Based on extensive fresh material and resources, Robert Jobson’s biography provides a definitive insight into the extraordinary life of HRH Charles, Prince of Wales as he approaches his seventieth birthday at a watershed in the history of the modern British monarchy.

Exploring beyond the banal newspaper headlines that have caricatured Charles over the years, the book debunks the myths about the man who will be King, telling his full, true story; exploring his complex character, his profoundly held beliefs and deep thinking about religion – including Islam – politics, the armed services, monarchy and the constitution, providing an illuminating portrait of what kind of monarch Charles III will be.

Although this book is not an official biography, the Prince’s office, Clarence House, has agreed to cooperate with the author – who has spent nearly thirty years chronicling the story of the House of Windsor as an author, journalist and broadcaster.

The author, who has met Prince Charles on countless occasions, will draw on the knowledge and memories of a number of sources close to the Prince who have never spoken before, as well as members of the Royal Household past and present who have served the Prince during his decades of public service. It will reveal that there are plans for Charles to serve as Prince Regent once the Queen turns ninety-five, how he already reads ALL the Government papers/boxes at his mother’s insistence, and why he feels it is his constitutional duty to pass on to ministers his thoughts and feelings in his controversial ‘black spider memos’. Beyond that, Charles at Seventy also reveals the truth about the Prince’s deeply loving but occasionally volatile relationship with his second wife and chief supporter, Camilla.

King Charles III: The Man, the Monarch and the Future of Britain (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Audible.com) (AbeBooks Used Book Marketplace)

I was happy to find this book available for free for Audible Plus members and downloaded it some time ago. With the upcoming coronation of King Charles III, I finally took the time to listen to the audiobook.

I had not previously read or listened to anything by Robert Jobson, but the first thing I noticed is that for a royal historian, he seems to protest too much that one can’t really be a historian of an importance unless s/he has interviewed the subject at hand. And what do you know, Jobson has interviewed Charles several times, therefore making him a more qualified historian than other royal biographers.

Despite that, I found the book interesting. It’s not a straight biography of Charles, rather a look at his stance on a variety of positions over the last 50 years. Since this book was first published in 2018 (audiobook in 2019), we don’t have to deal with the drama of the Sussex family and their exit from the senior royal position.

Jobson is definitely in the “Team Charles” camp and makes excuses when Charles behavior is unacceptable, paints Princess Diana in a bad light, and can find no wrong with Camilla. This makes it a patently biased biographical look at the King of England, but one I found enjoyable despite it’s shortcomings. I haven’t followed Charles too closely and the works he’s done haven’t made their way to this side of the pond, as it were, so I got a better feel for the man who waited all his life to become king.

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