Prince Charles and the Queen are very different from one another “in nature and manner”, according to royal author Clive Irving. Speaking about the future king, the author of ‘The Last Queen: Elizabeth II’s Seventy Year Battle to Save the House of Windsor’ told Express.co.uk: “It’s a very vivid difference.
“You’ve got the Queen, who has always succeeded in concealing what she really thinks about anything.
“And Charles, whom we know almost too much, I feel we know more than we need to know about Charles.
“He is completely different in nature and manner to his mother.”
Over the past 50 years, Prince Charles has been vocal on topics close to his heart, including the risks of plastic pollution and climate change.
In 1970, he delivered his first speech to the Countryside Steering Committee for Wales focused on these issues.
On the 50th anniversary of his first keynote speech, the Prince of Wales recalled he was considered at the time “completely mad”.
Prince Charles has also been perceived as less neutral than the Queen on political matters.
READ MORE: Diana repeatedly ‘voted for abolition of monarchy’ in front of William
In 1999, the Prince of Wales did not attend a state banquet thrown in celebration of the then President of China Jiang Zemin.
This act was later described as a “deliberate snub” by the prince’s former aide Mark Bolland, made because the heir to the throne did not approve of the Chinese Government’s position on Tibet.
In 2015, Prince Charles also missed the state banquet hosted by the Queen for the current Chinese President, Xi Jinping.
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However, in turn, he took part in the formal welcome to the politician and his wife, attended a private lunch with the presidential couple and the Queen and held a private meeting with Mr Xi at Clarence House.
Between 2004 and 2005, Prince Charles sent in his private capacity letters to ministers in seven Government departments in which he discussed topics close to his heart such as culture, agricultural issues and illegal fishing.
These notes, which were later dubbed black spider memos due to the Prince of Wales’s distinctive handwriting, were released in 2015.
At the time, they were described as “harmless” and “underwhelming”.
Prince Charles appeared to suggest he would no longer enter
territories deemed controversial once he becomes King.
In a BBC documentary celebrating his 70th birthday, Prince Charles said: “You know, I’ve tried to make sure whatever I’ve done has been non-party political, and I think it’s vital to remember there’s only room for one sovereign at a time, not two.
“So, you can’t be the same as the sovereign if you’re the Prince of Wales or the heir.
“But the idea somehow that I’m going to go on in exactly the same way, if I have to succeed, is complete nonsense because the two – the two situations – are completely different.”
Another key difference between the monarch and the Prince of Wales is also the focus that has been placed on their private lives.
Unlike the Queen’s, Prince Charles’s love life has been under the scrutiny of the public and the media due to his difficult marriage with Princess Diana and affair with Camilla, the now Duchess of Cornwall.
— to www.express.co.uk
