PREFACE It was a moment he had spent most of his life anticipating. Prince Charles, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms, gazed across a ballroom bedecked with silk damask, the tables gleaming with silver-gilt, and rapped the monarch''s gavel. The Queen had decided at age eighty-seven that she could no longer undertake long-haul international travel. After sixty-one years as head of the Commonwealth--the association of fifty-three nations formerly constituting the British Empire--she had deputed her eldest son to represent her at the biennial meeting of the Commonwealth leaders in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in November 2013. Opening its summit had been one of her most cherished duties. Acting on behalf of the monarch for the first time in this particular capacity was highly significant, the start of an unofficial transitional period. The Queen had already begun trimming her schedule as a concession to her advancing age. The occasion was something of a harmonic convergence as well.
The previous day Prince Charles had celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday--retirement, for most people. He was now the oldest heir to the throne in three hundred years. I had decided to make the long trip to this event because I sensed its importance as a turning point in a life with many unforeseen twists. It had been more than twenty years since I first met the Prince of Wales socially, at a polo match in Windsor on a rainy June afternoon in 1991, when he was forty-two. An avid player, he had been sidelined because of back pain, and afterward he joined my group, which included seventy-four-year-old Zara Cazalet, a close friend of his adored grandmother, the Queen Mother. "Zara!" he exclaimed, giving her a big kiss on the cheek. I was struck by how comfortable he was with an older woman, how affectionate and attentive he was to her. Contrary to his image as a fogey, he was surprisingly informal in his blue blazer and tan trousers and far warmer than his aloof portrayal in the tabloid press.
Eight years later, just as I was finishing a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, I came across Charles at another polo match, a benefit for one of his charities. He surprised me again that day at the Cirencester Park Polo Club. Under the tent at the post-match reception, well-heeled country gentry waited expectantly to meet him. They had paid for the privilege, and he complied--up to a point. But he chose to spend most of his time talking to a young woman who received the check on behalf of his inner-city charity, showing an empathetic side of his character, along with an independent spirit. My view of him expanded a decade later when I wrote a biography of Queen Elizabeth II that was published in 2012 during her Diamond Jubilee marking sixty years on the throne. Although the focus of my research was the life of Charles''s mother, I attended seven private dinners for the Prince of Wales Foundation at Buckingham Palace, St. James''s Palace, and Kensington Palace.
In those imposing surroundings, I had brief conversations with him but also witnessed his emotional intelligence as he adroitly yet cozily connected with an elite group of benefactors, most from the United States. My encounters with Charles were tantalizing, so I decided to examine him head-on, to find out what made this multi-layered man tick and how he had developed since our first meeting in 1991. I had already studied him through the lens of his late wife and from the vantage point of his formidable mother. By the time I traveled to Sri Lanka, I had uncovered facets of his life that had not been apparent earlier. Now I witnessed for the first time his talent as a con- summate diplomat. Mindful of the host government''s record of genocide, torture, and kidnapping, he needed to signal sympathy for human rights while not causing offense to the authoritarian Sri Lankan president. I could see that he succeeded in walking that line as he addressed the opening session of the summit. Charles was determined to demonstrate that when he became king, he would be an effective head of the Commonwealth.
The position is not hereditary and would thus require agreement on the part of the member states. It would be one of the first votes of confidence for Charles once he took the throne. That evening, hosting the black-tie banquet for Commonwealth leaders, he sought to show a more personal and relaxed approach than his mother''s restrained manner. I had observed the Queen in the same setting four years earlier in 2009, during the Commonwealth meeting in Trinidad. She had looked regal in her gown of turquoise beaded lace and white chiffon, dripping with diamonds, from her Queen Mary tiara to her famous necklace from the Nizam of Hyderabad in India, a wedding gift designed by Cartier to resemble English roses. During the reception she had turned seamlessly from one guest to another, small and steady at five foot four. She had been the matriarch of this group since becoming queen in 1952, and she had guided it through difficult and divisive times. She knew the issues and the personalities, and she was visibly and proudly their leader.
As that banquet in 2009 began, she had removed her white gloves, put on her glasses, and stolen some glances at the typewritten remarks resting on her lap. She rose to make her toast, reading it verbatim, as was her habit. Her remarks were typically gracious and brief. She wished the heads of government well in their deliberations. Now, halfway around the world in 2013, I could see the marked difference in style between mother and son. In his right hand, Prince Charles held several sheets of paper, on which he had written his speech in black fountain pen. His crossed-out words and underlinings were visible through the long lenses of the photographers. At five foot ten, with sloping shoulders and a long torso relative to his height, he seemed deceptively slight.
Although he didn''t fill the room with his presence as his mother had, he looked admirably fit. His complexion had its customary ruddy glow, and his silvery hair was swept back from his temples and coiffed to conceal his bald patches and to minimize his prominent ears. He flashed an easy and engaging smile, lifting his eyebrows for emphasis. His deep chuckle rumbled its way into a guffaw. "Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen," he began in a voice that had grown deep and honeyed with age. But he quickly dispensed with formalities to offer a six-minute overview of his long- standing connections to the Commonwealth countries and their leaders. When he told the audience he felt part of a family, he got a round of enthusiastic applause. I saw the Duchess of Cornwall, his wife of nearly nine years, formerly Camilla Parker Bowles, his longtime mistress, watching him intently.
As the world knew, she had been the subject of scandal and controversy during Charles''s life, especially during his eleven- year marriage to Lady Diana Spencer. Now Camilla had become established in the royal family. During the reception before dinner, I had noticed her beaming at the cameras in the press pen, occasion- ally nudging her husband--no fan of photographers or reporters-- to smile. At age sixty-six, the duchess was more handsome than pretty, with high cheekbones, lines and furrows befitting her age, and a strong jaw. Like the Queen, Camilla had resisted the temptation of plastic surgery, and she had thickened a bit over the years. It seemed to me that what she lacked in classical beauty, she made up for with the expressiveness of her eyes and the play of mischief in her smile. Her low and husky voice hinted at Marlboros and gin. In that instant, it was easy for me to imagine Charles and Camilla as king and queen.
Given the tangled history of their romance over four decades--the scandals, deceptions, and divorces, Diana''s retaliatory behavior, affairs, and shocking death in August 1997-- the moment seemed all the more remarkable. Theirs was a love story framed by a deep and abiding bond, by Charles''s loyalty and devotion and Camilla''s understanding and support. For a few hours in a ballroom in steamy Sri Lanka, Charles was the center of attention, and he clearly savored the spotlight. Back home, he was often put in the shade by his revered mother, by his dazzling son Prince William and his beautiful wife, Catherine, by their son Prince George (and, later, Princess Charlotte), by William''s enormously popular brother, Prince Harry, and by the memory of Diana, fixed in time at age thirty-six as the tragic and beloved Princess of Wales. Closer to his destiny than ever, Charles had become a shadow king-in-waiting. "Poor Charles" was a constant refrain in my researches. It was spoken in despair by those who loved him, with sarcasm by those who resented him. Despite his gilded upbringing--the palaces and leafy retreats, the cosseting and automatic deference--his was a life of frustration.
His every step along the way was inspected and analyzed: his promise, his awkwardness, his happiness, his suffering, his betrayals and embarrassments and mistakes, his loneliness, his successes--and especially his relentless search for meaning, approval, and love. He was undeniably better prepared to be king than his twentieth- century predecessors as Prince of Wales. His playboy great-uncle, King Edward VIII, had abdicated in 1936 after eleven months on the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American. His great-great-grandfather, King Edward VII, an equally sybaritic prince, had waited until age fifty-nine to succeed his mother, Queen Victoria, in 1901 and had reigned with surprising effectiveness for nine years. Even as Charles carried out traditional royal duties, he invented unu.