Inside Prince Charles' World As He Quietly Takes Charge
Britain's future king
has used a long apprenticeship to build a charitable empire
The gardens sport a coronet of dew
under a rare Scottish sun, but Prince Charles remains indoors, doing what the
heir to the thrones of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Jamaica and 12
other Commonwealth realms has always done — his duty. He's a champion at
enduring windy speeches, toes scrunched in his shoes to keep awake. But this
particular duty lies closer to his soul: he's teaching his firstborn to wield a
sword. Prince William needs to master the key move of granting knighthoods,
laying a blade on the shoulders of recipients, ideally without inflicting
injury. So on Sept. 26, Charles interrupts a family visit at his Scottish
residence Birkhall with his son, wife Camilla, daughter-in-law Kate and the
youngest Windsor, baby George, to stage a dress rehearsal.
His grandson is "what this is all
about," says Prince Charles, 64, sitting down with TIME later that day to
discuss his hopes — and profound concerns — for the future. For George, third
in line to the throne, that future looks secure enough, a parade of pomp and
swords. Britain's monarchy emerged from 2013's mass testing of U.K. public
opinion, the British Social Attitudes survey, as the only institution to gain in
popularity, while others slumped. It did so because it stands for consistency —
its opponents would say, for resistance to change — in a world of relentless
transformation.
The Prince's own popularity is
questionable. Sheltered by his position and exposed by it, the Prince appears a
mass of contradictions, engaged yet aloof, indulged and deprived, a radical at
the pinnacle of Britain's sclerotic establishment, surrounded by people but
often profoundly alone. Yet the strangulated diction of the uppermost crust —
even members of his inner circle can't resist imitating him — disguises a real
magnetism.
