The originally published version of this story incorrectly identified Prince Charles' advisers as "Buckingham Palace." The Prince actually works and resides in Clarence House.
There is a point in Alan Bennett's witty and perceptive play The Madness of George III where a previous incumbent of Prince Charles' position wails, "To be heir to the throne is not a position; it is a predicament."
It is well said.
But, to judge by the standards of many of his predecessors, Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor has not handled his predicament that badly. When George III's heir died, the London Times marked his passing by describing a figure so fat, frivolous, selfish, vain, spendthrift, lecherous and generally grotesque that the world would be better off without him. In more recent times, the future Edward VII spent much of his apprenticeship for the throne shooting pheasants, playing cards and seducing other men's wives.
What both men share with the present Prince of Wales is the misfortune to have had to spend most of their adult life in the role. The predicament is simply that the Prince of Wales is born to only one task — that of being Head of State — and yet cannot assume it until his father or mother dies.
Most of us find some purpose to our existence by following a career or producing a family. The first option is not available to the Prince of Wales, and the second is overshadowed by the knowledge that the same sense of purpose (or purposelessness) attends the life of the next heir apparent.
On top of all of this existential uncertainty come the dangers of privilege. All doors are open to the heir to the throne, and he need never want for any material possession. "All the world and all the glory of it, whatever is most attractive, whatever is most seductive, has always been offered to the Prince of Wales of the day, and always will be," wrote the great Victorian constitutionalist, Walter Bagehot. "It is not rational to expect the best virtue where temptation is applied in the most trying form at the frailest time of human life."
The education of Prince Charles was designed to protect him from many of these temptations. But sending him away to Gordonstoun, the hale, hearty and hairshirted secondary school in the Scottish Highlands, was a catastrophe. The philistinism and bullying seem merely to have given him a sense of victimhood.
As time passed, the hurt mellowed. But it left him with an Eeyorish view of the world. The prevailing tone of many of the speeches of his middle years was: "I don't expect anyone will listen to me. But am I the only person to see that industrial agriculture/ modern architecture/the current schools curriculum/etc., etc. is a recipe for disaster?" He was characterized as a crank, and some of his preoccupations, like homeopathy, were crankish. But many others reflected anxieties among his people about the way that modern life is lived. These concerns were generally not reflected in the speeches or plans of politicians. But too often, when expressed by Charles, they were shrugged off as the witterings of an eccentric.
And then there was Diana. The marriage publicly yoked together the latest representative of an ancient, pre-Enlightenment belief system with an avatar of the media age. Each represented a form of mumbo-jumbo, but, instead of complementing each other, each merely showed the other up: New Age vs. Ancient History, trivial vs. pompous, apparently demotic vs. ancestrally privileged. Every relationship has its specific tensions and each separation its own causes. The misfortune of this couple was to have their divorce played out so publicly. Having cheered them up the aisle on a chorus of syrupy sentiment, the public took it out on them when it turned out that real life is not a fairy tale.
The Royal Household was utterly baffled by the hysteria which swept the nation when Diana died and had not the faintest idea how to react. This was a real low point for the House of Windsor, and a great deal of public opinion blamed Charles for the failure of the marriage, which unwittingly triggered the events that led to her death.