional than one ever used to be." An American journalist who has traveled with the Prince observes, "That guy works so hard you would think he was running for office." In a way he is. Although the office is his by birthright, Charles knows that he can succeed in it only by hard work. "I am planning to find out all I can about British life," the Prince has declared, "including the government, the civil service, business, agriculture, the unions--everything. And since I have a long time ahead of me, there is no point in trying to do everything at once." Ambitious plans, but sensible. And reassuring qualities both, in a man who will be King.

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