It was the biggest moment of his life, so it was no surprise that as his mother the Queen placed the coronet on 20-year-old Prince Charles’ head during his investiture as Prince of Wales, he looked mildly terrified.
A worldwide audience of 500 million people watched the live broadcast of the ceremony from Caernarfon Castle in Wales on July 1, 1969. Charles had spent nine weeks at Aberystwyth University studying Welsh so he could make his acceptance speech in the language. And thankfully, the day went without a hitch.
Practising cello for the college orchestra.
Charles looked regal in a velvet gown with ermine cape and the Prince of Wales coronet – which had to be made specially for him because the previous one had vanished (it turned out the last Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, had taken it with him when he was exiled following his abdication in 1936).
Poet laureate Sir John Betjeman marked the occasion by writing, “You knelt a boy, you rose a man/And thus your lonelier life began.” Looking back, those words seemed very prophetic.
Cooling off at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in 1981.
After leaving school, the young prince had gone to Cambridge University, where he became the first British heir apparent to earn a degree (a Bachelor of Arts).
A career in the military was always on the cards and he first joined the Royal Air Force while still at university. After training as a jet pilot, he then switched to the Royal Navy and served for five years, during which time he learned to fly helicopters and commanded a minehunter.
At Cambridge University in 1969.
When Charles left the Navy in 1976, he used his $14,800 severance pay to start his own charity, The Prince’s Trust. Set up to help people aged 11 to 30 with education, training and work opportunities, it’s still going strong and has helped more than one million young people turn their lives around.
At one point, it was suggested Charles could serve as Australia’s Governor-General. He was interested but the Aussie public wasn’t. Years later, he said, “What are you supposed to think when you are prepared to do something to help and you are told you’re not wanted?”
He then threw himself into carrying out official duties on his mother’s behalf and also began taking on the first of what would become hundreds of patronages, from the International Tree Foundation to Surfers Against Sewage.
Touring the US in 1986, Charles showed off his skills at the Oakbrook Polo Club in Chicago.
But throughout his twenties, and early thirties, the focus on Charles was not about his royal duties, but his love life. A dashing man of action – he was photographed playing polo, windsurfing and skydiving – he was Britain’s most eligible bachelor.
He dated a series of society beauties, including Lady Jane Grosvenor, the daughter of the Duke of Westminster, Lady Jane Wellesley, the daughter of the Duke of Wellington, and Lady Sarah Spencer, whose father was royal equerry Earl Spencer.
Sarah Spencer with her future brother-in-law in 1977.
In 1979, he romanced heiress Sabrina Guinness, who was considered the “it girl” of her generation, and had also dated Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and Jack Nicholson. “There’s no doubt being Prince Charles’ girlfriend makes you feel very special,” she later said. But Charles’ father Prince Philip did not approve, and their relationship went nowhere.
Girlfriend Sabrina Guinness failed to get the royal seal of approval.
One socialite deemed suitable was Lady Amanda Knatchbull, the granddaughter of Earl Mountbatten, who was Philip’s uncle and mentor. A marriage between the two was seen as a possibility when Charles was in his mid-twenties and Amanda was still a teenager, and he eventually popped the question in his early thirties. But Amanda, who had recently lost several members of her family, including her beloved grandfather, in an IRA bomb attack, wasn’t keen to become a member of the royal family.
While he was seen as something of a playboy, Charles was smitten with one woman. At 22, he’d had a whirlwind romance with Camilla Shand, then 24, who was from an upper-class background and had much in common with Charles, including a love of horses. They got on famously, but she knew she wouldn’t be considered a suitable match and while he was away on naval duty, she married army officer Andrew Parker Bowles.
He briefly dated divorcée Jane Ward after she was struck by his polo ball.
Charles was crushed and later wrote to a friend, “After such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship, fate had decreed it should only last six months.”
Once he turned 30, the pressure to find a future queen mounted. It was while staying at a friend’s country home in July 1980, aged 31, he noticed one of the other guests. She was the younger sister of former girlfriend Sarah Spencer and ticked all the boxes when it came to being a suitable royal bride. Her name was Lady Diana Spencer.
