The Heir Apparent (The Waiting Throne)

Prince Charles at 65: The pension-heir still waiting to be king

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But as a child he was hypersensitive, lonely, excessively shy and, according to his Scottish governess Miss Peebles, given to quiet pursuits — reading and painting. Many years later he would tell his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby that his days at Gordonstoun, his senior school in the Scottish Highlands, were ''a prison sentence'' but instilled self-discipline and a sense of responsibility.

It was his father who chose the Navy as a career for Charles, in the centuries old tradition of the Sailor Kings of England. At the age of 28, the prince returned to civilian life and began assuming an increasingly heavy burden of royal duties. Within a few years, there was speculation about who Charles, the world's most eligible bachelor, would marry. In the early s, Charles met Camilla Shand on a Windsor polo field, and is said to have "lost his heart" to her almost at once. They embarked on an affair. But when the prince joined the Navy the couple spent long periods apart and the royal missed his chance and was heartbroken when Camilla married cavalry officer Andrew Parker Bowles.

Girlfriends came and went until eventually on February 24 , Buckingham Palace ended months of speculation when it announced that Charles was engaged to year-old Lady Diana Spencer. He wed his shy bride later that year on July 29 at St Paul's Cathedral and the couple had two sons - William, born June 21 , and Harry two years later on September Charles was having an affair with his former mistress Camilla and Diana had turned to cavalry officer James Hewitt.

In , the prince admitted adultery on national television as he spoke to his biographer, while Diana subsequently went on Panorama to give a television interview in which she said there were three people in her marriage - a strong hint towards Camilla. Charles and Diana divorced in August but a year later the princess died tragically in a car crash with her lover Dodi Fayed in a Paris underpass. Over the coming years, Camilla's eventual emergence as Charles's long-term partner was part of a carefully planned PR campaign masterminded by the heir to the throne's spindoctor Mark Bolland.

Their first public appearance together was outside the Ritz hotel in London in , dubbed Operation Ritz, where the mass of waiting photographers had been tipped off. The culmination of the romance was a marriage between the long-time lovers who wed in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall on April 9 Queen Elizabeth II will surpass it if she is still on throne on 23 May William was the son of Princess Anne , later Queen of Great Britain from , and her husband, Prince George of Denmark , and was their only child to survive infancy.

He was viewed as a Protestant champion because his birth seemed to cement the Protestant succession established in the Glorious Revolution that had deposed his Catholic grandfather James II. He also had an enlarged head, possibly as a result of hydrocephalus, which his surgeons pierced intermittently to draw off fluid. He could not walk properly, and was prone to stumbling.

Graphic: Prince Charles, the longest-serving heir to the throne

Around the age of five, he refused to climb stairs without two attendants to hold him; his father birched him until he agreed to walk by himself. At his eleventh birthday party at Windsor, on 24 July , he was said to have overheated himself while dancing. By nightfall was suffering from a sore throat and chills, then developed a high fever. He was bled and blistered, but, unsurprisingly, the treatment had no effect. William died on 30 July , with his parents beside him. An autopsy showed he had an abnormal amount of fluid in the ventricles of his brain.

Anne was prostrate with grief, and took to her chamber. William was entombed in Westminster Abbey but, as was the custom for royalty in mourning, his parents did not attend the funeral service. Although Anne had ten other pregnancies after his birth, all her subsequent children died, either in the womb or immediately after birth.

To secure a Protestant succession, the English parliament passed the Act of Settlement , which settled the throne on Sophia, Electress of Hanover , and her heirs. Anne succeeded William III in , and reigned until her death in Frederick, aged 7, was left in the care of his grand-uncle in Germany and did not see his parents again for 14 years.

By the time Frederick arrived in England in , the year after his father had become King George II, he was a grown man and very fond of drinking, gambling and women. The long separation had damaged his relationship with his parents, and they were effectively estranged. After Frederick was invested as Prince of Wales in , he made a point of opposing them in everything. Frederick curbed his womanising ways when he married the 17 year-old Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha in , but he remained a spendthrift and accumulated large debts.

In January , when the king withdrew to his bed suffering with piles and a fever, Frederick put it about that his father was dying, forcing George to get up and attending a social event to disprove the gossip. In June , Frederick informed his parents that Augusta was pregnant and due to give birth in October. This left George and Caroline horrified, as royal births were witnessed by members of the family to guard against supposititious children. Frederick eventually settled down and became a devoted family man, taking his wife and 8 children to live in the Berkshire countryside at Cliveden House, where he fished, shot and rowed.

He unexpectedly died at Cliveden at the age of 44 in from a burst abscess in the lung. However, he now took an interest in George and made him Prince of Wales. Charlotte was a very spirited child and, as she entered her teenage years, many of the stuffier courtiers considered her behaviour undignified she identified with the character of Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. Nevertheless, her grandfather King George III was very fond of her and believed that, as his only legitimate grandchild, Charlotte would one day reign as queen. He pressured her to marry William, Hereditary Prince of Orange later King of the Netherlands , but after initially accepting him, Charlotte soon broke off the match.

This led to a battle of wills between her and her father, particularly when she took a shine to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld later King of the Belgians. George eventually permitted her to marry Prince Leopold in May It was a happy marriage and she quickly fell pregnant, but suffered an early miscarriage.

At the end of April , Leopold informed the Prince Regent that Charlotte was again pregnant, and that there was every prospect of the Princess carrying the baby to term. That evening, Charlotte finally gave birth to a large stillborn boy. Efforts to resuscitate him were in vain. An exhausted Charlotte took the news calmly, stating it was the will of God. However, after midnight on 6 November, she began vomiting violently, breathing with difficulty, and bleeding.

Soon, she was dead. Even gambling dens shut down on the day of her funeral, as a mark of respect. Manuel, Prince of Portugal. Philip, Prince of Portugal. John, Crown Prince of Portugal. Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich of Russia.

Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich of Russia. Alexander II of Kakheti. Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias.

Diego, Prince of Asturias. Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. James I of England. Christian, Prince-Elect of Denmark. Christian IV of Denmark. Charles Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers. Charles Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat. Henry Frederick, Hereditary Prince of the Palatinate. Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

Ercole, Marquis of Baux. William, Margrave of Baden-Baden. Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias. Ferdinand IV, King of the Romans.

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Tsarevich Dmitry Alexeyevich of Russia. Prince Luarsab of Kartli. Tsarevich Alexei Alexeyevich of Russia. William Christoph, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg. Prince Mamuka of Imereti. Charles, Electoral Prince of Brandenburg. Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. Philip Prospero, Prince of Asturias. Louis, le grand Dauphin. Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany. Odoardo Farnese, Hereditary Prince of Parma. Archduke Leopold Joseph of Austria.

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Louis, Dauphin and Duke of Burgundy. Joseph Ferdinand, Electoral Prince of Bavaria. Count Palatine Joseph Charles of Sulzbach. Theodore Eustace, Count Palatine of Sulzbach. Crown Prince Friedrich Ludwig. Victor Amadeus, Prince of Piedmont. Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia. Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Baden-Durlach. Louis, Hereditary Prince of Lorraine. Leopold, Duke of Lorraine. Joseph, Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Rotenburg. Ernest Leopold, Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg.

Ludwig Gruno of Hesse-Homburg. Louis, Dauphin and Duke of Brittany. Frederick, Prince of Wales. George II of Great Britain. Pedro, Prince of Brazil. Louis, Dauphin of France. Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden. Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden. Charles August, Crown Prince of Sweden. Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Anhalt-Dessau.

Carlo, Duke of Calabria. Ferdinand IV of Naples. Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France.

Louis Philippe, Crown Prince of Belgium. Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsarevich of Russia. Alexander II of Russia. William, Prince of Orange. William III of the Netherlands. Afonso, Prince Imperial of Brazil. Trailokya, Crown Prince of Nepal.

Prince Charles becomes longest-serving heir apparent

Pedro Afonso, Prince Imperial of Brazil. Alexander, Prince of Orange. Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Anhalt. Frederick I, Duke of Anhalt. Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. Franz Joseph I of Austria. Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant. Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Carlos I of Portugal and the Algarves. Jointly assassinated with his father. Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani. Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani. Turki I bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Sultan, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Nayef, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Al-Abbas ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun. William I, Count of Boulogne. Henry VII of Germany. Otto, Duke of Lolland and Estonia. Magnus VII of Norway. Carlos, Prince of Asturias. Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia.

Crown Prince Sado of Joseon Korea. Yeongjo of Joseon Korea. Philip, Duke of Calabria. Pedro, Prince Imperial of Brazil.

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