The United Kingdom officially crowns Charles and his wife Camilla today in a series of royal events which will attract leaders from around the world in a colourful ceremony.
Charles Philip Arthur George, officially known as King Charles III, was born on November 14, 1948, and is the first-born son of the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
As monarch, the 73-year-old grandfather of five serves as king of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth sovereign states. Officially, he has been king since his mother, the UK’s longest-reigning monarch, died on September 8, 2022.
Described by biographers as “a sensitive man”, he is a keen horticulturalist and enjoys tending to an organic garden in his countryside manor.
He is also believed to be a skilled watercolour painter and has interest in traditional countryside practices such as hedge laying. His mother made him Prince of Wales in 1958 at the age of nine, but his investiture was not until 11 years later.
As a young man, commentators say, he did not have much in common with his parents, but relations would improve as he got older.
He studied in the United Kingdom and Australia, reading archaeology, anthropology and history at Trinity College, Cambridge in the late 1960s before becoming a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot. He has conducted royal service since the late 1970s.
