King Charles III: What you did not know about him

Childhood, relationship with mother

Before Prince Charles was born on November 14, 1948, his mother Queen Elizabeth II reportedly insisted that she wanted her first child “to be born in my own room, amongst the things I know.” She would add later, “I am going to be the child’s mother, not the nurses.”

Those plans flew out of the window, four years after Prince Charles was born, after her accession to the throne in 1952. She was only 25 years old. British biographer and historian Philip Ziegler says of the matter, “I think any idea of a family in the normal sense was knocked on the head by the queen’s accession at such an early age.”

From then on, it was a detached relationship between mother and child. The queen was swamped with royal duties and schedules. “Mummy [was] a remote and glamorous figure who came to kiss you goodnight, smelling of lavender and dressed for dinner,” Charles once recalled.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams once commented on the matter: “I think everything that we know points to the fact that it [the relationship] was distant.”

It is recorded that in 1953, the newly crowned Elizabeth and Prince Philip went on a six-month tour of the commonwealth, leaving Charles and his sister Princess Anne. The queen is said to have cried as she left the little children but upon her return, her aloofness to Prince Charles shocked everyone. One biographer writes:

[Charles] had not seen her for six months, so he raced on board the Britannia to welcome her home. He ran up to join the group of dignitaries waiting to shake her hand. When the Queen saw her young son squirming in line, she said, “No, not you, dear.” She did not hug him or kiss him; she simply patted his shoulder and passed along to the next person.

This relationship continued into Charles’ adulthood. According to one biography titled King Charles: The Man, the Monarch, and the Future of Britain, the queen and her husband mostly viewed Charles as a “loose cannon”, romantic and sensitive by nature, with very little in common with his straightforward, undemonstrative parents.

Climate Change activist

As King Charles III begins his reign, after waiting in line to the throne for seven decades, the longest wait in the history of the British monarchy by far, climate change activists across the world will be hoping that he continues to be as he big an advocate for saving the planet as he has been for the last half century. In 1970, aged 21, Prince Charles gave his first major speech on environmental protection in which he warned of the dangers of plastic pollution.

In 1992, he hosted a conference on the Royal Yacht Britannia, in the Amazon river delta, that paved way for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, where “conference of the parties”, popularly known as, the COPs was born.

In March 2002, Prince Charles was honoured with a four-metre high bronze statue, erected in the middle of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest depicting him as Saviour of the world’.

In the statue, Prince Charles is depicted as a winged superhuman hovering over a sea of humanity, looking downwards with his arms outstretched. When it was unveiled to him that same year, he said he was ‘amazed’ and ‘deeply touched’.

Fast forward to 2021, speaking in Rome a day before the COP26 took place in Glasgow, Scotland, Prince Charles told world leaders that “it was the last chance to save the world”. He later spoke at the same event saying the Covid-19 pandemic had “shown us just how devastating a global, cross border threat can be.”

He added, “Climate change and biodiversity loss are no different. In fact, they pose an even greater existential threat to the extent that we have to put ourselves on what might be called a war-like footing”.

By any measure, Charles has been one of the greatest environmentalists. Whatever shape his reign will take, climate change will most likely be at the centre of it.

Defender  of  all  faiths

At her coronation in 1953, as Queen Elizabeth II was anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, she pledged to rule not only according to British laws but also according to the “laws of God.” As a British monarch she had effectively become the “Supreme Governor of the Church of England” (Anglican Church) and “Defender of the Faith.”

This had been the case with all the past British monarchs.

However, there is deviation with King Charles III. Last week, Time, The Times of Israel and other global newspapers reported that King Charles’ royal coronation would feature roles for Jewish, Muslim, Hindu leaders.

He will not be referred to as “defender of the faith” but rather, “defender of all faiths”. The Coronation saw the new King recognise and embrace every faith, not just the Church of England. This is a step towards uniting all major religions.

It was reported in December last year by The Telegraph newspaper that embracing all religions was “not just a diplomatic issue; it’s personal, because the King is passionate about religion and spirituality”.

Ties to Islam

There have been unconfirmed rumours that Charles converted to Islam in the 1990s. A 1997 Middle East Quarterly article titled Prince Charles of Arabia, explored evidence that Britain’s crown prince might be a secret convert to Islam. The two writers of the article sifted through his public statements and found that he had defended Islamic law, praised the status of Muslim women, and viewed Islam as a solution to Britain’s problems. They also considered the fact that Prince Charles had set up a panel of 12 “wise men” to advise him on Islam and culture and concluded that, “should Charles persist in his admiration of Islam and defamation of his own culture,” his accession to the throne would indeed usher in a “different kind of monarchy.”

Ties to Judaism

When he was a child, Prince Charles was circumcised by a Jewish Rabbi named Dr Jacob Snowman in December 1948 as per Jewish custom. According to Jewish law, circumcision is the physical representation of the covenant between God and Abraham described in Genesis and is required for the inclusion of males into Judaism. Rabbis circumcised several of his male ancestors.

Fast forward to last year, soon after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, photos of the new king wearing his royal kippah, (Jewish religious hat) went viral with people marvelling at the deep relationship between Israel and the British monarchy.

Yesterday, King Charles III was anointed with holy oil that was specially created and consecrated in Jerusalem, according to a report by Buckingham Palace. The same report says the oil was a mixture of olive oil, fragrant rose and orange blossom. It is the same oil that was used to anoint Queen Elizabeth II on her coronation in 1953.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the Anglican church, said the coronation oil reflects Charles III’s “personal family connection with the Holy Land”, the palace statement added.

He added that the oil signified the “deep historic link between the coronation, the Bible and the Holy Land”.

“From ancient kings through to the present day, monarchs have been anointed with oil from this sacred place,” he said.

Which begs the question: Is the British monarchy an extension of the Davidic lineage?

The coronation chair and the Stone of Jacob

The coronation chair of the British monarchy has spiritual and Biblical meaning. In 1296, during the First Scottish War of Independence, King Edward I of England is said to have captured a stone that is believed to have been Jacob’s pillow stone from the Gensis 28:11 story in the Bible. It is commonly as Stone of Ccone. The Coronation chair is sometimes called the throne of David.

Legend recorded in a book titled England, the Remnant of Judah, and the Israel of Ephraim by F.R.A. Glover has it is the Stone of Jacob, taken by Jacob from Bethel while on the way to Haran (Genesis 28:10–22) and that it was supposedly taken to ancient Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah.

King Edward took the Stone of Scone as one of his spoils of war and transferred it to Westminster Abbey, where it was later fitted into a wooden chair – known as the Coronation Chair. Most subsequent English and then British sovereigns have been crowned on it, including Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III.

On April 21, Global News reported that Pope Francis had gifted King Charles III two shards of wood from the “True Cross”, a religious relic the Vatican claims is a fragment from the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. The holy gift was presented to King Charles and was part of the coronation paraphernalia.

There is little doubt that King Charles III’s reign will be significant to the world in profound ways. It is likely that significance could be more spiritual than anything else. 

Quick notes

Official painter of the king’s portrait

Alastair Barford painted the first commissioned portrait of His Majesty King Charles III.  Barford describes himself on his Instagram page as a traditional portrait artist based in Salisbury at Sarum Studio. Painted in oils it is the first portrait since the change of reign. The portrait was not Barford’s first royal portrait, in 2015 he was commissioned to paint Her Majesty the Queen to mark her becoming the longest reigning British Monarch. This time round, the 35-year-old only had two weeks to complete the project rather than the three months he had previously. 

King Charles  III private secretary and team

Sir Clive Alderton KCVO is the private secretary to the king. Born May 9, 1967, Clive is a British diplomat and courtier who has served as private secretary to King Charles III and Queen Camilla since September 8, 2022. He previously served them in their capacity as Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall. He is paid up to £80,000-a-year.

Sir Clive in 2006, landed the role of deputy private secretary to then Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, and promoted to private secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to their Royal Highnesses three years later, becoming ambassador to Mauritania and Morocco. Since 2015, when he became Charles’ principal private secretary.

 He holds the role alongside Sir Edward Young, who also served as the Queen’s private secretary.

Sir Edward was kept in post after the Queen’s death and is known as a ‘hatchet man’ for his ability to deliver bad news, particularly relating to job cuts. This skill came in handy when dozens of Clarence House staff were notified of redundancies during a service held for the Queen in Edinburgh. Sir Edward joined the Royal Household in 2004, as the Queen’s assistant, then deputy private secretary before being promoted to his current post in 2017. 

Alongside Sir Clive and Sir Edward works Dr John Sorabji, who is the King’s deputy private secretary. Before he joined the royal household, he worked at University College London and also as a barrister.

On diet

King Charles III is such an advocate of pesticide-free food. He launched his own organic range (Duchy Originals) more than 25 years ago. He is kown to take cool bags of home-cooked dishes on tour with him. “He liked to have his own food with him,” his former chef Carolyn Robb told the Daily Mail. “He couldn’t risk going down with a bad stomach when he was so busy.”

His mother Queen Elizabeth II before her death, Darren McGrady, her former chef of 15 years, told MarieClaire.com: “The Queen loves to eat any food from the estate – so game birds, pheasants, grouse, partridge – she loves those to be on the menu.” She also loved dark chocolate.

Royal  PERKS

Personal toothbrush squeezer

At a point in time, Prince Charles had a personal valet help him with his nighttime routine. Michael Fawcett, one of his valets, would squeeze toothpaste onto his toothbrush every night.

Ironed shoelaces

King Charles III has three personal valets, all dedicated to maintaining his wardrobe and picking out what he will wear. Another thing they are responsible for? They have to iron the shoelaces on every pair of shoes the prince owns.

No washing machines

Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla’s clothes are not allowed to be cleaned in washing machines—everything is hand washed.-Compiled by Promise Twinamukye