In the autumn of his years but the infancy of his reign, at 75 the King stands at the precipice of history. A man of vision, who spent decades preparing for his role, he knows that his moment in the sun will be brief compared with his late mother Queen Elizabeth.
In the corridors of Dumfries House in Ayrshire, he confided to me that he knew that he had no time to waste. He revealed that the peace he had found painting watercolours had already become a luxury of a life past. He was thus relinquishing his joy for the crown and duty. The King finds himself a monarch in a world embroiled in conflicts that sprawl from Europe to the Middle East, a world that demands of him not just the stoicism of a sovereign but the sagacity of a statesman.
