At 73, King Charles is older at ascension than any other monarch in British history.
The king or queen does have weekly meetings with the prime minister. As seminal 19th century essayist Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867, the British sovereign has “three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.”
, replete with towering soft power but little hard power. By contrast, the new king has always appeared an awkward fit. Charles was a “very sensitive and emotional young man,” so his “alpha male” father tried to toughen him up by sending him to Gordonstoun, a rough, spartan boarding school in Scotland, according to royal biographer Tina Brown, speaking with Keir Simmons for his podcast “Born to Rule” earlier this year. This is “absolutely the story of his life” — Charles’ family “constantly trying to shove him into this mold, because he was the future king, that he just didn’t fit,” Brown said.
Lady Diana Spencer was 12 years Charles’ junior and they had only met around a dozen times before he asked her to marry him. Diana hailed from one of Britain’s oldest families, and as a 19-year-old kindergarten teacher she was far from a socialite whose romantic history might ruffle royal feathers. Diana and Charles’ marriage failed in spectacular public fashion, with mutual infidelity, separation and divorce followed by Diana’s death in 1997 in a car crash in Paris. A perception that the royals were unsympathetic during that period of national mourning saw their approval levels sink.
Charles and Diana had two sons: Prince William, now heir to the throne, and Prince Harry, who after an acrimonious split involving allegations of racism in the royal family lives in California with his wife, Meghan Markle, having stepped back from front-line duties. Unlike the queen, however — who navigated 70 years on the throne with little controversy — Charles has given himself no such easy ride while waiting in the wings.