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Charles appears to be using his 70th birthday on Wednesday to highlight the work he has done so far as the longest-serving royal heir in British history. By any measure he has used that time to the role, making it a full-time job and expressing himself freely on the issues he cares about. Many of his predecessors saw it as an opportunity to keep a low profile and enjoy the spoils of royalty before taking over the responsibility of the Crown.
"I think you would be able to understand the Prince of Wales if you came here," Kenneth Dunsmuir, director of the Prince's Foundation, the umbrella group for Charles' public projects, told CNN standing outside Dumfries House. "It's very obvious that you can see what's going on and the variation of work, the variety that you see on the estate."
The house is best imagined as a fairytale 18th-century mansion at the center of a vast, immaculate estate with outbuildings humming with community activities. There are no gates. Members of the public roam freely and it is not uncommon for them to meet Charles himself as he goes about his inspections.
CNN has been shown to be a high-tech science lab nestled among trees, for visiting school groups, and an organic rare-breeds farm where the pigs live in plush, thatched pigsties. In a renovated barn, unemployed adults were learning traditional crafts. All the projects speak to the social and ecological issues close to the prince's heart.
The Prince 's Trust is also well represented in the United States, and has been developed in the 1980s.
Inside the house is a priceless collection of furniture bought directly from the cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale in the 1750s by the Earl of Dumfries. The collection contains the most valuable item of furniture in the world, valued at $ 30 million. One of the chairs during CNN's visit turned out to be worth a million dollars. When asked why this is so, it has been treated casually, a member of staff replied: "Because they are here to be used."
Encouraged by the prince, this a-precious philosophy is what drives the place. It's meant to be a living, breathing project that is not only part of the community but adds to it. Prince Charles stepped in to save the estate from the seventh Marquess of Bute who could not afford the upkeep. It was renovated and reopened by the prince as a visitor attraction.
Dumfries House is now the second-largest employer in the county, after the local authority, and has even funded a new town hall and outdoor swimming pool in the nearby town of New Cumnock. Every Friday, the prince is feeling a report on the next day.
"The signs were there from young adulthood – his concerns about social issues, community issues and ecological issues," Dunsmuir said. "All that's happened that he's gotten more and more involved in Prince Edward Island than in Prince of Wales. Together this is one of the Prince's Foundation's charitable initiatives, that this (Dumfries House) is a fantastic physical legacy that will always be here. "
While Dumfries House may be the project that best symbolizes Charles' legacy as Prince of Wales, we should not take it as an indication of what will be king. A senior aide said the prince feels a duty to use his platform. He knows the two roles are distinct and it is "his clear wish and intention to change his approach in the next role."
Without doubt, he has a lot to live up to. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, is revered for the first time in the history of the British Empire, and the general loss of deference in society. She has been modernized and moved by mass-market media and charitable work. She has never expressed any opinions, let alone political views, so we never know what she is thinking.
We know what the Prince of Wales thinks about a wide range of issues.
He was ahead of his time on many issues, he had a mainstream issue, and he continues to do so, for many, it is becoming a political issue.
At a speech in Accra, Ghana, last week, the Prince said, "I know, Mr. President, that you share my determination that the Commonwealth should live for the purpose of relying on the lives of its citizens and their networks. The recent report of the expert report is one of the most important issues in the history of the environment. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which provided stark and alarming evidence that 1.5 degrees of warming will mean catastrophic damage to the planet's ecosystems, a clear signal that we must all surely heed. "
Charles will become head of the Commonwealth when he becomes king.
He made the case again in Nigeria with a group of powerful regional leaders. After the meeting in Abuja, the Emir of Kano was positive about the Prince's interventions, saying CNN: "He's been talking about climate change. Three issues, for example, and some of the conflicts we see. "
There was much interest in his work on youth unemployment, which was rife in the region, though the prince was not able to see his country. Because of security concerns, the British government called for a visit to Jos, a city in Central America that has been the scene of deadly clashes between Christians and Muslims.
"The only sad thing for me was not to be able to go further than other parts of Nigeria," Prince Charles told CNN. "It is such a vast country and so many other issues that it is a very difficult place, but it is always marvelous coming here because I'm always intrigued by the way so many of these young people, for instance, are developing really interesting ideas that they can turn into businesses and things like that, helping to tackle some of the real issues we face, particularly the environment and waste and goodness knows what else. Very ingenious characters. "
At 70, Prince Charles has given his future role to "a lot of thought," the senior aide told CNN, "It's going to be difficult to talk about it."
If he feels any pressure, it appears to be completing his work as Prince of Wales, which is a role he has made his own. He's redefined the responsibility that comes with being heir and that he has already left a legacy.
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