HELLO! Special Collectors' Edition

The Queen’s death after 70 years on the throne was a momentous event, but it has been the most seamless of transitions as the nation has welcomed Charles III as its new King. From his first walkabout – where his loyal subjects heartily sang God Save the King – to his brave and eloquent Christmas Day message, His Majesty has not put a foot wrong in the months since fulfilling his destiny. With the coronation now around the corner – where King Charles will be crowned alongside his Queen Consort Camilla, his devoted wife of 18 years – HELLO! is delighted to publish this special issue, which takes a comprehensive look at the evolution of his role from Prince of Wales to our new monarch. From his early years, through…

As with all royal births, the arrival of Prince Charles Philip Arthur George on 14 November 1948 was officially announced on the gates of Buckingham Palace, while the lights in Trafalgar Square’s fountains were turned blue and radio stations worldwide interrupted their programmes for the news. While his 22-year-old mother Princess Elizabeth rested in the bedroom suite of Buckingham Palace, her 7lb 6oz newborn son and heir was placed in a cot in the gilded Ballroom so that the royal courtiers, who served his grandfather George VI and his grandmother Queen Elizabeth, could meet him. “Poor little chap, two and a half hours after being born, he was being looked at by outsiders,” wrote the private secretary to his grandmother. “But with great affection and good will.” At his christening…

For centuries, it was customary for royal children to be taught by private tutors within palace walls, but as the role of the monarchy and ideas about education evolved, Prince Charles became the first heir to the throne to attend school. Although a governess, Catherine Peebles, tutored him at Buckingham Palace from the age of five, he began classes at Hill House School in Knightsbridge just before his eighth birthday. Two years later, he followed in his father the Duke of Edinburgh’s footsteps by attending Cheam Preparatory School in Hampshire and then Gordonstoun in Scotland – renowned for its tough, character-building ethos. Although Charles’s grandmother the Queen Mother expressed reservations about sending the young teenage boy there – writing to the Queen that he would feel “terribly cut off and…

‘The most moving moment came when I put my hands between Mummy’s and swore to be her liegeman of life and limb’ With a ring made of Welsh gold in the shape of two dragons, holding an amethyst, Prince Charles became symbolically wedded to Wales in 1969, in a ceremony that was watched by more than 500 million people worldwide. “By far the most moving and meaningful moment came when I put my hands between Mummy’s and swore to be her liegeman… such magnificent, medieval, appropriate words,” he wrote later of the service. Having been created Prince of Wales aged nine in 1958, Charles was 20 by the time of his spectacular investiture at Caernarfon Castle in north-west Wales on 1 July 1969. More than 4,000 invited guests watched from…

The dashing young man in naval uniform was following in a well-established family tradition: the then Prince of Wales’s father, grandfather and two great-grandfathers had all served in the Royal Navy. So it seemed natural that the 23-year-old should choose the senior service for life in uniform. However, his six-year term of active service began a little later than other members of the royal family, as he chose to finish his education at Cambridge first. It was suggested that this was a delaying tactic from a reluctant recruit, who had to be persuaded by his father to join. But Prince Charles’s enthusiasm proved otherwise. Some of his inspiration for joining up may well have come from his great-uncle Earl Mountbatten of Burma, a confidant of Charles who had a long…

It was his mother the Queen, a keen equestrian, who first taught the young Prince to ride Although Charles’s first and greatest loves were music, art and culture, the young Prince gamely tried his hand – and excelled – at a range of sports traditionally loved by the royals. As he matured, he gravitated to polo, skiing and fishing and particularly enjoyed practising his skills on the field at Windsor, tackling the slopes at Klosters and casting for trout in the River Dee at Balmoral. Polo, known to many as the “sport of kings”, was a firm favourite and he became a skilled player. His mother the Queen, a keen equestrian, first taught him to ride, alongside his sister Princess Anne when they were little. Although initially timid on horseback,…