If we hear little of Prince Charles as he approaches his 60th birthday this month, his advisers will have done their jobs well. Significant birthdates usually draw media coverage, and the future king has already come under criticism for holding two birthday parties—a private reception and a state function—in a time of economic recession. Then there is Charles’s reputation for controversy, his public outbursts, his tendency to make headlines with his tirades on a variety of issues. Labelled “the potty prince,” the “hapless heir,” he has a penchant for speaking his mind and voicing extreme views. Avoiding negative publicity usually means keeping him away from the public eye, says Richard Kay, a correspondent on royal issues for the Daily Mail.
In the past, this has not always been possible. Prince Charles believes he has a responsibility to lead, yet he is a man whose opinions have often diverged from public consensus. He has “a tendency to pursue ‘lunatic fringe’ interests in his off-duty hours, and to spurn the advice of those urging him down more orthodox channels,” says Anthony Holden in Charles: A Biography. Over the years, he has railed against things like modern Christianity, the Industrial Revolution, “child-centred education,” and modernity itself, says Kay. Former deputy private secretary Mark Bolland has said that Prince Charles sees it as his role to “influence opinion.” What this leads to is Charles giving advice to experts on subjects he knows nothing about, says Catherine Bennett, a columnist for the Observer newspaper.
When questioned about his public image, the prince himself seems a little bemused. In an interview with the Sunday Times in 1985, he said, “You know, as far as I can make out, I’m about to become a Buddhist monk, or live halfway up a mountain, or only eat grass.” He was joking, but the quote is revealing because many of these extreme interests actually dovetail with his own. The prince might joke about living as a Buddhist monk, yet he’s quite happy to retreat from time to time into a traditionalist order of Greek monks that forbids women. He might joke about eating only grass, yet he has been known to rail against modern agriculture.
