Charles IIInote (born Charles Philip Arthur George, 14 November 1948 at Buckingham Palace, London) is the current King of the United Kingdom, as well as 14 other countriesnote . Known for most of his life as "Prince Charles", he acceded to the throne on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8, 2022. His father was Elizabeth's consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who died the previous year at age 99. His coronation happened on May 6, 2023, a little under one month shy of the 70th anniversary of his mother's own.
In the event you meet him, it's "Your Majesty" first and then "Sir" (not sire). His official title is HM The King and style guides vary in the British media on use of the title case. For the BBC, he is the King in all cases, unlike other monarchs, who will be referred to as "the king".
Prior to his accession, Charles was the longest-serving Prince of Wales, holding the title from 1958 to 2022 (surpassing Edward VII's long tenure by 5 years) and the Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay from 1952 to 2022 (the latter two titles are automatically given to the heir to the throne, while the title Prince of Wales is given at the sovereign's discretion, usually when the heir to the throne comes of age).note
He's best known for his love life and the two major women in it. His first love was Camilla Shand (later Parker Bowles), who had dated several men and essentially cohabited with the man she later married, Andrew Parker Bowles. He instead later married the far younger, sheltered, and virginal Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 in what was, for all intents and purposes, a Fourth-Date Marriage (they'd had thirteen) and certainly became a celebrity marriage, to the point that in some circles, he's more famous as Diana's former husband than as the King. He and Diana had two sons, William and Harry, but he constantly pined after Camilla (and Diana was no stranger to affairs herself); that, along with their age differencenote and fundamental incompatibility and inability to support each other led to their divorce in 1996, after years of open warfare in the tabloids and other media. He took a very public hit for that, as the public adored Diana, and although they finally seemed to be heading towards Amicable Exes, that emotion exploded when Diana was killed in a car accident in 1997. But since then, he has gradually worked himself into the public's good graces, especially after his rather touching speech at the close of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert. He finally married Camilla in 2005, and their relationship has also undergone a positive change in the public's eye (which some attribute to the "Will and Kate effect").
Other than that, he's also known as an environmentalist, and perhaps a bit nutty and New-Agey. He apparently talks to plants, which the media likes to remind everyone. But this does also give him a reputation for being environmentally progressive and remarkably prescient, in particular becoming a pioneer for organic farming (his estates even have a deal with Waitrose to supply organic products) and sustainable living at least a decade before it even entered mainstream consciousness. His Highgrove estate has an extensive and state-of-the-art plant-based water recycling system. The village of Poundbury, designed from the ground up to Charles's specifications, is a prototype of city planning meant to showcase means of reducing automobile usage in urban areas by designing road and building layouts around viable foot traffic while maintaining traditional architecture.
For all that he is seen as/really is a New Agey environmentalist and old-school aristocrat, his tenure as Prince of Wales showed him to be made of the stuff of an entrepreneur-philanthropist. On the entrepreneur front, his aforementioned deal with Waitrose is just the most obvious of his canny leveraging of the Duchy of Cornwall to his profit. Poundbury also produces good rents for the Duchy, and Charles is noted to have been a good husbandman of the Duchy's other large realty holdings. As to philanthropy, he established The Prince's Trust in 1976 to support programmes for disadvantaged and at-risk youths across the UK. In this endeavour, the Trust — funded heavily from the Duchy of Cornwall and the then-Prince's other private revenues — is seen as remarkably successful and well-regarded even in otherwise anti-royalist circles.
The prospect of his actually assuming the throne was viewed with some ambivalence. For one thing, he's shown a certain taste for political meddling — nothing major, but enough to qualify as overstepping, mostly along the lines of writing letters to government ministers
expressing his opinions on various matters at a time when monarchs with strong political views tend to be viewed with suspicion (though almost twenty years later, opinions which, for the most part, express strong environmental concern are perhaps more welcome and pertinent). For another, he's just not as beloved as his mother was (who benefited from several decades to become a national symbol in her own right) and his sons (who inherited Diana's charm and benefit from her halo of sainthood). Because of this, there was a relatively mild, completely illegal, but persistent, question of whether to skip him and go straight to William when the Queen died. There have even been plays written about it, and when The Vicar of Dibley finished up, Richard Curtis didn't want to strike the sets, saying (rather presumptuously) that "Britain might need some cheering up when Charles becomes King."note This apparently significantly irritated Charles as, by all accounts, he really wanted to be King. Frankly, you can't really blame him for having angsted over it; he was over 70 years old at the time, an age when most people have already retired, but was still an apprentice waiting to take on his real job — which, in many respects, he was born to do, and which he could only have when his mother died; wanting a job that can only be taken upon the death of a parent after so long waiting for it and knowing that that's what it will take to finally have it must be a stressor almost unique in the modern world. He was the oldest ever heir apparent in British history and the oldest person ever to accede the throne.note
He's known to have quite the sense of humour and to be fond of British comedy. When attending galas like the Royal Variety Performance and We Are Most Amused, he's among those laughing the hardest, even at jokes at his own expense. He's the world's highest-ranking fan of Monty Python (and their forerunner The Goon Show). The former is appropriate as his coronation not only featured the Sovereign's Orb (which was immediately compared to the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch on social media), but also featured a 'strange woman' (Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commonsnote Penny Mordaunt) with a sword.
He has rather large ears.
He became Prince Regent in all but name in the last two years of his mother's reign, taking over important ceremonial duties such as the Opening of Parliament and Trooping the Colour, as his mother became more frail.
It was long conjectured that when he did become King, he might not have used Charles as his regnal name.note There was a perceived stigma attached to the name, as Charles I was beheaded (an event which marked the end of the English Civil War) and Charles II is best remembered for having fathered illegitimate children by several mistresses. Also, "Charles III" was the regnal name of the Jacobite pretender to the throne also known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie". The rumour was that he would take the name George VII, in honour of his grandfather. Others hoped that he would use one of his other names as his regnal name and become King Arthur. In the end, he went with Charles III, probably because after his mother's 70 years on the throne, it was the only name people knew him by.
Owing to intermarriage among the royal families of Europe, he is related to all other reigning hereditary monarchs in Europe. He is second-cousin once-removed to both King Harald V of Norway and King Felipe VI of Spain; third-cousin once-removed to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, King Philippe of Belgium, Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, and King Frederik X of Denmark, fifth-cousin to both King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein; and the fifth-cousin once-removed to Prince Albert II of Monaco.
At the end of his first address as King, he addressed his "dear mama" by quoting Shakespeare:
See also: The British Royal Family (for the current members), The House of Windsor (for the more historical members). Not to be confused with several other monarchs (and pretenders) who went by Charles III, including (as noted above) Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Appearances of Charles in fiction (both as Prince of Wales and as King):
- Referenced in a cameo in Slipping Between Worlds in which a young British Army officer reflects on how, with minimal training in a very unfamiliar weapon, he almost fumbled ceremonial sword drill in front of Royalty. The Noodle Incident, even a year further on, can still have that young officer in a cold sweat as to how his attempt to salute a Prince with his sword could have resulted in, at the very least, a pierced Royal nostril. It is inferred that Charles was gracious about it and deliberately failed to notice.
Historical Films / Biopics:
- He doesn't appear in 2013's Diana (with Naomi Watts) since it focuses on Diana's post-divorce days, but he is mentioned.
- In the 2002 TV film Prince William, he's played by Martin Turner.
- Alex Jennings plays him in The Queen, which focuses on how his mother dealt with the aftermath of Diana's death and her exchanges with the then-new Prime Minister Tony Blair.
- Spencer depicts the bitter end of his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, with him being played by Jack Farthing.
- The 2005 TV film Whatever Love Means depicts the early years of his relationship with Camilla in the 1970s, with Charles being played by Laurence Fox.
Other Films:
- In 1994's La Cité de la peur, bodyguard Serge Karamazov claims that he's had sex with everyone he's guarded, including Prince Charles.
- In GoldenEye, Moneypenny has a bust of Prince Charles in her office.
- In Yankee Zulu, he appears in all of one scene, having a spicy illicit phone call that is being listened in on by paparazzi, but because he and the woman are speaking isiZulu using dictionaries, the eavesdroppers can't get any dirt on him.
- The Windsors provide a rallying point for a chaotic UK after the Change renders modern technology and guns inoperable, in S. M. Stirling's Emberverse. Elizabeth II is described as dying of "heartbreak and overwork" a year after the Change, and is succeeded by Charles, who is eventually driven mad from the stress. His successor, William, is referred to as "the Great".
- In the second House of Cards (UK) novel and TV series, To Play The King, the unnamed King is a clear No Celebrities Were Harmed take on Charles, with expies for Diana and William also present, played by Michael Kitchen in the latter.
- Charles wrote the 1980 childrens' book The Old Man of Lochnagar, which also features him as the Narrator, telling the story of the titular Old Man, who lives in a cave near the royals' estate at Balmoral.
- Although he's only named by title, it's clearly he, along with his then-wife Diana and the then-infant Prince William who Jack Ryan saves from an IRA attack in the novel Patriot Games.
- On His Majesty's Secret Service (2023) by Charlie Higson is the first official James Bond novel set in his reign.
- Blackadder: The Cavalier Years features Stephen Fry as King Charles I, but his voice and mannerisms were a clear impression of the current Charles.
- Charles briefly appeared As Himself in a 2000 Live Episode of Coronation Street, appearing meeting Audrey Roberts on a TV screen. The footage had been filmed earlier in the day when Charles visited the set of the show, and was presented with Audrey's actress Sue Nicholls.
- The Netflix series The Crown (2016), which dramatises the reign of his mother, shows his childhood sparsely in Series 1 and 2, and focuses on his relationship with Diana in Series 3, 4 and 5. In Series 3 and 4 he's played by Josh O'Connor, and for Series 5 and 6, Dominic West was cast. As Series 5 was released shortly after Charles ascended the throne, this led to a lot of jokes about how did Jimmy McNulty get to be the King. (It doesn't help that Dominic West doesn't seem to have aged a day since 2004.)
- Spitting Image often portrayed then-Prince Charles as a simplistic, naïve guy who fought for charity, but was too odd and out of touch with the modern world to be admired. Often jokes were about his love for plants, not spending much time with Princess Diana and waiting in frustration to become king.
- Referenced in The Vow (2020) when Catherine Oxenberg, desperate to rescue her daughter India from the cult NXIVM, calls up her mother Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia and asks her to call up "Charles" to ask him to intercede with the Dalai Lama on her behalf, explaining offhandedly that her mother is his second cousin. The King and Princess Elizabeth actually have a very good relationship.
- The satirical soap The Windsors features a very fictionalized version of him and the British Royal Family in general. He's portrayed by Harry Enfield.
- The Smiths: The Title Track of The Queen Is Dead riffs on the then-prince's image as desperate to become king with the lines "I say, 'Charles, don't you ever crave to appear on the front of the Daily Mail, dressed in your mother's bridal veil?'"
- Charles and Diana make frequent appearances as characters in Bloom County, where Charles stuffily sticks to tradition, and quietly lusts for royal power. This is in contrast to the carefree and young Diana, who would rather jet off to California, wear old Levi's, and eat cold wienies in a Winnebago.
- In the first edition of Twilight: 2000, Charles becomes King following his mother's abdication in 1994. He survives the nuclear exchange (although some of his family do not) and is placed as head of state of a military government that controls a good chunk of Southern England. That governmment returns to civilian rule (albeit still with martial law) by 2000, but he retains a role trying to keep things going.
- He's a main character in Diana, a musical about the life of his first wife.
- King Charles III is a speculative fiction play centered around the death of his mother and his ascension to the throne, eight years before that actually happened in real life. Notable for being written entirely in iambic pentameter blank verse in a very obvious homage to William Shakespeare's history plays.
- Head over Heels contains numerous surreal friends and enemies, most famously a Dalek with Prince Charles for a head.
- In an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch, then-Prince Charles defeats American funk legend Prince by smashing his head in with a mallet. His mother is highlighted after the win, causing Prince Charles to go berserk and attack her, saying it's his turn to be King. He is no match for her, but she treats that incident more like a mother scolding her child, and Prince Charles is merely embarrassed.
- With Prince being in his Love Symbol #2 period at the time, the bout is described as "The artist formerly known as Prince versus the Prince formerly known as Charles".
- The Critic: In one episode he briefly appears and cries about not being the king. In another episode, he tries to poison Queen Elizabeth, but she hits him on the head with a scepter.
- Appears in The Prince, voiced by Dan Stevens.
- He briefly appears at the end of The Simpsons episode "To Surveil with Love", voiced by Eddie Izzard.
