Charles Mountbatten-Windsor

**Charles III** (Charles Philip Arthur George, born November 14, 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He is the oldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke Edinburgh. He ascended the throne upon his mother's death on September 8, 2022.

He has three younger siblings: Anne, Princess Royal (b.1950), Prince Andrew, Duke of York (b.1960) and Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh (b.1964).

In 1981, Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer. They have two sons William, Prince of Wales (b.1982) and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (b.1984). In 1996, the couple divorced after they had each engaged in well-publicized extramarital affair. In 2005, he married his long-partner Camilla Parker Bowles.

## Early life

Prince Charles was born on November 14, 1948, during his grandfather reign, King George VI, in the Buckingham Palace to then still Princess Elizabeth.

He was christened on December 15, 1948 in the Music Room of Buckingham Palace by Archbishop of Canterbury George Fisher.

## Education

When Charles turned five, a governess, Catherine Peebles, was appointed to oversee his education at Buckingham Palace. Charles then commenced classes at Hill House School in west London on 7 November 1956. He was the first heir apparent to attend school, rather than be educated by a private tutor. He did not receive preferential treatment from the school's founder and headmaster, Stuart Townend, who advised the Queen to have Charles train in football, because the boys were never deferential to anyone on the football field. Charles subsequently attended two of his father's former schools: Cheam School in Hampshire, from 1958, followed by Gordonstoun, in the north-east of Scotland, beginning classes there in April 1962.

Charles spent two terms in 1966 at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia, during which time he visited Papua New Guinea on a school trip with his history tutor, Michael Collins Persse. In 1973, Charles described his time at Timbertop as the most enjoyable part of his whole education. Upon his return to Gordonstoun, Charles emulated his father in becoming head boy and left in 1967, with six GCE O-levels and two A-levels in history and French, at grades B and C respectively. On his early education, Charles later remarked, "I didn't enjoy school as much as I might have; but, that was only because I'm happier at home than anywhere else."

Charles broke royal tradition a second time when he proceeded straight to university after his A-levels, rather than joining the British Armed Forces. In October 1967, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied archaeology and anthropology for the first part of the Tripos and then switched to history for the second part. During his second year, Charles attended the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, studying Welsh history and language for a term. Charles became the first British heir apparent to earn a university degree, graduating on 23 June 1970 from the University of Cambridge with a 2:2 Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. As is standard practice for Cambridge's undergraduate degrees, on 2 August 1975, his Bachelor of Arts was promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Cantab) degree.

## Personal life

Charles first met Lady Diana Spencer in 1977, while he was visiting her home, Althorp. He was then the companion of her elder sister Sarah and did not consider Diana romantically until mid-1980. While Charles and Diana were sitting together on a bale of hay at a friend's barbecue in July, she mentioned that he had looked forlorn and in need of care at the funeral of his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten. Soon, according to Dimbleby, "without any apparent surge in feeling, he began to think seriously of her as a potential bride" and she accompanied Charles on visits to Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House.

Charles's cousin Norton Knatchbull and his wife told Charles that Diana appeared awestruck by his position and that he did not seem to be in love with her. Meanwhile, the couple's continuing courtship attracted intense attention from the press and paparazzi. When Philip told him that the media speculation would injure Diana's reputation if Charles did not come to a decision about marrying her soon, and realising that she was a suitable royal bride (according to Mountbatten's criteria), Charles construed his father's advice as a warning to proceed without further delay. He proposed to Diana in February 1981, with their engagement becoming official on 24 February; the wedding took place in St Paul's Cathedral on 29 July. Upon his marriage, Charles reduced his voluntary tax contribution from the profits of the Duchy of Cornwall from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. The couple lived at Kensington Palace and Highgrove House, near Tetbury, and had two children: William, in 1982, and Harry, in 1984

Within five years, the marriage was in trouble due to the couple's incompatibility and near 13-year age difference. By November 1986, Charles had fully resumed his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. In a videotape recorded by Peter Settelen in 1992, Diana admitted that she had been "deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment." It was assumed that she was referring to Barry Mannakee, who had been transferred to the Diplomatic Protection Squad in 1986, after his managers determined his relationship with Diana had been inappropriate. Diana later commenced a relationship with Major James Hewitt, the family's former riding instructor.

Charles and Diana's evident discomfort in each other's company led to them being dubbed "The Glums" by the press. Diana exposed Charles's affair with Parker Bowles in a book by Andrew Morton, *Diana: Her True Story*. Audio tapes of her own extramarital flirtations also surfaced, as did persistent suggestions that Hewitt is Prince Harry's father, based on a physical similarity between Hewitt and Harry. However, Harry had already been born by the time Diana's affair with Hewitt began.

In December 1992, John Major announced the couple's legal separation in the House of Commons. Early the following year, the British press published transcripts of a passionate, bugged telephone conversation between Charles and Parker Bowles that had taken place in 1989, which was dubbed "Camillagate" and "Tampongate". Charles subsequently sought public understanding in a television film with Dimbleby, *Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role*, broadcast on 29 June 1994. In an interview in the film, Charles confirmed his own extramarital affair with Parker Bowles, saying that he had rekindled their association in 1986, only after his marriage to Diana had "irretrievably broken down". This was followed by Diana's own admission of marital troubles in an interview on the BBC current affairs show *Panorama*, broadcast on 20 November 1995. Referring to Charles's relationship with Parker Bowles, she said, "well, there were three of us in this marriage. So, it was a bit crowded." She also expressed doubt about her husband's suitability for kingship. Charles and Diana divorced on 28 August 1996, after being advised by the Queen in December 1995 to end the marriage. The couple shared custody of their children.

Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997. Charles flew to Paris with Diana's sisters to accompany her body back to Britain. In 2003, Diana's butler Paul Burrell published a note that he claimed had been written by Diana in 1995, in which there were allegations that Charles was "planning 'an accident' in [Diana's] car, brake failure and serious head injury", so that he could marry again. When questioned by the Metropolitan Police inquiry team as a part of Operation Paget, Charles told the authorities that he did not know about his former wife's note from 1995 and could not understand why she had those feelings.

The engagement of the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles was announced on 10 February 2005. The Queen's consent to the marriage – as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772 – was recorded in a Privy Council meeting on 2 March. In Canada, the Department of Justice determined the consent of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada was not required, as the union would not produce any heirs to the Canadian throne.

Charles was the only member of the royal family to have a civil, rather than a church, wedding in England. British government documents from the 1950s and 1960s, published by the BBC, stated that such a marriage was illegal; these claims were dismissed by Charles's spokesman and explained by the sitting government to have been repealed by the Registration Service Act 1953.

The union was scheduled to take place in a civil ceremony at Windsor Castle, with a subsequent religious blessing at the castle's St George's Chapel. The wedding venue was changed to Windsor Guildhall after it was realised a civil marriage at Windsor Castle would oblige the venue to be available to anyone who wished to be married there. Four days before the event, it was postponed from the originally scheduled date of 8 April until the following day in order to allow Charles and some of the invited dignitaries to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Charles's parents did not attend the marriage ceremony; the Queen's reluctance to attend possibly arose from her position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh did attend the service of blessing and held a reception for the newlyweds at Windsor Castle. The blessing by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was televised.

## Titles and succession

* November 14, 1948 - February 6, 1952: *His Royal Highness Prince Charles Philip Arthur George of Edinburgh*
* February 6, 1952 - September 8, 2022: *His Royal Highness The Duke of Cornwall, The Baron of Renfrew*
	+ in Scotland: February 8, 1948 - September 8, 2022: *His Royal Highness The Duke of Rothesay,*
* July 29, 1958 - September 8, 2022: *His Royal Highness The Earl of Chester*
* July 29, 1958 - September 8, 2022: *His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales*
* April 9, 2021 - September 8, 2022: *His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh*
* September 8, 2022 - present: *His Majesty The King*

Upon the accession of his mother as queen, Charles, as the eldest son of the monarch, automatically became, in England, the Duke of Cornwall and, in Scotland, the Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. As such, he was styled "His Royal Highness The Duke of Cornwall", except in Scotland, where he was known as "His Royal Highness The Duke of Rothesay" instead.

In 1958, letters patent from the then sovereign made Charles the Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester and, on 1 July 1969, Charles was invested as such during the a ceremony in which a coronet and robes were placed on him. In 2021, upon the death of his father, Prince Philip, Charles furthermore inherited the titles Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich. When he became the British sovereign himself on 8 September 2022, these titles merged with the crown.

## Issue

1982 (age 41)
1984 (age 39)