Person attributes
Other attributes
King Charles III became The King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died on September 8, 2022. Previously, he was The Prince of Wales and became heir apparent at age three when Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne in 1952. King Charles III is the sixty-second British monarch, the oldest to ascend to king at age seventy-three, and the longest-serving heir-apparent.
What to expect from King Charles III - The Economist (2022)
The king's coronation will be held on Saturday, May 6, 2023, at Westminster Abbey in London and will be conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. At that time, he will be officially crowned, and his wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles, the queen consort, will also be crowned. His coronation is expected to reflect his vision for a smaller, more modern monarchy by being shorter, smaller, less expensive, and more representative of different faiths and community groups. He also wants the ceremony to reflect the ethnic diversity of modern Britain.
The coronation plans are called Operation Golden Orb. He will be crowned with the solid gold seventeenth century St Edward's Crown. Because the crown is extremely heavy, he will switch crowns and wear the Imperial State Crown toward the end of the coronation ceremony and when he appears on the Buckingham Palace balcony.
The Investiture of The Prince of Wales (1969)
King Charles III was invested as The Prince of Wales by The Queen on July 1, 1969, in a ceremony at Caernarfon Castle, and on February 11, 1970, he took his seat in the House of Lords. The event was watched by over 500 million people globally.
The custom of having an English royal serve as the Prince of Wales dates back to 1301 when Edward, the son of King Edward I, was the first English royal given the title. To prepare for his ceremony, he spent a term at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth to learn to speak Welsh. While there he also learned about Wales' history and culture from tutor Edward Millward.
Prince Charles spoke the first two paragraphs of his investiture speech in Welsh and was sympathetic enough to his new subjects that the Welsh secretary of state, George Thomas, told Prime Minister Harold Wilson that the prince had “boosted Welsh nationalism.”
King Charles III has been married twice. He is married to Camilla Parker-Bowles, whose title is The Queen Consort.
The King and The Queen Consort
King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, married Camilla Parker-Bowles on April 9th, 2005, in a civil ceremony at the Guildhall, Windsor. They had a "service of prayer and dedication" at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and then a reception at Windsor Castle hosted by Queen Elizabeth II. When King Charles III ascended to the throne, she took the title The Queen Consort. They have no children together.
King Charles III, then The Prince of Wales, marries Diana Spencer
King Charles III, then The Prince of Wales, married Diana Frances Spencer on July 29, 1981, at St Paul's Cathedral in London. The wedding reception was at Buckingham Palace. The global television and radio audience was estimated at around 1,000 million people, and hundreds of thousands of people lined their route from Buckingham Palace to the cathedral. After they married, she took the title Princess of Wales.
They had two children together, Prince William and Prince Harry. They announced their separation in December 1992, and they were divorced on August 28, 1996. Diana, Princess of Wales died a year later on August 31, 1997, after a car crash in Paris.
Prince Harry (left) and Prince William
Kings Charles III has two biological children from his marriage to Princess Diana—Prince William and Prince Harry. Prince William Arthur Philip Louis was born on June 21, 1982, and Prince Henry (Harry) Charles Albert David on September 15, 1984, both at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, in London. The King has five grandchildren and five step-grandchildren.
Prince William became the heir apparent and took over his father's title The Prince of Wales when his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II died September 8, 2022.
King Charles III with the Roal Navy
King Charles III served in the Royal Navy, like his father, grandfather, and both his great-grandfathers. Before entering the navy, he flew himself to the Royal Air Force (RAF) Cranwell College in Lincolnshire to train as a jet pilot in March 1971. He had already learned to fly during his second year at the University of Cambridge through lessons he requested from the RAF. He graduated from the RAF Cranwell College and earned his wings on August 20, 1971.
In September 1971, after the passing out parade at the RAF Cranwell College, he joined the Royal Navy. Prince Charles began his military service on the guided missile destroyer HMS Norfolk in 1971 and went on to serve on two frigates—the HMS Minerva from 1972 to 1973 and the HMS Jupiter in 1974. In 1974, he trained and qualified as a helicopter pilot and joined the 845 Naval Air Squadron aboard the HMS Hermes.
The king has helped establish more than twenty charities over forty years, including The Prince's Trust, The Prince's Foundation, and The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF). The Prince's Trust helps eleven to thirty-year-olds who are unemployed or struggling at school to transform their lives. His charities have raised approximately $1.2 million per year.
The young prince was the first heir apparent to attend school instead of being taught at home by tutors. He began at the Hill House School in West London on November 7, 1956. After ten months, he moved to the Cheam School, a preparatory boarding school in Berkshire.
In April 1962, when he was thirteen, the prince changed to the private school Gordonstoun on the north coast of Scotland. His father, Prince Philip, also studied there. Prince Charles did not enjoy it in general and considered his time there an "incarceration." While at Gordonstoun, he spent two terms in 1966 as an exchange student at Timbertop, a remote outpost of the Geelong Church of England Grammar School in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1967, the prince went to the University of Cambridge to read archaeology and anthropology at Trinity College. He changed to history and was awarded an honors degree in history, class 2, division 2 in 1970. He was the first heir to the British crown to earn a university degree. While in college, he played the cello in the orchestra, sang with the college madrigal society, and participated in the dramatic society. He also attended a pottery class, wrote for the university magazine, Varsity, and went on an archeological dig on the island of Jersey. He also played on the polo team against the University of Oxford.
Before his investiture as The Prince of Wales in 1969, he spent a term at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth learning to speak Welsh.
King Charles III with his parents
Prince Charles Philip Arthur George was the first child born to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Buckingham Palace in London at 9:14 pm on November 14, 1948. A month later, on December 15, he was christened in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher.
Prince Charles took on the traditional titles of The Duke of Cornwall under a charter of King Edward III in 1337, and, in the Scottish peerage, of Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. In 1958, The Queen created him The Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester when he was nine years old.
