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Prince Charles? His style, understandably, is less simply defined. He had had to grow up with the awesome knowledge that eventually he must don the crown. Almost from the moment of his birth, on Nov. 14, 1948, Charles has been trained for the succession. From the outset, Elizabeth and Philip were determined to give the heir as wide and worldly an education as possible within the limits of royal propriety. Beginning at eight, he was sent to school beyond the Buckingham Palace walls. His first stop was chic Hill House in Knightsbridge, where he had trouble with arithmetic. A year later, he moved on to Cheam, an old and exclusive school in Berkshire that his father had attended.
He spent four years at Cheam, an establishment that tries to produce happy boys rather than brilliant students. Charles' parents did their best to see that he was inconspicuous there. They made sure he had a smaller sailboat than anyone else. One story, angrily denied by the palace, had it that Charles found his $2.80-a-term allowance so inadequate that he sold his autograph to augment it. There were dietary problems. Once, after a stomach upset, he told a teacher that he was "not used to all this rich food at home."
He began to enjoy soccer: in his final year, he captained Cheam's team and led it to a record of sorts—four goals for Cheam, 82 for the opponents. The school paper summed up that unhappy season by noting: "At half, Prince Charles seldom drove himself as hard as his ability and position demanded." There were critics of his rugby style as well. In one pileup, a voice from the heap underneath Charles was heard imploring: "Oh, get off me, Fatty!" Academically, he was an average student, and in 1962 it was time to follow Prince Philip's path once again, this time to a spartan Scottish public school.
Schooling a Prince
Gordonstoun is anything but luxurious. Dormitories are stark and functional. The daily regimen, while it pays due deference to academic achievement, ordains two cold showers a day, student-labor details (Charles, more often than not at first, drew the garbage detail), and plenty of toughening outdoor sports. The Prince was not cosseted. One of his teachers made a point of referring to him as "Charlie-boy," and on the rugby field he was hit hard, often deliberately. He made few close friends. Most boys, afraid of being scorned by their fellows for "sucking up" to Charles, treated him distantly.
Adding to his unpleasant experiences was the "cherry brandy" incident, Charles' first brush with notoriety. During a cruise from Gordonstoun aboard the school yacht, the boys went ashore at Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. Charles and a few others stopped at a hotel for a meal, and the 14-year-old Prince, annoyed by tourists who stared at him through the windows, fled to the bar. He had never been in one before, he recalled later, and "the first thing I thought of doing was having a drink. It seemed the most sensible thing." He ordered a cherry brandy, thereby breaking the age laws—and as he put down a half-crown in payment, he glanced up to see someone whom he now recalls as "that dreadful woman," She was a freelance journalist, and the next morning the story appeared around the world. "I was all ready to pack my bags and head for Siberia," he said.