FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
LONDON – Purposeful, hyperactive, but also melancholic and self-pitying. Traditional but avant-garde. Kind, generous, but also irritable and touchy. A tragic figure with a lot of charm: King Karl was described in this and many other ways. To better understand him, we can look at some lesser-known traits of his character.
1. Comment from Philip: «A plum pie»
The birth of Charles was greeted with 41 cannon shots while the fountains of Trafalgar Square lit up blue: but when his father Philip saw him, he remarked with his usual delicacy that the child looked like a plum pie. The heir to the throne was raised by nannies: Elizabeth only saw him at 9am sharp for a quick greeting and sometimes in the evening for a good night’s sleep.
2. The first king to graduate (but with a bad grade)
Charles is the first king to go to school instead of being tutored and the first to graduate: he attended the prestigious Trinity College in Cambridge, where he first studied archeology and anthropology and then history turned towards But he graduated with the second-worst possible grade. On the other hand, he loved the theater so much that he played the role of Macbeth.
3. The first love that Camilla introduced to him
First love was Lucia Santa Cruz, the beautiful daughter of the Chilean ambassador, who was also studying at Cambridge: Lucia was given the keys to the college so she could spend the night with the prince. And it was she who introduced Carlo to one of her friends: Camilla.
4. The rejected marriage proposal
Lord Mountbatten, his uncle and mentor, tried to get him married to his niece Amanda Knatchbull: Charles complied and asked for her hand when she was 21, but Amanda turned him down without much ado, saying she didn’t want any interference with her Privacy and unsolicited advertising.
5. The party for Camilla, the “Dance Queen”
In 1997, after divorcing Diana, he threw a 50th birthday party for Camilla at his Highgrove estate and took her onto the dance floor to see Abbas Dancing Queen.
6. Waking up at 7 and vertical in underwear
Carlo gets up before 7, does handstands in underwear to relieve his spine, has breakfast of fruit and yogurt, starts work on official papers at 8, does public duties from 10 to 5, skips lunch, drinks tea in the afternoon with a sandwich and a piece of cake, then work until 8.30 when dinner is served, then continue working from 10 until midnight.
7. The tantrums and kicking the furniture
His employees have described him as a very demanding boss because he places very high demands on himself. He is not interested in criticism and gets annoyed when asked. He can be both indecisive and stubborn: and has tantrums, during which he is able to kick furniture.
8. The exchange of pictures with Lucien Freud
Once he seriously suggested that Lucien Freud exchange one of his watercolors for one of the paintings of the genius of contemporary painting.
9. The accompanying furniture and personal martini
When he goes to his friends’ houses – that is, to Downton Abbey-style mansions – he is preceded by a truck carrying his furniture, bed and paintings, which are arranged by his butler. At dinner, he has his personal Royal Martini served to him, which his escort officer hands over to the caretaker.
10. The wine-and-cheese-powered Aston Martin
Carlo, an early environmentalist, had solar panels installed in all his homes and owns an Aston Martin that runs on biofuel made from wine and cheese processing waste.