He became king at the age of 70 last fall Charles III is the oldest ruler in the history of his country.
Charles, who is celebrating his coronation at the age of 74, has had time to live a colorful life, during which he has had time to be slapped with many kinds of labels in public.
We present the most interesting of them.
Aspired playboy
The task of the young heir to the crown is to find a spouse by his side, with the help of which the continuity of the royal house is secured. In public, possible spouse candidates, real and invented, are therefore followed with great enthusiasm.
This was also the fate of Charles.
Over the years, the media managed to place a large number of women alongside her. In the press, these women were called “Charlie’s Angels”.
If the scandal magazine headlines are to be believed, then Charles was a slippery playboy.
“Royal experts” (you switch to another service) based on the calculations, Charles had time before Diana Spencer engagement to be in more than 20 relationships. Among these were relationships to Camilla Shandwhose last name became Parker Bowles after marriage, and Diana’s older sister to Sarah Spencer.
A fairy-tale prince revealed as a cheat
When Charles married Diana in 1981, their union was declared in the Finnish media as the love story of the century, where a fairy-tale prince got his fairy-tale princess.
Based on the news published at the time, the whole world seemed to have stopped to watch the wedding in London. An estimated one billion people watched them on television.
However, this fairy tale did not end with the sentence “And they lived happily ever after.” Already at the end of the 80s, newspapers reported on the problems of Charles and Diana’s marriage.
Diana had found out that Charles and Camilla were having an affair. Later, Diana said publicly that the marriage was a bit tight, as there were three people involved. The papers were filled with headlines in which the betrayer-Charles got to hear his glory.
Charles and Diana separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.
Bullied at school “royal whistling”
“What a royal cry baby”, the Daily Mirror tabloid mocked, when Charles as an adult told about the severe bullying he experienced at boarding school. In magazine stories published in the 90s, Charles was branded as a privileged complainer for nothing.
However, the truth was harsh. Some of the other students, among other things, abused Charles in Gordonstoun in Scotland. The prince did not manage to make friends with his peers, but sought refuge from a few adults, for example his bodyguard.
Charles has compared his time at the boarding school to a prison sentence and described his life there as absolute hell. Despite Charles’ pleas, the family did not allow him to change schools.
Charles ended up at Gordonstoun as his father’s prince Philip’s by will. Philip himself had attended the same school and wanted to “toughen up” Charles, whom he considered soft. Scottish of the Daily Record (you will switch to another service) according to the boarding school “strengthened” the students with, among other things, cold showers and sports in the cold outdoors in scanty clothes.
The prince’s school days were also associated with a scandal that spread around the world, when 14-year-old Charles was caught after ordering cherry brandy in a pub.
A hidden political influencer
The left-wing newspaper The Guardian has been making revelations about Charles’ attempts to influence politicians for years.
For example in 2015 The Guardian magazine revealed (you will switch to another service)that Charles had bombed the prime minister from 1997 to 2007 Tony Blair and the ministers of this government with numerous letters in which he took a stand on both the Iraq war and alternative treatments.
Last year The Guardian (you are switching to another service) reported that Charles had succeeded of John Major during the prime minister’s term 1990–1997 even to change the legislation in the direction he wanted.
Royals are supposed to stay out of the politics of the day, so Charles’ actions were surprising.
Architecture in particular has been the subject of the prince’s influence for decades. His great dislike is modern architecture, whose products he has compared for example, concrete maze and abscess (you will switch to another service). Several of the objects that the prince barked about have remained mere plans.
As a counterpoint to modern architecture, he built his own ideal residential area representing traditional architecture, Poundbury in the south of England.
Nature’s fool forerunner
Already in 1969 Charles wrote (you are moving to another service) prime minister For Harold Wilson a letter in which he expressed his concern about the decline of salmon stocks in Scottish rivers. Along with his own kingdom, Charles expressed his concern about the state of both tropical forests and seas early on.
In the 80s, he changed his home farm to Highgrove organic farm and started selling his own organic products. Charles was ridiculed in public for years because of his nature conservation speeches.
Organic farming and the revelation made by Charles himself about talking to garden plants were an inexhaustible subject of jokes, especially in Britain.
In recent years, however, the tone has changed, as problems such as nature loss and climate change have become more widely understood. Now Charles shows himself as a pioneer in nature conservation.
And as the general public’s awareness has increased, he has not restrained his fight, but has talked about, among other things, the solar panels installed in Clarence House, the heating of the Birkhall mansion with the help of bioenergy, and driving his Aston Martin powered by biofuel.
Charles has also spoken publicly for tolerance for decades. For example, in 1974, Charles said For The Observer magazine (you will switch to another service) that he wants to encourage people to be more tolerant of differences.
– The more people know, for example, about the backgrounds of immigrants, the less they fear them.
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