The Prince crackles and fizzes as he makes his guests welcome to Clarence House. He is a practised host and works the room with a polished charm, so few people ever see the deep hurt lingering beneath the hooded blue-grey eyes that may yet one day take centre stage on the postage stamps of Great Britain. To the outside world he is known as “Prince Charles”, but to those within his inner circle he is simply Prince Charles. “At heart he is just a very ordinary prince,” says his great friend Emma Thompson. “All he really wants is a nice kingdom.”
It is a cold day in South Wales, but seven million people have been lined up on the streets of Treharris to catch a glimpse of the man who will one day rule over them. Inside the chauffeur-driven Prius, Prince Charles’s brow is more furrowed than usual and he turns to Camilla for reassurance. “What do all these little people want from me?” he asks plangently. Camilla smiles knowingly. She has been through this many times before, for this is the very dilemma at the heart of the most modern, yet paradoxically so backward, heir to the throne.
The garden at Highgrove is a treasure trove of the horticultural imagination and it is only when he is sitting alone in the dappled sunlight by the peace pavilion that Prince Charles ever lets his guard down. “All I ever really wanted was to be loved, whatever that is,” he says sadly, his eyelids drooping with the burden of responsibility. “I never really meant to let Diana down. I thought she’d be quite pleased I buggered off to see Camilla for several nights each week.”
Much has already been written about both how the Queen has always thought Prince Charles is a bit useless and how the Duke of Edinburgh didn’t kill Diana, so I don’t propose to dwell on these matters for more than 150 pages. Rather I wish to illuminate how misunderstood Charles has been. “There have been stories that Prince Charles had a servant to load the toothpaste on to his toothbrush,” says Sir Nicholas Soames, one of the many close friends he sees at least twice a year. “This is complete rubbish. It took Prince Charles a long time to learn how to do this and he would now hate to be so disempowered.”
One of the most frequent criticisms levelled against the prince is that he likes to meddle. This accusation causes him the most severe heartache. Elizabeth Buchanan, his very closest courtier, reports that the velvet chaise-longue in his dressing-room is stained with tears. “It’s just so unfair,” she tells me, as we take tea in her mock-Tudor Poundbury show home. “All he really wants to do is muddle. But because he is so posh the word always comes out as meddle. He really is an awfully good muddler.”
At Clarence House, a lute plays in the antechamber and Master Fawcett bows solemnly as the Duchess of Cornwall enters the Great Hall. “Good day, Milady Cornuel,” he says. “How eez his Majesty today? Does he have a list of anyone in Buckingham Palace whom he would like removed to the tower? Or failing that, a few modernist architects?” The duchess laughs broadly and raises her crinoline to reveal a surprisingly well-turned ankle. “The idea that our court is like Wolf Hall and that Charles spends his whole time plotting against the Queen is just nonsense,” she says. “We are much keener on Broadchurch.”
On a cold, wet day in September, Prince Charles strides through the Scottish moors at a pace few half his age can sustain. He is feeling energised after a long chat with the Dalai Lama. “I’m very keen on this Mr Lama chappy,” he sometimes says to his great friend, Gareth Malone. “He’s got some very good ideas.” What Prince Charles wants more than anything isn’t to be king of England, though he isn’t going to pass up that opportunity. It’s to be the Lion King. He sincerely believes there is an inner magic to the natural world that can be sustained through the endless recycling of any old nonsense.
Listen carefully on a cold February night deep in the sylvan forests and you can hear an ancient keening. It is the lament of the man who would be king. The man with duty flowing through his veins, yet tortured by the knowledge that he’s quite expensive and not as good as everyone would have liked: a true Duchy Original.
Digested read: Simba, the Circle of Life.
