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LONDON – Prince Charles has been reluctant to speak about its history and history. But as king, should that come to pass, it would be a very different matter, he acknowledged.
"I must realize that it is a separate exercise being sovereign," the prince said about his activism in a documentary, expected to air on the BBC Thursday night, on the occasion of his 70th birthday next week.
"The idea, somehow, that I'm going to go exactly the same way," he said, referring to the roles of heir and king.
The interview offers a rare glimpse of what Charles might be like, and is perhaps an effort to assuage that he would have diverge from British monarchs, who are bound by tradition to reign, not rule, over their subjects. His aides have suggested that he would be more outspoken than his mother has been.
His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, now 92, was crowned in 1953, and is the longest-serving British monarch, having surpassed Queen Victoria in 2015.
Though many in the British public – and around the world – follow the lives of the royal family, Queen Elizabeth might have held sovereignty. Her opinions on matters of government and other issues have been concealed behind a polite smile and signature wave.
As head of the Prince 's Trust, an organization that helps vulnerable young people find work and training, Charles has followed the example of other royals, to public actions focus on charitable causes.
But he has weighed in publicly on climate change (humans have "abandoned our connection with nature"); sustainable agriculture (he has lamented the effects of "modern intensive farming systems"); and modern architecture (he denounced a planned extension to the National Gallery as a "monstrous carbuncle").
That has brought criticism and accusations that it is using its influence as a member of the royal family to sway government policy. In 2006, he called on the world to open up to alternative medicine – just as an influential group of medical doctors in Britain urged the National Health Service to stop providing them.
In 2015, after a long legal battle, the Guardian forced the government to release the letters from the prince. Even if that correspondence is contained in the history of the author's choice of meddling.
As king, Charles may have another hurdle to overcome: his popularity behind the queen of his son, William and Harry.
"Having the most exemplary monarchy in the world, I think Charles would undermine it," Tom Bower, author of an unauthorized biography of Prince Charles, told Reuters. The book, "The Rebel Prince," published in the spring, has the short-lived and selfish person who, unlike his mother, enjoys the luxuries provided by his position.
Still, the biggest blow to Charles's popularity was his divorce from Princess Diana, the mother of his children, in 1996. She died in a car accident the following year.
