2022-11-16
A new biography of the monarch.
Andersen has written about the British royal family for 40 years. In his latest book, following Brothers and Wives: Inside the Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan, the author concentrates on the main protagonist in the family’s story after the death of Queen Elizabeth earlier this year. Having waited in the wings for decades to ascend to the throne, Charles promises to be an activist king at a time of enormous change in the U.K. He hopes to take the monarchy from an “enduring but politically toothless symbol of imperial grandeur and national unity” to one that is relevant, politically engaged, and even “dissident.” Among other issues, the author notes, Charles seeks to address “education, architecture, organic farming, wildlife preservation (from the Chatham albatross to the Patagonian toothfish), badger hunting, herbal medicines, [and] overseas funding to restore huts in the Antarctic used in the early twentieth century.” While much of his young life is well documented, often in the prince’s own words, Andersen shows the “strangulated psyches of the Windsors” and the relentless bullying Charles endured at his Scottish boarding school, Gordonstoun. Throughout his life, notes the author, Charles lived under the pall of his parents’ emotional diffidence. The pressure to marry Diana Spencer ended in disaster, and the whole affair led to the monarchy being seen as dispensable and reduced the then Prince of Wales to the most hated member of the family. His rehabilitation—and that of his consort Camilla, regarded by the queen mother in much the same light as Edward VIII’s divorced paramour, Wallis Simpson—has taken years of effort and the late queen’s grudging acceptance. Ultimately, the author concludes, much about Charles is essentially unfathomable, but Andersen provides a generous portrait.
A largely honest portrayal of a flawed leader at the dawn of his reign.
