What public school did the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles attend?
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Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (Philip Mountbatten; born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark  on 10 June 1921) is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. He is the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch and the oldest-ever male member of the British royal family.

A member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Philip was born into the Greek and Danish royal families.  He was born in Greece but his family was exiled from the country when he was still an infant.  After being educated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939, at the age of 18.  From July 1939, he began corresponding with the 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth (his third cousin through Queen Victoria and second cousin once removed through Christian IX of Denmark), whom he had first met in 1934. During World War II he served with the Mediterranean and Pacific fleets.

After the war, Philip was granted permission by George VI to marry Elizabeth.  Before the official announcement of their engagement, he abandoned his Greek and Danish royal titles and became a naturalised British subject, adopting the surname Mountbatten from his maternal grandparents.  After an engagement of five months, he married Elizabeth on 20 November 1947.  Just before the wedding, the King granted him the style of His Royal Highness and the title Duke of Edinburgh.  Philip left active military service when Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, having reached the rank of commander. His wife made him a prince of the United Kingdom in 1957.

Philip has four children with Elizabeth: Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward.  He has eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.  Through a British Order in Council issued in 1960, descendants of Philip and Elizabeth not bearing royal styles and titles can use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, which has also been used by some members of the royal family who do hold titles, such as Charles and Anne.

A keen sports enthusiast, Philip helped develop the equestrian event of carriage driving. He is a patron of over 800 organisations and serves as chairman of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme for people aged 14 to 24.

Early life

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born in Mon Repos on the Greek island of Corfu on 10 June 1921, the only son and fifth and final child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg.  Philip's four elder sisters were Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie.  He was baptised into the Greek Orthodox Church. His godparents were Queen Olga of Greece (his paternal grandmother) and the Mayor of Corfu. 
  
Shortly after Philip's birth, his maternal grandfather, Prince Louis of Battenberg, then known as Louis Mountbatten, Marquess of Milford Haven, died in London.  Louis was a naturalised British citizen, who, after a career in the Royal Navy, had renounced his German titles and adopted the surname Mountbatten during the First World War. After visiting London for the memorial, Philip and his mother returned to Greece where Prince Andrew had remained behind to command an army division embroiled in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). 

The war went badly for Greece, and the Turks made large gains. On 22 September 1922, Philip's uncle, King Constantine I, was forced to abdicate, and the new military government arrested Prince Andrew, along with others. The commander of the army, General Georgios Hatzianestis, and five senior politicians were executed. Prince Andrew's life was believed to be in danger, and Alice was under surveillance. In December, a revolutionary court banished Prince Andrew from Greece for life.  The British naval vessel HMS Calypso evacuated Prince Andrew's family, with Philip carried to safety in a cot made from a fruit box. Philip's family went to France, where they settled in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud in a house lent to them by his wealthy aunt, Princess George of Greece and Denmark. 

Because he left the country as a baby, he does not have a strong grasp of Greek. In 1992, Philip said that he "could understand a certain amount of" the language. 

Youth

Education

Philip was first educated at an American school in Paris run by Donald MacJannet, who described Philip as a "rugged, boisterous boy, but always remarkably polite".  In 1928, he was sent to the United Kingdom to attend Cheam School, living with his maternal grandmother at Kensington Palace and his uncle, George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, at Lynden Manor in Bray, Berkshire.  In the next three years, his four sisters married German noblemen and moved to Germany, his mother was placed in an asylum after being diagnosed with schizophrenia,  and his father moved to a small flat in Monte Carlo. Philip had little contact with his mother for the remainder of his childhood.  In 1933, he was sent to Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, which had the "advantage of saving school fees" because it was owned by the family of his brother-in-law, Berthold, Margrave of Baden.  With the rise of Nazism in Germany, Salem's Jewish founder, Kurt Hahn, fled persecution and founded Gordonstoun School in Scotland. After two terms at Salem, Philip moved to Gordonstoun.  In 1937, his sister Cecilie, her husband (Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse), her two young sons and her mother-in-law were killed in an air crash at Ostend; Philip, then sixteen years old, attended the funeral in Darmstadt.  The following year, his uncle and guardian Lord Milford Haven died of cancer of the bone marrow.Brandreth, pp. 77, 136

Naval and wartime service

After leaving Gordonstoun in 1939, Prince Philip joined the Royal Navy, graduating the next year from the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, as the best cadet in his course. During the Second World War, he continued to serve in the British forces, while two of his brothers-in-law, Prince Christopher of Hesse and Berthold, Margrave of Baden, fought on the opposing German side.  He was commissioned as a midshipman in January 1940. Philip spent four months on the battleship HMS Ramillies, protecting convoys of the Australian Expeditionary Force in the Indian Ocean, followed by shorter postings on HMS Kent, on HMS Shropshire and in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). After the invasion of Greece by Italy in October 1940, he was transferred from the Indian Ocean to the battleship  in the Mediterranean Fleet. 

Among other engagements, Philip was involved in the Battle of Crete, and was mentioned in despatches for his service during the Battle of Cape Matapan, in which he controlled the battleship's searchlights. He was also awarded the Greek War Cross of Valour. Duties of lesser glory included stoking the boilers of the troop transport ship RMS Empress of Russia.  He was promoted to sub-lieutenant after a series of courses at Portsmouth in which he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the qualifying examination.  In June 1942, he was appointed to the V and W class destroyer and flotilla leader HMS Wallace, which was involved in convoy escort tasks on the east coast of Britain, as well as the allied invasion of Sicily. 

Promotion to lieutenant followed on 16 July 1942. In October of the same year he became first lieutenant of HMS Wallace, at 21 years old one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy. During the invasion of Sicily, in July 1943, as second in command of HMS Wallace, he saved his ship from a night bomber attack. He devised a plan to launch a raft with smoke floats that successfully distracted the bombers allowing the ship to slip away unnoticed. In 1944, he moved on to the new destroyer, HMS Whelp, where he saw service with the British Pacific Fleet in the 27th Destroyer Flotilla.   He was present in Tokyo Bay when the instrument of Japanese surrender was signed. In January 1946, Philip returned to the United Kingdom on the Whelp, and was posted as an instructor at HMS Royal Arthur, the Petty Officers' School in Corsham, Wiltshire. 

Marriage

In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. During the visit, the Queen and Earl Mountbatten asked Philip to escort the King's two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, who were Philip's third cousins through Queen Victoria, and second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark.  Elizabeth fell in love with Philip and they began to exchange letters when she was thirteen.  Eventually, in the summer of 1946, Philip asked the King for his daughter's hand in marriage. The King granted his request, provided that any formal engagement be delayed until Elizabeth's twenty-first birthday the following April.  By March 1947, Philip had abandoned his Greek and Danish royal titles, had adopted the surname Mountbatten from his mother's family, and had become a naturalised British subject.In 1957, it was established by a ruling in Attorney-General v. Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover [1957] 1 All ER 49, that all descendants of Sophia of Hanover, including Philip, were already naturalised British subjects under the terms of the Sophia Naturalization Act 1705. The engagement was announced to the public on 10 July 1947.  Though Philip appeared "always to have regarded himself as an Anglican",  and had attended Anglican services with his classmates and relations in England, and throughout his Royal Navy days, Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher wanted to "regularise" Philip's position by officially receiving him into the Church of England,  which he did in October 1947.  The day preceding his wedding, King George VI bestowed the style His Royal Highness on Philip and, on the morning of the wedding, 20 November 1947, he was made the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich of Greenwich in the County of London. 

Philip and Elizabeth were married in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, recorded and broadcast by BBC radio to 200 million people around the world.  However, in post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for any of the Duke of Edinburgh's German relations to be invited to the wedding, including Philip's three surviving sisters, all of whom had married German princes, some with Nazi connections. After their marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh took up residence at Clarence House. Their first two children were born: Prince Charles in 1948 and Princess Anne in 1950.

Philip returned to the navy after his honeymoon, at first in a desk job at the Admiralty, and later on a staff course at the Naval Staff College, Greenwich. From 1949, he was stationed in Malta (residing at Villa Guardamangia) after being posted as the first lieutenant of the destroyer HMS Chequers, the lead ship of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean Fleet.  On 16 July 1950, he was promoted lieutenant commander and given command of the frigate HMS Magpie.    He was promoted to commander in 1952, but his active naval career ended in July 1951.  

With the King in ill health, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh were both appointed to the Privy Council on 4 November 1951, after a coast-to-coast tour of Canada. At the end of January 1952, Philip and his wife set out on a tour of the Commonwealth. On 6 February 1952, when they were in Kenya, Elizabeth's father died and she became queen. It was Philip who broke the news of her father's death to Elizabeth at Sagana Lodge, and the royal party immediately returned to the United Kingdom. 

Consort of the Queen

Royal house

The accession of Elizabeth to the throne brought up the question of the name of the royal house. The Duke's uncle, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, advocated the name House of Mountbatten, as Elizabeth would typically have taken Philip's last name on marriage; however, when Queen Mary, Elizabeth's paternal grandmother, heard of this suggestion, she informed the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who himself later advised the Queen to issue a royal proclamation declaring that the royal house was to remain known as the House of Windsor. Churchill's strong personal antipathy to Lord Mountbatten, whom he considered a dangerous and subversive rival who had lost India, may have contributed to this. The Duke privately complained, "I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children." 

On 8 February 1960, several years after the death of Queen Mary and the resignation of Churchill, the Queen issued an Order in Council declaring that the surname of male-line descendants of the Duke and the Queen who are not styled as Royal Highness, or titled as Prince or Princess, was to be Mountbatten-Windsor.   While it seems the Queen had "absolutely set her heart" on such a change and had it in mind for some time, it occurred only eleven days before the birth of Prince Andrew (19 February), and only after three months of protracted correspondence between the constitutional expert Edward Iwi (who averred that, without such a change, the royal child would be born with "the Badge of Bastardy") and the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (who attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to rebuff Iwi). 

After her accession to the throne, the Queen also announced that the Duke was to have "place, pre-eminence and precedence" next to her "on all occasions and in all meetings, except where otherwise provided by Act of Parliament". This meant the Duke took precedence over his son, the Prince of Wales, except, officially, in the British parliament. In fact, however, he attends Parliament only when escorting the Queen for the annual State Opening of Parliament, where he walks and sits beside her. 

Contrary to rumours over the years, the Queen and Duke are said by insiders to have had a strong relationship throughout their marriage, despite the challenges of Elizabeth's reign.  The Queen referred to Prince Philip in a speech on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 as her "constant strength and guide". 

Duties and milestones

As consort to the Queen, Philip supported his wife in her new duties as sovereign, accompanying her to ceremonies such as the State Opening of Parliament in various countries, state dinners, and tours abroad. As Chairman of the Coronation Commission, he was the first member of the royal family to fly in a helicopter, visiting the troops that were to take part in the ceremony.  Philip was not crowned in the service, but knelt before Elizabeth, with her hands enclosing his, and swore to be her "liege man of life and limb". 

In the early 1950s, his sister-in-law, Princess Margaret, considered marrying a divorced older man, Peter Townsend and the press accused Philip of being hostile to the match. "I haven't done anything," he complained. Philip had not interfered, preferring to stay out of other people's love lives.  Eventually, Margaret and Townsend parted. For six months, over 1953–54, Philip and Elizabeth toured the Commonwealth; again their children were left in the United Kingdom. 

In 1956, the Duke, with Kurt Hahn, founded the Duke of Edinburgh's Award in order to give young people "a sense of responsibility to themselves and their communities". In the same year, he also established the Commonwealth Study Conferences. From 1956 to 1957, Philip travelled around the world aboard the newly commissioned HMY Britannia, during which he opened the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne and visited the Antarctic. The Queen and the children remained in the UK. On the return leg of the journey, Philip's private secretary, Mike Parker, was sued for divorce by his wife. As with Townsend, the press still portrayed divorce as a scandal and eventually Parker resigned. He later said that the Duke was very supportive and "the Queen was wonderful throughout. She regarded divorce as a sadness, not a hanging offence."  In a public show of support, the Queen created Parker a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. 

Further press reports claimed that the Queen and the Duke were drifting apart, which enraged the Duke and dismayed the Queen, who issued a strongly worded denial.  On 22 February 1957, she granted her husband the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom by Letters Patent, restoring the princely status that he had formally renounced ten years earlier. On the same date, it was gazetted that he was to be known as "His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh". 

Philip was appointed to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada on 14 October 1957, taking his Oath of Allegiance before the Queen in person at her Canadian residence, Rideau Hall.  In Canada in 1969, Philip spoke about his views on republicanism:

Philip is patron of some 800 organisations, particularly focused on the environment, industry, sport, and education. He served as UK President of the World Wildlife Fund from 1961 to 1982, International President from 1981, and President Emeritus from 1996. He is patron of The Work Foundation, was President of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986, and has served as Chancellor of the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Salford, and Wales. 

At the beginning of 1981, Philip wrote to his eldest son, Charles, counselling him to make up his mind to either propose to Lady Diana Spencer or break off their courtship.  Charles felt pressured by his father to make a decision and did so, proposing to Diana in February.  They married six months later.

By 1992, the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales had broken down. The Queen and Philip hosted a meeting between Charles and Diana, trying to effect a reconciliation, but without success.  Philip wrote to Diana, expressing his disappointment at both Charles's and her extra-marital affairs, and asking her to examine both his and her behaviour from the other's point of view.  The Duke was direct and Diana was sensitive.  She found the letters hard to take, but nevertheless she appreciated that he was acting with good intent.  Charles and Diana separated and later divorced.

A year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997. At the time, the Duke was on holiday at Balmoral with the extended royal family. In their grief, Diana's two sons, Princes William and Harry, wanted to attend church and so their grandparents took them that morning.Brandreth, p. 358 For five days, the Queen and the Duke shielded their grandsons from the ensuing press interest by keeping them at Balmoral, where they could grieve in private. The royal family's seclusion caused public dismay, but the public mood was transformed from hostility to respect by a live broadcast made by the Queen on 5 September.  Uncertain as to whether they should walk behind her coffin during the funeral procession, Diana's sons hesitated. Philip told William, "If you don't walk, I think you'll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?" On the day of the funeral, Philip, William, Harry, Charles and Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, walked through London behind her bier.

Over the next few years, Mohamed Fayed, whose son Dodi Fayed was also killed in the crash, claimed that Prince Philip had ordered the death of Diana and that the accident was staged. The inquest into the Princess of Wales's death concluded in 2008 that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. 

Prince Philip receives a Parliamentary annuity (of £359,000 since 1990) that serves to meet official expenses in carrying out public duties. The annuity is unaffected by the reform of royal finances under the Sovereign Grant Act 2011.   Any part of the allowance that is not used to meet official expenditure is liable for tax. In practice, the entire allowance is used to fund his official duties.   His personal wealth was estimated at £28 million in 2001. 

21st century

During his wife's Golden Jubilee in 2002, the Duke was commended by the Speaker of the British House of Commons for his role in supporting the Queen during her reign. The Duke of Edinburgh's time as royal consort exceeds that of any other consort in British history;  however, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (his mother-in-law), who died aged 101, had a longer lifespan.

In April 2008, Philip was admitted to the King Edward VII Hospital for "assessment and treatment" for a chest infection, though he walked into the hospital unaided and recovered quickly,  and was discharged three days later to recuperate at Windsor Castle.  In August, the Evening Standard reported that he was suffering from prostate cancer. Buckingham Palace, which usually refuses to comment on rumours of ill health, claimed that the report was an invasion of privacy and issued a statement denying the story.  The newspaper retracted the report and admitted it was untrue.  

In June 2011, in an interview marking his 90th birthday he said that he would now slow down and reduce his duties, stating that he had "done [his] bit".  His wife, the Queen, gave him the title Lord High Admiral for his 90th birthday.  While staying at the royal residence at Sandringham, Norfolk, on 23 December 2011, the Duke suffered chest pains and was taken to the cardio-thoracic unit at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, where he underwent successful coronary angioplasty and stenting.  He was discharged on 27 December. 

On 4 June 2012, during the celebrations in honour of his wife's Diamond Jubilee, Philip was taken from Windsor Castle to the King Edward VII Hospital, London, suffering from a bladder infection.   He was released from hospital on 9 June.  After a recurrence of infection in August 2012, while staying at Balmoral Castle, he was admitted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for five nights as a precautionary measure.  In June 2013, Philip was admitted to the London Clinic for an exploratory operation on his abdomen, spending 11 days in hospital.  On 21 May 2014, the Prince appeared in public with a bandage on his right hand after a "minor procedure" was performed in Buckingham Palace the preceding day. 

He is the longest-lived male member of the British royal family. The record for the longest-lived male descendant of Queen Victoria is currently held by Count Carl Johan Bernadotte of Wisborg (the Duke of Connaught's grandson) who lived to be 95 years, 6 months and 5 days old. Prince Philip would surpass this record on 13 December 2016.

Personality and image

Philip played polo until 1971, when he started to compete in carriage driving, a sport which he helped expand; the early rule book was drafted under his supervision.  He was a keen yachts sailor, striking up a friendship in 1949 with Uffa Fox in Cowes. He and the Queen regularly attended Cowes Week in HMY Britannia. His first airborne flying lesson took place in 1952; by his 70th birthday he had accrued 5,150 pilot hours.  He was presented with Royal Air Force wings in 1953.  In April 2014, it was reported that an old British Pathe newsreel film had been discovered of Philip's 1962 two-month flying tour of South America. Filmed sitting alongside Philip at the aircraft's controls was his co-pilot Captain Peter Middleton, the grandfather of the Duke's granddaughter-in-law, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.  

He has painted with oils, and collected artworks, including contemporary cartoons, which hang at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham House, and Balmoral Castle. Hugh Casson described Philip's own artwork as "exactly what you'd expect ... totally direct, no hanging about. Strong colours, vigorous brushstrokes." 

His down-to-earth manner was attested to by a White House butler who recalled that, on a visit in 1979, Philip had engaged him and a fellow butler in a conversation, and poured them drinks.  As well as a reputation for bluntness and plain speaking,  Philip is noted for occasionally making observations and jokes that have been construed as either funny, or as gaffes: awkward,  politically incorrect or even offensive, but sometimes perceived as stereotypical of someone of his age and background.      In an address to the General Dental Council in 1960, he jokingly coined a new word for his blunders: "Dontopedalogy  is  the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practised for a good many years."  Later in life he suggested his comments may have contributed to the perception that he is "a cantankerous old sod".  The historian David Starkey has described him as a kind of "HRH Victor Meldrew".  For example, in May 1999 British newspapers accused Philip of insulting deaf children at a pop concert in Wales by saying, "No wonder you are deaf listening to this row."  Later Philip wrote, "The story is largely invention. It so happens that my mother was quite seriously deaf and I have been Patron of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf for ages, so it's hardly likely that I would do any such thing."  When he and the Queen met Stephen Menary, an army cadet blinded by an IRA bomb, and the Queen enquired how much sight he retained, Philip quipped: "Not a lot, judging by the tie he's wearing". Menary later said: "I think he just tries to put people at ease by trying to make a joke. I certainly didn't take any offence."  During a state visit to the People's Republic of China in 1986, in a private conversation with British students from Xi'an's North West University, Philip joked, "If you stay here much longer, you'll go slit-eyed."  The British press reported on the remark as indicative of racial intolerance, but the Chinese authorities were reportedly unconcerned. Chinese students studying in the UK, an official explained, were often told in jest not to stay away too long, lest they go "round-eyed".  His comment had no effect on Sino-British relations, but it shaped his own reputation. 

Philip has been a Freemason since 1953. 

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Philip has held a number of titles throughout his life. Originally holding the title and style of a prince of Greece and Denmark, Philip abandoned these royal titles prior to his marriage, and was thereafter created a British duke, among other noble titles. It was not, however, until the Queen issued Letters Patent in 1957 that Philip was again titled as a prince.

When addressing the Duke of Edinburgh, as with any male member of the royal family except the monarch, the rules of etiquette are to address him the first time as Your Royal Highness, and thereafter as Sir. 

Honours and honorary military appointments

The Duke of Edinburgh was appointed by King George VI to the Order of the Garter on 19 November 1947, the eve of his wedding. Since then, Philip has received 17 different appointments and decorations in the Commonwealth, and 48 from foreign states. The inhabitants of some villages on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu also worship Prince Philip as a god; the islanders possess portraits of the Duke and hold feasts on his birthday. 

Upon his wife's accession to the throne in 1952, the Duke was appointed Admiral of the Sea Cadet Corps, Colonel-in-Chief of the British Army Cadet Force, and Air Commodore-in-Chief of the Air Training Corps.  The following year, he was appointed to the equivalent positions in Canada, and made Admiral of the Fleet, Captain General Royal Marines, Field Marshal, and Marshal of the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom.  Subsequent military appointments were made in New Zealand and Australia.  On 16 December 2015, his role as Honorary Air Commodore-in-Chief was handed over to the Duchess of Cambridge.

To celebrate his 90th birthday, the Queen appointed him Lord High Admiral of the Royal Navy (the highest rank in the organisation anyone other than the sovereign can hold)  and Canada appointed him to the highest ranks available in all three branches of the Canadian Armed Forces. 

Arms

Issue

Ancestry

Philip is the oldest living great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, as well as her oldest living descendant following the death of Count Carl Johan Bernadotte of Wisborg on 5 May 2012. Through his descent from the British royal family, he is in the line of succession to the thrones of the 16 Commonwealth realms.

In July 1993, through mitochondrial DNA analysis of a sample of Prince Philip's blood, British scientists were able to confirm the identity of the remains of several members of Empress Alexandra of Russia's family, more than seventy years after their 1918 massacre by the Bolsheviks. Prince Philip was then one of two living great-grandchildren in the female line of Alexandra's mother Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the other being his sister Sophie, who died in 2001.

Fictional portrayals

Philip has been portrayed on film by James Cromwell (The Queen, 2006), David Threlfall (The Queen's Sister, 2005) and Stewart Granger (The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana, 1982). 

A fictionalised Philip (in his capacity as a World War II naval officer) is a minor character in John Birmingham's Axis of Time series of alternate history novels. Prince Philip also appears as a fictional character in Nevil Shute's novel In the Wet (1952), Paul Gallico's novel Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Moscow, Tom Clancy's novel Patriot Games, and Sue Townsend's novel The Queen and I. 

The satirical British television series Spitting Image regularly featured a Prince Philip puppet. His voice was provided by Roger Blake, who reprised the role in Alistair McGowan's regal parody of The Royle Family within his show The Big Impression.  Similarly to Spitting Image, Prince Philip repeatedly featured in Headcases alongside the Queen and Kate Middleton.

Netflix series "The Crown", about Elizabeth II's first years as monarch, will see Philip portrayed by Matt Smith and is currently set to be released in November 2016.

Bibliography

* Selected Speeches – 1948–55 (1957)
* Selected Speeches – 1956–59 (1960)
* Birds from Britannia (1962) (published in the United States as Seabirds from Southern Waters)
* Wildlife Crisis with James Fisher (1970)
* The Environmental Revolution: Speeches on Conservation, 1962–1977 (1978)
* Competition Carriage Driving (1982) (published in France 1984, second edition 1984, revised edition 1994)
* A Question of Balance (1982)
* Men, Machines and Sacred Cows (1984)
* A Windsor Correspondence with Michael Mann (1984)
* Down to Earth: Collected Writings and Speeches on Man and the Natural World 1961–87 (1988) (paperback edition 1989, Japanese edition 1992)
* Survival or Extinction: A Christian Attitude to the Environment with Michael Mann (1989)
* Driving and Judging Dressage (1996)
* Thirty Years On, and Off, the Box Seat (2004)

Forewords to:
* Royal Australian Navy 1911–1961 Jubilee Souvenir issued by authority of the Department of the Navy, Canberra (1961)
* The Concise British Flora in Colour by William Keble Martin, Ebury Press/ Michael Joseph (1965)
* Kurt Hahn by Hermann Röhrs and Hilary Tunstall-Behrens (1970)
* The Art of Driving by Max Pape (1982)
* National Maritime Museum Guide to Maritime Britain by Keith Wheatley, (2000)
* The Royal Yacht Britannia: The Official History by Richard Johnstone-Bryden, Conway Maritime Press (2003)
* 1953: The Crowning Year of Sport by Jonathan Rice, (2003)
* British Flags and Emblems by Graham Bartram, Tuckwell Press (2004)
* Chariots of War by Robert Hobson, Ulric Publication (2004)
* RMS Queen Mary 2 Manual: An Insight into the Design, Construction and Operation of the World's Largest Ocean Liner by Stephen Payne, Haynes Publishing (2014)
* The Triumph of a Great Tradition: The Story of Cunard's 175 Years by  Eric Flounders and Michael Gallagher, Lily Publications (2014)

Notes Charles, Prince of Wales (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948), is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Known alternatively in Scotland as Duke of Rothesay and in South West England as Duke of Cornwall,  he is the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, having held the position since 1952.  He is also the oldest person to be next in line to the throne since Sophia of Hanover (the heir presumptive to Queen Anne), who died in 1714 at the age of 83.

Charles was born at Buckingham Palace as the first grandchild of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. He was educated at Cheam and Gordonstoun Schools, which his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, had attended as a child, as well as the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After earning a bachelor of arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, Charles served in the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976.

In 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer and they had two sons: Prince William (born 1982) later to become Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Harry (born 1984). In 1996, the couple divorced, following well-publicised extramarital affairs. Diana died in a car crash in Paris the following year. In 2005, Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who uses the title Duchess of Cornwall.

Charles's interests encompass a range of humanitarian and social issues: he founded The Prince's Trust in 1976, sponsors The Prince's Charities, and is patron of numerous other charitable and arts organisations. Charles has long championed organic farming for which he established the Duchy Home Farm, run by the Duchy of Cornwall, which produces ingredients for the Duchy Originals brand which he founded in 1990. Charles has sought to raise world awareness of the dangers facing the natural environment, such as climate change. As an environmentalist, he has received numerous awards and recognition from environmental groups around the world.     His support for alternative medicine, including homeopathy, has been criticised by some in the medical community.  He has been outspoken on the role of architecture in society and the conservation of historic buildings. Subsequently, Charles created Poundbury, an experimental new town based on his theories, in Dorset in 1993. He has authored a number of books, including A Vision of Britain: A Personal View of Architecture in 1989 and the children's book The Old Man of Lochnagar in 1980.

Early life

Charles was born at Buckingham Palace on 14 November 1948,  at 9.14 pm (GMT), the first child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and first grandchild of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, baptised him in the palace's Music Room on 15 December 1948, using water from the River Jordan. The Prince's godparents were: the King (his maternal grandfather); the King of Norway (his cousin, for whom the Earl of Athlone stood proxy); Queen Mary (his maternal great-grandmother); Princess Margaret (his maternal aunt); Prince George of Greece and Denmark (his paternal great-uncle, for whom the Duke of Edinburgh stood proxy); the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven (his paternal great-grandmother); the Lady Brabourne (his cousin); and the Hon David Bowes-Lyon (his maternal great-uncle).  As the child of a daughter of the sovereign, Charles would not usually have been accorded the titles of a British prince or the style Royal Highness. Instead, he would have taken his father's secondary title, Earl of Merioneth, as a courtesy title. However, on 22 October 1948, George VI had issued letters patent granting a royal and princely status to any children of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, making Charles a royal prince from birth. 

When Charles was aged three his mother's accession as Queen Elizabeth II made him her heir apparent. As the sovereign's eldest son, he automatically took the titles Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, in addition to being a prince of the United Kingdom. Charles attended his mother's coronation at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953, seated alongside his grandmother and aunt. As was customary for royal offspring, a governess, Catherine Peebles, was appointed and undertook his education between the ages of five and eight. Buckingham Palace announced in 1955 that Charles would attend school rather than have a private tutor, making him the first heir apparent ever to be educated in that manner. 

Youth

Education

Charles first attended Hill House School in west London, receiving non-preferential treatment from the school's founder and then head, Stuart Townend, who advised the Queen to have Charles train in football because the boys were never deferential to anyone on the football field.  Charles then attended two of his father's former schools, Cheam Preparatory School in Berkshire, England, followed by Gordonstoun in the north-east of Scotland. He reportedly despised the latter school, which he described as "Colditz in kilts".  He spent two terms in 1966 at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia, during which time he visited Papua New Guinea on a school trip with his history tutor, Michael Collins Persse. Upon his return to Gordonstoun, Charles emulated his father in becoming Head Boy. He left in 1967, with six GCE O-levels and two A-levels in history and French, at grades B and C, respectively. 

Tradition was broken again when Charles proceeded straight from secondary school into university, as opposed to joining the British Armed Forces. In October 1967, the Prince was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read anthropology, archaeology, and history. During his second year, Charles attended the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, studying Welsh history and language for a term. He graduated from Cambridge with a 2:2 Bachelor of Arts on 23 June 1970, the first heir apparent to earn a university degree. On 2 August 1975, he was subsequently awarded a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge, per the university's tradition.

Created Prince of Wales

Charles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 26 July 1958,   though his investiture as such was not conducted until 1 July 1969, when he was crowned by his mother in a televised ceremony held at Caernarfon Castle, and gave his replies and speech in both Welsh and English.  The following year he took his seat in the House of Lords,  and later in the decade became the first member of the Royal Family since King George I to attend a British Cabinet meeting, having been invited by Prime Minister James Callaghan so that the Prince might see the workings of the British government and Cabinet at first hand. Charles also began to take on more public duties, founding The Prince's Trust in 1976,  and travelling to the United States in 1981. 

In the mid-1970s, the Prince expressed an interest in serving as Governor-General of Australia; Commander Michael Parker explained: "The idea behind the appointment was for him to put a foot on the ladder of monarchy, or being the future King and start learning the trade." However, because of a combination of nationalist feeling in Australia and the dismissal of the government by the Governor-General in 1975, nothing came of the proposal. Charles accepted the decision of the Australian ministers, if not without some regret; he reportedly stated: "What are you supposed to think when you are prepared to do something to help and you are told you are not wanted?" 

Charles is the oldest heir apparent to bear the title Prince of Wales, and the second-longest serving Prince of Wales, behind Edward VII, whose record he would surpass on 9 September 2017. If he became monarch at present he would be the oldest person to do so; the current record holder is William IV, who was 64 when he became king in 1830.

Military training and career

Following royal tradition, Charles served in the navy and air force. After requesting and receiving Royal Air Force training during his second year at Cambridge, on 8 March 1971, he flew himself to the Royal Air Force College Cranwell to train as a jet pilot. Following the passing-out parade that September, he embarked on a naval career, enrolling in a six-week course at the Royal Naval College Dartmouth and then serving on the guided missile destroyer  (1971–1972) and the frigates  (1972–1973) and  (1974). He also qualified as a helicopter pilot at RNAS Yeovilton in 1974, just prior to joining 845 Naval Air Squadron, operating from .

On 9 February 1976, he took command of the coastal minehunter  for his last ten months serving actively in the navy. He learned to fly on a Chipmunk basic pilot trainer, a BAC Jet Provost jet trainer, and a Beagle Basset multi-engine trainer; he then regularly flew the Hawker Siddeley Andover, Westland Wessex and BAe 146 aircraft of The Queen's Flight. 

Early romances

In his youth, Charles was linked to a number of women. His great-uncle Lord Mountbatten advised him: "In a case like yours, the man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive, and sweet-charactered girl before she has met anyone else she might fall for ... It is disturbing for women to have experiences if they have to remain on a pedestal after marriage."

Charles's female friends included Georgiana Russell, daughter of the British Ambassador to Spain; Lady Jane Wellesley, daughter of the 8th Duke of Wellington; Davina Sheffield; Lady Sarah Spencer; and Camilla Shand, who later became his second wife and Duchess of Cornwall.

Early in 1974, Mountbatten began corresponding with Charles about a potential marriage to Amanda Knatchbull, Mountbatten's granddaughter. Charles wrote to Amanda's mother, Lady Brabourne (who was also his godmother), expressing interest in her daughter, to which she replied approvingly, though suggesting that a courtship with the not yet 16-year-old girl was premature. Four years later Mountbatten arranged for himself and Amanda to accompany Charles on his 1980 tour of India. Both fathers, however, objected; Philip feared that Charles would be eclipsed by his famous uncle (who had served as the last British Viceroy and first Governor-General of India), while Lord Brabourne warned that a joint visit would concentrate media attention on the cousins before they could decide on becoming a couple. However, in August 1979, before Charles would depart alone for India, Mountbatten was killed by the IRA. When Charles returned, he proposed to Amanda, but in addition to her grandfather, she had lost her paternal grandmother and youngest brother Nicholas in the bomb attack and was now reluctant to join the Royal Family. In June 1980, Charles officially turned down Chevening House, placed at his disposal since 1974, as his future residence. Chevening, a stately home in Kent, was bequeathed, along with an endowment, to the Crown by the last Earl Stanhope, Amanda's childless great-uncle, in the hope that Charles would eventually occupy it. In 1977, a newspaper report mistakenly announced his engagement to Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg.

First marriage

Although Charles first met Lady Diana Spencer in 1977—while visiting her home, Althorp, as the companion of her elder sister, Sarah—he did not consider her romantically until mid-1980. While sitting together on a bale of hay at a friend's barbecue in July, he mentioned Mountbatten's death, to which Diana replied that Charles had looked forlorn and in need of care during his uncle's funeral. Soon, according to Charles's chosen biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, "without any apparent surge in feeling, he began to think seriously of her as a potential bride", and she accompanied Charles on visits to Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House.

Charles's cousin, Norton Knatchbull (Amanda's eldest brother), and his wife told Charles that Diana appeared awestruck by his position and that he did not seem to be in love with her. Meanwhile, the couple's continued courtship attracted intense press and paparazzi attention. When Prince Philip told him that the media speculation would injure Diana's reputation if Charles did not come to a decision about marrying her soon, and realizing that she was a suitable royal bride (according to Mountbatten's criteria), Charles construed his father's advice as a warning to proceed without further delay.

Prince Charles proposed to Diana in February 1981 and they married in St Paul's Cathedral on 29 July. Upon his marriage, Charles reduced his voluntary tax contribution from the profits generated by the Duchy of Cornwall from 50% to 25%.  The couple made their homes at Kensington Palace and at Highgrove House, near Tetbury, and had two children: Princes William (born 21 June 1982) and Henry (known as "Harry") (born 15 September 1984). Charles set precedent by being the first royal father to be present at his children's births. Persistent suggestions that Harry's father is not Charles but James Hewitt, with whom Diana had an affair, have been based on a physical similarity between Hewitt and Harry. However, Harry had already been born by the time the affair between Hewitt and Diana began.  

Separation and divorce

Within five years, the couple's incompatibility and near thirteen-year age difference,  as well as Diana's concern about Charles's previous girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles, became visible and damaging to their marriage. Their evident discomfort in each other's company led to them being dubbed "The Glums" in the press.  Diana exposed Charles's affair with Camilla in a book by Andrew Morton, Diana, Her True Story. Tapes of her own extramarital flirtations also surfaced.

In December 1992, the British Prime Minister, John Major, announced their formal separation in Parliament. That same year, the British press published bugged recordings of a passionate private 1989 telephone conversation between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.   Charles and Diana divorced on 28 August 1996.  When Diana died in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997, Charles flew there, with Diana's sisters, to accompany her body back to Britain. 

Second marriage

The engagement of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles was announced on 10 February 2005; he presented her with an engagement ring which had belonged to his grandmother.  The Queen's consent to the marriage (as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772) was recorded in a Privy Council meeting on 2 March.  In Canada, the Department of Justice announced its decision that the Queen's Privy Council for Canada was not required to meet to give its consent to the marriage, as the union would not result in offspring and would have no impact on the succession to the Canadian throne. 

Charles is the first member of the Royal Family to have a civil, rather than religious, wedding in England. Government documents from the 1950s and 1960s, published by the BBC, stated that such a marriage was illegal,  though these were dismissed by Charles's spokesman,  and explained to be obsolete by the sitting government. 

The marriage was to take place in a civil ceremony at Windsor Castle, with a subsequent religious blessing at St George's Chapel. However, because a civil marriage at Windsor Castle would oblige the venue to be available to anyone wishing to be married there, the location was changed to Windsor Guildhall. On 4 April the originally scheduled date of 8 April was postponed by one day, to allow Charles and some of the invited dignitaries to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. 

Charles's parents did not attend the civil marriage ceremony; the Queen's reluctance to attend perhaps arising from her position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.  The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh did attend the service of blessing, and held a reception for the newlyweds at Windsor Castle afterwards.  The blessing, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, was televised. 

Social interests

Philanthropy and charity

Since founding The Prince's Trust in 1976, Charles has established sixteen more charitable organisations, and now serves as president of all of those.  Together, these form a loose alliance called The Prince's Charities, which describes itself as "the largest multi-cause charitable enterprise in the United Kingdom, raising over £100million annually ... [and is] active across a broad range of areas including education and young people, environmental sustainability, the built environment, responsible business and enterprise and international."

In 2010, The Prince's Charities Canada was established in a similar fashion to its namesake in the UK.  Charles is also patron of over 350 other charities and organisations, and carries out duties related to these throughout the Commonwealth realms; for example, he uses his tours of Canada as a way to help draw attention to youth, the disabled, the environment, the arts, medicine, the elderly, heritage conservation, and education.  In Canada, Charles has supported humanitarian projects, for example taking part, along with his two sons, in the ceremonies marking the 1998 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Charles has also set up The Prince's Charities Australia, which is based in Melbourne, Victoria. The Prince's Charities Australia is to provide a coordinating presence for the Prince of Wales’s Australian and international charitable endeavors. 

Charles was one of the first world leaders to express strong concerns about the human rights record of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, initiating objections in the international arena, and subsequently supported the FARA Foundation, a charity for Romanian orphans and abandoned children. 

In 2013, Charles donated an unspecified sum of money to the British Red Cross Syria Crisis appeal and DEC Syria appeal, which is run by 14 British charities to help victims of the Syrian civil war.   According to The Guardian, It is believed that after turning 65 years old in 2013, Charles donated his state pension to an unnamed charity which supports elderly people.  In March 2014, Charles arranged for five million measles-rubella vaccinations for children in the Philippines on the outbreak of measles in South-East Asia. According to Clarence House, Charles was affected by news of the damage caused by Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. International Health Partners, of which he has been Patron since 2004, sent the vaccines, which are believed to protect five million children below the age of five from measles.  

Built environment

The Prince of Wales has openly expressed his views on architecture and urban planning, fostering the advancement of New Classical Architecture, and asserting that he "care[s] deeply about issues such as the environment, architecture, inner-city renewal, and the quality of life."   In a speech given for the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on 30 May 1984, he memorably described a proposed extension to the National Gallery in London as a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend" and deplored the "glass stumps and concrete towers" of modern architecture.  He asserted that "it is possible, and important in human terms, to respect old buildings, street plans and traditional scales and at the same time not to feel guilty about a preference for facades, ornaments and soft materials," called for local community involvement in architectural choices, and asked: 

His book and BBC documentary A Vision of Britain (1987) was also critical of modern architecture, and he has continued to campaign for traditional urbanism, human scale, restoration of historic buildings, and sustainable design,  despite criticism in the press. Two of his charities (The Prince's Regeneration Trust and The Prince's Foundation for Building Community) promote his views, and the village of Poundbury was built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall to a master plan by Léon Krier under the guidance of Prince Charles and in line with his philosophy.

Charles helped establish a national trust for the built environment in Canada after lamenting, in 1996, the unbridled destruction of many of the country's historic urban cores. He offered his assistance to the Department of Canadian Heritage in creating a trust modelled on Britain's National Trust, a plan that was implemented with the passage of the 2007 Canadian federal budget.  In 1999, the Prince agreed to the use of his title for the Prince of Wales Prize for Municipal Heritage Leadership, awarded by the Heritage Canada Foundation to municipal governments that have shown sustained commitment to the conservation of historic places.  While visiting the United States and surveying the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, Charles received the National Building Museum's Vincent Scully Prize in 2005, for his efforts in regard to architecture; he donated $25,000 of the prize money towards restoring storm-damaged communities.  

From 1997, the Prince of Wales has visited Romania to view and highlight the destruction of Orthodox monasteries and Transylvanian Saxon villages during the Communist rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu.    Charles is patron of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, a Romanian conservation and regeneration organisation,  and has purchased a house in Romania.  Historian Tom Gallagher wrote in the Romanian newspaper România Liberă in 2006 that Charles had been offered the Romanian throne by monarchists in that country; an offer that was reportedly turned down,  but Buckingham Palace denied the reports.  Charles also has "a deep understanding of Islamic art and architecture", and has been involved in the construction of a building and garden at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies that combine Islamic and Oxford architectural styles.

Charles has occasionally intervened in projects that employ architectural styles such as modernism and functionalism. In 2009, Charles wrote to the Qatari royal family, the developers of the Chelsea Barracks site, labelling Lord Rogers's design for the site "unsuitable". Subsequently, Rogers was removed from the project and The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment was appointed to propose an alternative. Rogers claimed the Prince had also intervened to block his designs for the Royal Opera House and Paternoster Square, and condemned Charles's actions as "an abuse of power" and "unconstitutional". Lord Foster, Zaha Hadid, Jacques Herzog, Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano, and Frank Gehry, among others, wrote a letter to The Sunday Times complaining that the Prince's "private comments" and "behind-the-scenes lobbying" subverted the "open and democratic planning process".  Piers Gough and other architects condemned Charles's views as "elitist" in a letter encouraging colleagues to boycott a speech given by Charles to RIBA in 2009.

In 2010, The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment decided to help reconstruct and redesign buildings in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the capital was destroyed by the 2010 Haiti earthquake.  The foundation is known for refurbishing historic buildings in Kabul, Afghanistan and in Kingston, Jamaica. The project has been called the "biggest challenge yet" for the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment. 

Livery company commitments

The Worshipful Company of Carpenters installed Charles as an Honorary Liveryman "in recognition of his interest in London's architecture."  The Prince of Wales is also Permanent Master of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, an Honorary Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, an Honorary Member of the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, and a Royal Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. 

Natural environment

Since the early 1980s, Charles has promoted environmental awareness.  Upon moving into Highgrove House, he developed an interest in organic farming, which culminated in the 1990 launch of his own organic brand, Duchy Originals, which now sells more than 200 different sustainably produced products, from food to garden furniture; the profits (over £6 million by 2010) are donated to The Prince's Charities.  Documenting work on his estate, Charles co-authored (with Charles Clover, environment editor of The Daily Telegraph) Highgrove: An Experiment in Organic Gardening and Farming, published in 1993, and offers his patronage to Garden Organic. Along similar lines, the Prince of Wales became involved with farming and various industries within it, regularly meeting with farmers to discuss their trade. Although the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic in England prevented Charles from visiting organic farms in Saskatchewan, he met the farmers at Assiniboia town hall.   In 2004, he founded the Mutton Renaissance Campaign, which aims to support British sheep farmers and make mutton more attractive to Britons.  His organic farming has attracted media criticism: According to The Independent in October 2006, "the story of Duchy Originals has involved compromises and ethical blips, wedded to a determined merchandising programme." 

In 2007, he received the 10th annual Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, the director of which, Eric Chivian, stated: "For decades the Prince of Wales has been a champion of the natural world ... He has been a world leader in efforts to improve energy efficiency and in reducing the discharge of toxic substances on land, and into the air and the oceans".  Charles's travels by private jet drew criticism from Plane Stupid's Joss Garman.  

In 2007, Charles launched The Prince's May Day Network, which encourages businesses to take action on climate change. Speaking to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008, he called for European Union leadership in the war against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), remained seated and went on to describe Charles's advisers as "naive and foolish at best."  In a speech to the Low Carbon Prosperity Summit in a European Parliament chamber on 9 February 2011, Charles said that climate change sceptics are playing "a reckless game of roulette" with the planet's future and are having a "corrosive effect" on public opinion. He also articulated the need to protect fisheries and the Amazon rain forest, and to make low-carbon emissions affordable and competitive. 

In 2011, Charles received the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Medal for his engagement with the environment, such as the conservation of rainforests. 

On 27 August 2012, the Prince of Wales addressed the International Union for Conservation of Nature - World Conservation Congress, supporting the view that grazing animals are needed to keep soils and grassland productive:

"I have been particularly fascinated, for example, by the work of a remarkable man called Allan Savory, in Zimbabwe and other semi arid areas, who has argued for years against the prevailing expert view that is the simple numbers of cattle that drive overgrazing and cause fertile land to become desert. On the contrary, as he has since shown so graphically, the land needs the presence of feeding animals and their droppings for the cycle to be complete, so that soils and grassland areas stay productive. Such that, if you take grazers off the land and lock them away in vast feedlots, the land dies." 

In February 2014, Charles visited Somerset levels to meet residents affected by winter flooding. During his visit, Charles remarked that, "There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something. The tragedy is that nothing happened for so long." He pledged a £50,000 donation,  provided by the Prince's Countryside Fund, to help families and their businesses.   

Alternative medicine

Charles has controversially championed alternative medicine.  The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health attracted opposition from the scientific and medical community over its campaign encouraging general practitioners to offer herbal and other alternative treatments to National Health Service patients,   and in May 2006, Charles made a speech at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, urging the integration of conventional and alternative medicine and arguing for homeopathy.  

In April 2008, The Times published a letter from Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, which asked the Prince's Foundation to recall two guides promoting alternative medicine, saying "the majority of alternative therapies appear to be clinically ineffective, and many are downright dangerous." A speaker for the foundation countered the criticism by stating: "We entirely reject the accusation that our online publication Complementary Healthcare: A Guide contains any misleading or inaccurate claims about the benefits of complementary therapies. On the contrary, it treats people as adults and takes a responsible approach by encouraging people to look at reliable sources of information ... so that they can make informed decisions. The foundation does not promote complementary therapies."  That year, Ernst published a book with Simon Singh, mockingly dedicated to "HRH the Prince of Wales" called Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial. The last chapter is highly critical of Charles's advocacy of complementary and alternative treatments. 

The Prince's Duchy Originals produce a variety of complementary medicinal products including a "Detox Tincture" that Edzard Ernst has denounced as "financially exploiting the vulnerable" and "outright quackery". In 2009, the Advertising Standards Authority criticised an email that Duchy Originals had sent out to advertise its Echina-Relief, Hyperi-Lift and Detox Tinctures products saying that it was misleading. The Prince personally wrote at least seven letters  to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) shortly before they relaxed the rules governing labelling of such herbal products, a move that has been widely condemned by scientists and medical bodies.  In October 2009, it was reported that Charles had personally lobbied the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, regarding greater provision of alternative treatments in the NHS. In 2016 Charles said in a speech that he used homeopathic veterinary medicines to reduce antibiotic use at his farm. 

In April 2010, following accounting irregularities, a former official at the foundation and his wife were arrested for fraud believed to total £300,000.  Four days later, the foundation announced its closure, claiming that it "has achieved its key objective of promoting the use of integrated health."  The charity's finance director, accountant George Gray, was convicted of theft totalling £253,000 and sentenced to three years in prison. The Prince's Foundation was re-branded and re-launched later in 2010 as The College of Medicine.  

Religious and philosophical interests

The Prince of Wales was confirmed at age 16 by Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey at Easter 1965, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. He attends services at various Anglican churches close to Highgrove,  and attends the Church of Scotland's Crathie Kirk with the rest of the royal family when staying at Balmoral Castle. In 2000, he was appointed as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The Prince of Wales has visited (amid some secrecy) Orthodox monasteries several times on Mount Athos  as well as in Romania. Charles is also patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. 

Sir Laurens van der Post became a friend of Charles in 1977; he was dubbed his "spiritual guru" and was godfather to Charles's son, Prince William.  From van der Post, the Prince of Wales developed a focus on philosophy, especially that of Asian and Middle Eastern nations. He has praised Kabbalistic artworks,  and wrote a memorial for Kathleen Raine, the Neoplatonist poet who died in 2003. 

Charles expressed his philosophical views in his 2010 book, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World,    which won the Nautilus Book Award.  Although it had been rumoured that Charles would vow to be "Defender of the Faiths" or "Defender of Faith" as king, he stated in 2015 that he will retain the monarch's traditional title of "Defender of the Faith", whilst "ensuring that other people's faiths can also be practised", which he sees as a duty of the Church of England. 

Official duties

In 2008, The Daily Telegraph declared Charles the "hardest-working member of the royal family." He carried out 560 official engagements in 2008, 499 in 2010,  and over 600 in 2011.

As Prince of Wales, Charles undertakes official duties on behalf of his mother and the Commonwealth realms. He officiates at investitures and attends the funerals of foreign dignitaries. At the funeral of Pope John Paul II, Charles unintentionally caused controversy when he shook hands with Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, who had been seated next to him. Charles's office subsequently released a statement saying: "The Prince of Wales was caught by surprise and not in a position to avoid shaking Mr Mugabe's hand. The Prince finds the current Zimbabwean regime abhorrent. He has supported the Zimbabwe Defence and Aid Fund which works with those being oppressed by the regime. The Prince also recently met Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo, an outspoken critic of the government." 

Prince Charles makes regular tours of Wales, fulfilling a week of engagements in the principality each summer, and attending important national occasions, such as opening the Senedd.  The six Trustees of the Royal Collection Trust meet three times a year under his chairmanship. 

The Prince of Wales travels abroad on behalf of the United Kingdom. The Prince has been regarded as an effective advocate of the country, with his visit to the Republic of Ireland in 1995, he delivered a personally researched and written speech on Anglo-Irish affairs that was warmly received by Irish politicians and the media, being cited as an example.
In 2000, Charles revived the tradition of the Prince of Wales having an official harpist, in order to foster Welsh talent at playing the harp, the national instrument of Wales. He and the Duchess of Cornwall also spend one week each year in Scotland, where the Prince is patron of several Scottish organisations.  His service to the Canadian Armed Forces permits him to be informed of troop activities, and allows him to visit these troops while in Canada or overseas, taking part in ceremonial occasions.  For instance, in 2001, the Prince placed a specially commissioned wreath, made from vegetation taken from French battlefields, at the Canadian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,  and in 1981 he became the patron of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. 

In 2010, he represented the Queen at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.  He attends official events in the United Kingdom in support of Commonwealth countries, such as the Christchurch earthquake memorial service at Westminster Abbey in 2011.    From 15 to 17 November 2013, he represented the Queen for the first time at a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.  

Letters sent by the Prince of Wales to government ministers—the so-called black spider memos—during 2004 and 2005 have presented potential embarrassment following a challenge by The Guardian newspaper to release the letters under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In March 2015, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom decided that the Prince's letters must be released. The letters were published by the Cabinet Office on 13 May 2015.    The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall made their first joint trip to the Republic of Ireland in May 2015. The trip was called an important step in "promoting peace and reconciliation" by the British Embassy.  During the trip, Charles shook hands with Sinn Féin and supposed IRA leader Gerry Adams in Galway which was described by the media as a "historic handshake" and a "significant moment for Anglo-Irish relations".   

Hobbies and personal interests

Sports

From his youth the Prince was an avid player of competitive polo until 1992. He continued to play informally, including for charity, until 2005.  Charles also frequently took part in fox hunting, before the sport was banned in the United Kingdom in 2005. By the late 1990s, as opposition to the activity was growing, the Prince's participation was viewed as a "political statement" by those opposed to it, such as the League Against Cruel Sports, which launched an attack against Charles after he took his sons on the Beaufort Hunt in 1999, when the government was trying to ban hunting with hounds.  

Charles has been a keen salmon angler since youth, and supports Orri Vigfússon's efforts to protect the North Atlantic salmon. He frequently fishes the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, while he claims his most special angling memories are from his time in Vopnafjörður, Iceland.  Charles is a supporter of Burnley Football Club. 

Visual, performing and contemporary arts

The Prince is President or Patron of more than 20 performing arts organisations, including the Royal College of Music, the Royal Opera, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, and the Purcell School. In 2000, he revived the tradition of appointing harpists to the Royal Court, by appointing an Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales. As an undergraduate at Cambridge he played cello, and has sung with the Bach Choir twice.

He founded The Prince's Foundation for Children and The Arts in 2002, to help more children experience the arts first-hand. He is President of the Royal Shakespeare Company and attends performances in Stratford-Upon-Avon, supports fundraising events and attends the company's annual general meeting. He enjoys comedy,  and is interested in illusionism, becoming a member of The Magic Circle after passing his audition in 1975 by performing the "cups and balls" effect. 

A keen and accomplished watercolourist, Charles has exhibited and sold a number of his works, and published books on the subject. In 2001, 20 lithographs of his watercolour paintings illustrating his country estates were exhibited at the Florence International Biennale of Contemporary Art.  Charles was awarded the 2011 Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award by the Montblanc Cultural Foundation for his support and commitment to the arts, particularly in regard to young people. 

On 23 April 2016, the Prince appeared in a comedy sketch for the Royal Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare Live!  at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 1616. Attended by the Prince with the Duchess of Cornwall, the gala was televised live by the BBC. Like Paapa Essiedu, Tim Minchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Harriet Walter, Rory Kinnear, Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench  the Prince made a surprise entrance to settle the disputed delivery of Hamlet's celebrated line, "To be or not to be, that is the question". 

Publications

The Prince of Wales is an author of several books reflecting his own interests. He has also contributed a foreword or preface to books by other writers and has also written, presented and has been featured in documentary films.     

Media image

Since his birth, Prince Charles has undergone close media attention, which increased as he matured. It has been an ambivalent relationship, largely impacted by his marriages to Diana and Camilla and its aftermath, but also centred on his future conduct as king, such as the 2014 play King Charles III. 

Impact of marriage to Diana

Described as the "world's most eligible bachelor" in the late 1970s,  Prince Charles was subsequently overshadowed by Diana. After her death, the media regularly breached Charles's privacy and printed exposés.

In 2006, the Prince filed a court case against the Mail on Sunday, after excerpts of his personal journals were published, revealing his opinions on matters such as the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997, in which Charles described the Chinese government officials as "appalling old waxworks". Mark Bolland, his ex-private secretary, declared in a statement to the High Court that Charles "would readily embrace the political aspects of any contentious issue he was interested in ... He carried it out in a very considered, thoughtful and researched way. He often referred to himself as a 'dissident' working against the prevailing political consensus." Jonathan Dimbleby reported that the Prince "has accumulated a number of certainties about the state of the world and does not relish contradiction." 

Others formerly connected with the Prince have betrayed his confidence. An ex-member of his household handed the press an internal memo in which Charles commented on ambition and opportunity, and which was widely interpreted as blaming meritocracy for creating a combative atmosphere in society. Charles responded: "In my view, it is just as great an achievement to be a plumber or a bricklayer as it is to be a lawyer or a doctor". 

Reaction to press treatment

Charles's anguish was recorded in his private comments to Prince William, caught on a microphone during a press photo-call in 2005 and published in the national press. After a question from the BBC's royal reporter, Nicholas Witchell, Charles muttered: "These bloody people. I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is." 

In 2002, Charles, "so often a target of the Press, got his chance to return fire" when addressing "scores of editors, publishers and other media executives" gathered at St Bride's Fleet Street to celebrate 300 years of journalism.   Defending public servants from "the corrosive drip of constant criticism", he noted that the press had been "awkward, cantankerous, cynical, bloody-minded, at times intrusive, at times inaccurate and at times deeply unfair and harmful to individuals and to institutions." But, he concluded, regarding his own relations with the press, "from time to time we are probably both a bit hard on each other, exaggerating the downsides and ignoring the good points in each."

Guest appearances on television

The Prince of Wales has occasionally appeared on television. In 1984, he read his children's book The Old Man of Lochnagar for the BBC's Jackanory series. The UK soap opera Coronation Street featured an appearance by Charles during the show's 40th anniversary in 2000,  as did the New Zealand young adult cartoon series bro'Town (2005), after he attended a performance by the show's creators during a tour of the country.  

Charles was interviewed with Princes William and Harry by Ant & Dec to mark the 30th anniversary of The Prince's Trust in 2006  and in 2016 was interviewed by them again along with his sons and the Duchess of Cornwall to mark the 40th anniversary.  

His saving of the Scottish stately home Dumfries House was the subject of Alan Titchmarsh's documentary Royal Restoration, which aired on TV in May 2012.  Also in May 2012, Charles tried his hand at being a weather presenter for the BBC, reporting the forecast for Scotland as part of their annual week at Holyrood Palace alongside Christopher Blanchett. He injected humour in his report, asking, "Who the hell wrote this script?" as references were made to royal residences. 

In December 2015 Channel 4 News revealed that interviews with Charles were subject to a contract that restricts questions to those previously approved, and gives his staff oversight of editing and the right to "remove the contribution in its entirety from the programme". Channel 4 News decided not to proceed with an interview on this basis, which some journalists believed would put them at risk of breaching the Ofcom Broadcasting Code on editorial independence and transparency.

Residences and finance

Clarence House in London is the Prince of Wales's current official residence. Previously, he had an apartment at St James's Palace. Charles also has two private homes: Highgrove House in Gloucestershire and Birkhall near Balmoral Castle. Both Clarence House and Birkhall were previously the residences of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.  His primary source of income is generated from the Duchy of Cornwall, which owns 133,658 acres of land (around 54,090 hectares), including farming, residential, and commercial properties, as well as an investment portfolio. Highgrove is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, having been purchased for his use in 1980, and which Prince Charles rents for £336,000 per annum.  The Public Accounts Committee published its 25th report into the Duchy of Cornwall accounts in November 2013 noting that the Duchy performed well in 2012–13, increasing its total income and producing an overall surplus of £19.1 million. 

In 2007 the Prince purchased a 192-acre property (150 acres of grazing and parkland, and 40 acres of woodland) in Carmarthenshire, and applied for permission to convert the farm into a Welsh home for him and the Duchess of Cornwall, to be rented out as holiday flats when the royal couple is not in residence.  A neighbouring family said the proposals flouted local planning regulations, and the application was put on hold temporarily while a report was drafted on how the alterations would affect the local bat population.  Charles and Camilla first stayed at the new property, called Llwynywermod, in June 2008. 

Starting in 1993, the Prince of Wales has paid tax voluntarily under the Memorandum of Understanding on Royal Taxation, updated 2013.  In December 2012, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs were asked to investigate alleged tax avoidance by the Duchy of Cornwall. 

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

Charles has held titles throughout his life, as the grandson of the monarch, the son of the monarch and in his own right. There has been speculation as to what regnal name the Prince will choose upon his succession to the throne. If he keeps his current first name, he will be known as Charles III. However, it was reported in 2005 that Charles has suggested he may choose to reign as George VII in honour of his maternal grandfather, and to avoid association with the Stuart kings Charles I (who was beheaded) and Charles II (who was known for his playboy lifestyle),  as well as to be sensitive to the memory of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was called "Charles III" by his supporters. Charles's office responded that "no decision has been made". 

Honours and military appointments

Charles has held substantive ranks in the armed forces of a number of countries since he was made a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force in 1972. Charles's first honorary appointment in the armed forces was as Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Regiment of Wales in 1969; since then, the Prince has also been installed as Colonel-in-Chief, Colonel, Honorary Air Commodore, Air Commodore-in-Chief, Deputy Colonel-in-Chief, Royal Honorary Colonel, Royal Colonel, and Honorary Commodore of at least 32 military formations throughout the Commonwealth, including the Royal Gurkha Rifles, which is the only foreign regiment in the British army.  Since 2009, Charles holds the second-highest ranks in all three branches of the Canadian Forces and, on 16 June 2012, the Queen awarded the Prince of Wales honorary five-star rank in all three branches of the British Armed Forces, "to acknowledge his support in her role as Commander-in-Chief", installing him as Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal and Marshal of the Royal Air Force.   

He has been inducted into seven orders and received eight decorations from the Commonwealth realms, and has been the recipient of 20 different honours from foreign states, as well as nine honorary degrees from universities in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Arms

Issue

Ancestry

Notes

Footnotes

Citations
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