King Charles gave a blunt reply when he was asked about ‘meddling’ once he became King.
Four years before ascending to the throne, the then Prince of Wales admitted he was an “inveterate interferer and meddler” with a number of outspoken opinions he has aired over the years.
Covering everything from the environment, new laws, GM crops, nanotechnology and more, the new monarch commented on a wide range of topics during his stint as Britain’s longest-serving heir apparent.
However whilst he used to pursue and speak out about a number of topics close to his heart, Charles said once he became sovereign he wouldn’t continue to do so. But some sources around him disagreed.
Speaking in 2018, when asked about his meddling he told a BBC documentary: “No, it won’t [continue]. I’m not that stupid. I do realise that it is a separate exercise being sovereign. So, of course I understand entirely how that should operate.”
Some concerns were raised as to how his opinions would feature when he became monarch as he would be under more intense scrutiny as the king.
Sources close to Charles told The Guardian in 2014 that he would break with tradition and make “heartfelt interventions” in national life. But it is not known if that will still be the case.
The source added that he would not follow his mother’s discretion on public affairs, but instead speak his mind on issues such as the environment.
Catherine Mayer’s 2015 unauthorised biography of Charles said the prince was planning to introduce a “potential new model of kingship”.
But she added that the Queen was concerned about the potential style of the monarchy under her son.
But Charles’s senior aide at the time, principal private secretary William Nye, came to his defence, saying Charles understood “the necessary and proper limitations” on the role of a constitutional monarch.
As head of state, Charles is a non-political figurehead and must remain strictly neutral.
Royal advisers may have attempted to curb his controversial views in the past, but the prince often hit the headlines, particularly over his lobbying of ministers.
Politicians were said to have regularly moaned about the number of letters they received from the crusading prince.
The notes were known to recipients as the “black spider” memos on account of Charles’s handwriting, with the prince enthusiastically detailing his beliefs on particular political topics, using lots of underlining and exclamation marks.
In 2002, he found himself at the centre of a constitutional row following revelations he had been “bombarding” ministers with letters attacking government policy.
One minister said that the prince had become so involved in politics that he wrote a letter a week to the government.
It emerged he had written a series of letters to the then lord chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, expressing concern over the growth of the “compensation culture” and the Human Rights Act.
The prince warned that human rights legislation is “only about the rights of individuals …and this betrays a fundamental distortion in social and legal thinking”.
Charles also took issue with the “degree to which our lives are becoming ruled by a truly absurd degree of politically correct interference”.
He has not always wanted his views to be made public.
Letters he wrote to a number of government departments between 2004 and 2005 became the subject of a protracted legal battle over whether their contents should be disclosed.
Twenty-seven letters, 10 from Charles to ministers, 14 by ministers and three letters between private secretaries, were released in 2015 following a 10-year campaign by Guardian journalist Rob Evans to see the documents after a freedom of information request.
The publication of the correspondence showed the prince lobbied then-prime minister Tony Blair and other ministers on a range of issues from badgers and TB to herbal medicine, education and illegal fishing.
He also tackled Mr Blair over a lack of resources for the armed forces fighting in Iraq.
A further six letters were unveiled later in 2015, showing Charles wrote to ministers between 2007 and 2009 about topics such as hospital food, affordable rural housing and climate change.
It was also out and about on engagements that the prince caused controversy.
In 2014, he sparked a diplomatic storm after comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler during a visit to Canada.
Charles was speaking to Canadian museum volunteer Marianne Ferguson, who told him how her Jewish family fled the Nazi occupation of Danzig at the outset of the Second World War, when he drew a parallel with Russia ’s annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
Russia responded angrily to the comparison, leaving the Foreign Office attempting to head off a diplomatic row by holding talks with Russia’s furious deputy ambassador.
Even Mr Putin, in a direct message to Charles, publicly branded the comments “unacceptable” and said such remarks were “not what monarchs do”, leaving royal relations with Russia in tatters.
In 2006, Charles’s former aide Mark Bolland revealed at the High Court that the prince saw himself as a “dissident” working against current political opinion.
Charles’s journals, around which the case centred, published in the Mail on Sunday revealed that he made unflattering comments on the handover of Hong Kong to China when he described Chinese diplomats as “appalling old waxworks”.
In 2007, when Channel 4 ’s Dispatches programme Charles: The Meddling Prince raised questions about his suitability for the throne, his then senior aide Sir Michael Peat dismissed the claims that Charles abused his position by secret lobbying.
“It would be more damaging to the monarchy if he did not use his position to help with issues,” he said.
Sir Michael added: “It hardly needs saying that the Prince of Wales, of all people, knows that the role and duties of the heir to the throne are different to those of the sovereign and that his role and the way he contributes to national life will change when he becomes king.”
One contributor to the programme, Lord Wedderburn, warned of difficulties.
“If in fact nothing changed and he became king, then there would be a most almighty fuss and controversy, and eventually the whole fabric of the constitutional monarchy could be threatened,” he said.
There was outrage in 2004 when the prince blamed the education system for making people “think they can all be pop stars”.
He wrote in a memo disclosed at an employment tribunal: “What is wrong with everyone nowadays?
“Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities?”
