This is a rather long tome that tells the story of guess who. Prince Charles grew up with frosty parents who insisted in putting him into a school he hated that he got bullied in, he wasn't a real math person but liked art and acting, he's a clutterbug, and he's really into trying to save the environment and charities.
I mentioned in another book that Charles was worried about people moving away from him, well, this book explains why. When he was being bullied all the time at Gordonstoun, where bullying was "virtually institutionalized," there's a mention that any kid who tried to be nice to him had slurping noises made at them. "Many years later Charles complained, with evident anguish, that since his schooldays people were always "moving away from me, because they don't want to be seen as sucking up."
I've never heard much about Dickie Mountbatten before, but he sounds like a fun and interesting guy and more of a second dad to Charles. He had an open/polyamorous(?) relationship with his wife and they "brought their respective lovers into the family." Dickie acted as intermediary between Charles and his parents and his mum would have Dickie over for tea every month to find out what Charles was up to. He'd actually compliment Charles. He fixed Charles up with women and I guess he thought Camilla would be a good learning experience. This book actually says that if Dickie hadn't been murdered by the IRA he probably would have nipped this Diana disaster in the bud.
As for Camilla, we're told she was crazy about her future first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, but Andrew was also dating around a lot, even ah, Princess Anne. Why didn't he marry Camilla? He wasn't ready to settle down at age 24, and "the conventions of the time called for the heir to the British throne to marry a woman who at least appeared to be virginal." Which she uh, didn't. We're told that Camilla's relatives got so fed up with waiting around on Andrew to propose that they published an engagement notice in the Times to force him into proposing after seven years. Daaaaaaang. And then he continued to cheat on her to the point where he was nicknamed "Andrew Poker Bowles." No wonder she and Charles got back together.
The book points out that since Charles was required to marry someone who was a virgin or at least gave the impression of being one...well, even in the 1970’s that was very difficult. “At age thirty-one, he was facing the fact that every woman suitable in terms of pedigree, age, sophistication, worldliness, and intelligence was either married or had long since lost her virginity. In 1980--more than a decade after the sexual revolution had started--he was hemmed in by the royal custom of marrying a virgin, or at least a woman who seemed virginal. He was forced, in effect, to rob the cradle.” His options were very limited beyond Diana. But they were in totally different life phases, had nothing in common, she was very immature, etc. Various folks on Charles’s side cite Diana as going after him with determination, I’m not sure what to think about that since the dude would be an obvious prize regardless. As for the infamous “Fred and Gladys” gift for Camilla that Diana found before the wedding, we’re told it said “GF” as in “Girl Friday,” not “Fred and Gladys” as nicknames based on C&C’s favorite characters on “The Goon Show.” (In other news, they watch something called “The Goon Show?!”) I...dunno if I buy this explanation.
You feel sorry for the staff that worked for C&D. I’m not saying it’s Trump levels of exodus going on, but it sounds at least somewhat close. “Since their wedding three and a half years earlier, some forty of their original staff had left.” I’d love to know how many they were supposed to have. This book tends to portray Diana as more of a dramatic villain at times (which is odd since apparently the author has also written a book about Diana), I don’t know if that’s because this is featuring Charles or her actual feelings or what there. To be honest, I think both of them come off pretty terribly when ostensibly together in this one, and both behave badly. There is lots of (icky) detail about the fallout from the recorded phone call to Camilla in which Charles mentioned the idea of being her tampon. (“God forbid, a Tampax.”) I love this quote from “a longtime friend and admirer of the prince:” “All I can remember is the thing about the tampon.” After that fun went down, Charles went to the US, where he’d get a bigger welcome than he ever did in England.
There’s of course some comparison between Charles and Diana about how they got on with people. Diana is cited as flattering the media and making them feel great and that they loved going to lunch with her. Charles, however, felt too ill at ease with the media to play that game. Max Hastings, editor of the Evening Standard, remarked that “at no time would he ask a polite question about where you lived, where your children were in school, where you liked to go fishing--the small change of human beings.”
Mark Bolland worked for Charles and was dubbed “Lord Blackadder” for his various unpleasant machinations. He would slam everyone else in The Firm to make Charles look good, including his friends, such as spreading rumors that his friends’ kids were using drugs. Charles doesn’t get on with his little brothers, and I got a kick out of the time that Edward’s wife Sophie was recorded saying that C&C were “number one on the unpopular list.” Bolland totally insulted Edward in the tabloids and was unapologetic about it. But later Bolland turned on Charles and started insulting him in the media.
There’s a loooooot in here about Prince Charles’s various charity works and projects and books and whatnot, which to be honest are the dullest things in there. I admit that I’m biased because reading about fundraising/charities bores the bejesus out of me (except for the Invictus Games, which sounds fun in Harry’s books), but I did feel for Charles when his parents dropped by a housing project his architecture foundation put together. “The project of my lifetime, and my parents give it twenty minutes of their time!”
For those of you wondering about Harry’s infamous Nazi photo, we’re told that the party he and WIlliam attended was themed as “Colonials and Natives.” William was wearing “native” dress of black leggings and leopard print top and tail, and Harry was wearing “garb modeled on Nazi general Erwin Rommel’s desert uniform during his North African campaign.”
I did wonder why the infamous Klosters trip in which Charles mouthed off in front of a hot mike was not mentioned--well, the trip was but Charles’s faux pas wasn’t at all. Weird.
For those of you who want the Queen to abdicate for being too old, it’s mentioned that if that precedent got set, that could affect Charles too.
The author mentions at the end that she’s met the various royals and while this book wasn’t officially authorized, she got a lot of cooperation from advisers and a lot of introductions.
Overall, I give it four stars. It's comprehensive in general, if a bit too long in places (seriously, I wish I cared on the charities, but...yawn.) . If you're curious about things from Charles's view, here you go.
Quote Corner:
- "If people think me square, then I am happy to be square." -Charles
- "The basic thing is I don't want to have a raw deal in history. He is judged not as a man and is accused because he lived at a certain time in history." -Charles
- Apparently there is so much cheating going on among the upper crust in England, the author referred to it was "Britain's upper-class Venn diagram of infidelity."
- Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton: “People are much more interested in glamorous princes than glamorous kings.”
- Does Charles enjoy his job as is? “Well, I don’t know. Bits of it.”
- When Patrick Harverson got hired as communications adviser, Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United, said, “Good luck. You’re going to the only place madder than Manchester United.”
- The quote that sums up Charles in a nutshell was said by Sir Malcolm Ross, Charles’s Master of the Household. When he started at work, he got a lot of phone calls from Charles, he was called names, his secretaries lived in fear, and people held information back from him. He summed up Charles as “a tremendous guy in many ways, but he has a bad side, too.”
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