FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
LONDON – Determined, hyperactive, but also melancholy and prone to self-pity. Traditionalist but avant-garde. Kind, generous, but also petulant and touchy. A tragic figure with abundant charm: King Charlesit has been described in this and many other ways. To better understand him, you can take a look at some lesser-known features of his figure.
1. Filippo’s comment: «A plum cake»
The birth of Charles was greeted by 41 cannon salutes, while the fountains of Trafalgar Square lit up blue: but when his father Philip saw him, he commented with his usual delicacy that the child looked like a plum pie. The heir to the throne was raised by nannies: Elizabeth saw him only at 9 in the morning sharp, for a quick greeting, and sometimes in the evening for a good night.
2. The first king to graduate (but with a poor grade)
Charles is the first king to have gone to school, instead of being educated by private tutors, and the first to have graduated: he attended the prestigious Trinity College, Cambridge, where he first studied archeology and anthropology, then moved on to history. But he graduated with the second lowest grade possible. On the other hand, he was passionate about the theater, so much so that he played the part of Macbeth.
3. The first love that Camilla introduced him to
The first love was Lucia Santa Cruz, the beautiful daughter of the Chilean ambassador who was also studying at Cambridge: Lucia was given the keys to the college, so that she could spend the night with the prince. And it was she who introduced one of her friends to Carlo: Camilla.
4. The rejected marriage proposal
Lord Mountbatten, his uncle and mentor, tried to marry him off to his niece, Amanda Knatchbull: Charles complied and asked for her hand when she was 21, but Amanda rejected him without much ceremony, saying she didn’t want any intrusion into her private life. and unsolicited advertising.
5. The party for Camilla, the “dancing queen”
In 1997, after divorcing Diana, he threw a party for Camilla’s 50th birthday at her Highgrove estate and led her onto the dance floor to the tune of Dancing Queen of the Abbas.
6. Wake up at 7 and vertical in underwear
Carlo gets up before 7, does handstand in his underwear to relieve his spine, has breakfast with fruit and yoghurt, starts work on the official papers at 8, performs public duties from 10 to 5, skips lunch, takes tea in the afternoon with a sandwich and a piece of cake, then work until 8.30 when dinner is served, then continue to work from 10 to midnight.
7. The tantrums and the kicking of the furniture
His staff have described him as a very demanding boss, because he is very demanding of himself. He’s not interested in hearing criticism and gets annoyed when he’s questioned. He can be indecisive as well as stubborn: and he has fits of anger during which he is able to kick the furniture.
8. The exchange of pictures with Lucien Freud
Once he seriously proposed to Lucien Freud to exchange one of his watercolors for one of the paintings of the genius of contemporary painting.
9. The accompanying furniture and personal martini
When he goes to stay with friends — he means in stylish manners Downton Abbey — he is preceded by a truck carrying his furniture, his bed and his paintings, which are arranged by his butler. At dinner he has his personal royal martini served, which his escort officer delivers to the house steward.
10. The wine-and-cheese-fueled Aston Martin
An early environmentalist, Carlo had solar panels installed on all his residences and owns an Aston Martin powered by biofuel obtained from the waste of wine and cheese processing.