To build your own Itinerary, click to add an item to your Itinerary basket.
Already saved an Itinerary?
You are here: UK History > Royal History > House of Windsor > Charles III | the oldest king
Charles III is the oldest person to have assumed the British throne, being crowned at 73, a record previously held by William IV. Following the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, Britain’s only monarch to have reached their Platinum Jubilee.
Quick Facts:
Born: 14th November 1948, Buckingham Palace, London
Died:
Reign: 8th September - Present
Parents: Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Predecessor: Elizabeth II
Successor: (heir presumptive) Prince William, Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge
Spouse: Lady Diana Spencer and then Camilla Parker Bowles
Children: Prince William, Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge; Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
Royal House: Windsor
Born Charles Philip Arthur...Read More
Charles III is the oldest person to have assumed the British throne, being crowned at 73, a record previously held by William IV. Following the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, Britain’s only monarch to have reached their Platinum Jubilee.
Quick Facts:
Born: 14th November 1948, Buckingham Palace, London
Died:
Reign: 8th September - Present
Parents: Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Predecessor: Elizabeth II
Successor: (heir presumptive) Prince William, Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge
Spouse: Lady Diana Spencer and then Camilla Parker Bowles
Children: Prince William, Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge; Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
Royal House: Windsor
Born Charles Philip Arthur George, Charles III ascended the throne on 8th September 2022 on the death of his mother, Elizabeth II. As Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothersay from 1952 to his accession, he was the oldest and longest-serving heir apparent in British history and the longest serving Prince of Wales, having held the title from 1958. At 73, he is the oldest person to have ever ascended the British throne, a record that was previously held by William IV, who was 64 when he was crowned.
Charles was born the oldest child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on 14th November 1948, during the reign of his grandfather, George VI, at Buckingham Palace. He was baptised there a month later by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The death of his grandfather in 1952 and the coronation of his mother a year later made him heir apparent and as the new monarch’s oldest son, he automatically assumed the titles of the Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothersay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. He attended his mother’s coronation, which took place at Westminster Abbey in June 1953, when he was five years old.
Initially, Charles was educated at home by a governess until the age of 8. In 1955, the Palace announced that rather than having a private tutor, Charles would attend school, making him the first heir apparent to have been educated in this way. He first attended Hill House School in London, where it is said he received the same treatment as his peers. Later he attended two of his father’s former schools, Cheam Preparatory School and then Gordonstoun, where he went on to become Head Boy. In the 1970s, he spent some time at a Grammar School in Australia, before returning to the UK. In another first for the royal family, rather than joining the British Armed Forces immediately on finishing his education, Charles went straight to university and became the first heir apparent to earn a university degree. He attended Trinity College Cambridge and University College of Wales, studying archaeology, anthropology and history at Cambridge and then Welsh history and language.
Charles received the title of Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on the same day, 26th July 1958. He was later crowned by his mother at a televised ceremony at Caernarfon Castle, making the title official in 1969. A year later, he took his seat in the House of Lords and made his maiden speech there in 1974, the first royal to speak from the floor since 1884. It was around this time that he began to take a more public role, founding his charity, the Prince’s Trust. Throughout his tenure as Prince of Wales, he has been involved in many charitable organisations and has represented Britain in support of Commonwealth countries. Since founding the Prince’s Trust, Charles has established 16 more charitable organisations and now serves as president of all of them. He is also patron of over 400 other charities and organisations, including some in Canada and Australia. He is known to be a keen environmentalist and has utilised solar panels on his estates and uses electric vehicles. In recent years, he has publicly stated that he wants to reduce his carbon footprint using biomass boilers to heat his personal home and installing hydroelectric turbines at his estate at Birkhall.
He began his military career by serving in the Royal Airforce and the Royal Navy. He started his military training during his second year at Cambridge, where he learned to fly and would later serve on the HMS Norfolk, HMS Minerva and HMS Jupiter. He gave up flying after a crash landing in 1994.
It has been said that Charles has been one of the hardest working members of the royal family carrying out over 600 official engagements in 2011. As the Prince of Wales, he undertook many official duties on behalf of his mother and made regular tours of Wales, as well as visits abroad. He became the first member of the Royal family to visit the Republic of Ireland in an official capacity and represented the Queen in 1997 at the Hong Kong handover ceremony.
As a young man, Charles’ love life was subject to much gossip. In 1974, his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten began to seek potential marriages for him, including his, Lord Mountbatten's, granddaughter but this was rejected by both families.
He would go on to marry twice, firstly to Lady Diana Spencer and then to a previous girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles.
Charles first met Lady Diana Spencer in 1977 on a visit to her family home in Althrop, he had previously been linked to her elder sister. The pair did begin a courtship in the late 1970s and pressure from press and the family lead Charles to propose in 1981. The pair were married at St Paul’s Cathedral in July of that year and would later live at Kensington Palace and Highgrove House, they had two children, Prince William, who was born in 1982 and Prince Henry, known as Harry, two years later. However, cracks began to appear within the marriage and by November of 1986, Charles was publicly involved with Camilla Parker Bowles and Diana was known to be in a relationship with the royal family’s riding instructor, Major James Hewitt. Diana exposed Charles’ affair in a book written by Andrew Morton.
The pair legally separated in 1992, with the prime minister John Major announcing the decision in parliament. Queen Elizabeth II advised that the marriage be terminated, and they finalised their divorce in 1996. Just over a year later, in August 1997, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris.
Charles and Camilla remained together and announced their engagement in 2005. Queen Elizabeth consented to the marriage on the grounds that it would not result in any offspring and therefore would have no impact on the succession to the throne. Charles became the only member of the royal family to have a civil rather than church wedding and the pair tied the knot at Windsor Guildhall. The Queen and Prince Philip did not attend the ceremony but did hold a reception at Windsor Castle.
Until he began to take on more royal duties, Charles was a competitive polo player, only stopping in 2005. Over the years he was known to receive injuries sustained while falling during play and underwent two operations to fix fractures in his right arm. He was also a fan of fox hunting until it was banned in the UK. It is said that he is a supporter of Burnley Football Club.
Outside of sport, he is the president or patron of over 20 performing arts organisation and in 2000, revived the tradition of appointing an Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales. Charles is known to be a keen watercolourist and has written several books.
Charles ascended the British throne on 8th September 2022 following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II. His coronation was smaller in scale than that of his mother.
In the lead up to his ascension, there was some debate over what name he would choose when crowned. It had been speculated that he might choose to reign as George VII in honour of his grandfather and to avoid association with previous King Charles and the Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was known as Charles III by his supporters. Following the queen’s death however, Prime Minister Liz Truss referred to him as King Charles III, the first official usage of the name. Clarence House later confirmed that he would use the regnal name Charles III.
Read Less© Visit Heritage 2024. All Rights Reserved
We are now retrieving your search results. Please wait, this may take up to 30 seconds
Supporting the Destination
Quality Guarantee
We are now retrieving real time availability results. Please wait, this may take up to 30 seconds.