Prince Charles The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life [Paperback]

USSally Bedell Smithis the author of bestselling biographies of Queen Elizabeth II; William S. Paley; Pamela Harriman; Diana, Princess of Wales; John and Jacqueline Kennedy; and Bill and Hillary Clinton. A contributing editor atVanity Fairsince 1996, she previously worked atTimeandThe New York Times,where she was a cultural news reporter. In 2012, Smith was the recipient of the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. She is the mother of three children and lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Stephen G. Smith.PREFACE 
 
It was a moment he had spent most of his life anticipating.  Prince Charles, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms, gazed across a ballroom bedecked with silk damask, the tables gleaming with silver-gilt, and rapped the monarch’s gavel.
The Queen had decided at age eighty-seven that she could no longer undertake long-haul international travel. After sixty-one years as head of the Commonwealth—the association of fifty-three nations formerly constituting the British Empire—she had deputed her eldest son to represent her at the biennial meeting of the Commonwealth leaders in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in November 2013. Opening its summit had been one of her most cherished duties.
Acting on behalf of the monarch for the first time in this particular capacity was highly significant, the start of an unofficial transitional period. The Queen had already begun trimming her schedule as a concession to her advancing age. The occasion was something of a harmonic convergence as well. The previous day Prince Charles had celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday—retirement, for most people. He was now the oldest heir to the throne in three hundred years.
I had decided to make the long trip to this event because I sensed its importance as a turning point in a life with many unforeseen twists. It had been more than twenty years since I first met thels#