Charles III Net Worth

Background and career

Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.

Charles is the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was born during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and became heir apparent following his mother's accession in 1952. Charles was created Prince of Wales in 1958 and his investiture was held in 1969. He was educated at Cheam School and Gordonstoun, and later spent six months at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After completing a history degree at the University of Cambridge, he served in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976. He married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and they had two sons, William in 1982 and Harry in 1984. Charles and Diana divorced in August 1996 after years of estrangement and well-publicised extramarital affairs. Diana died the following year from injuries sustained in a car crash. In 2005, Charles married his long-time partner, Camilla Parker Bowles.

As heir apparent, Charles undertook official duties and engagements on behalf of his mother and represented the United Kingdom on visits abroad. He founded the Prince's Trust in 1976, sponsored the Prince's Charities and became patron or president of more than 800 other charities and organisations. He advocated for the conservation of historic buildings and the importance of traditional architecture in society, and in that vein generated the experimental new town of Poundbury. An environmentalist, Charles supported organic farming and action to address climate change during his time as manager of the Duchy of Cornwall estates, earning him awards and recognition. He has also been a prominent critic of genetically modified food, and has drawn scrutiny for his support of alternative medicine. He has authored or co-authored 17 books.

Charles became king upon his mother's death in 2022. At the age of 73, he was the oldest person to accede to the British throne, after having been the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales in British history. Significant events of his reign have included his coronation in 2023; his cancer diagnosis in 2024, which temporarily suspended planned public engagements; and the removal of his brother Andrew's remaining titles, styles, and honours in 2025.

Charles was born at 9:14 pm on 14 November 1948 by caesarean section at Buckingham Palace, during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI. He was the first child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (later Queen Elizabeth II), and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was christened Charles Philip Arthur George on 15 December in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace by the archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher. He has three younger siblings: Anne (born 1950), Andrew (born 1960), and Edward (born 1964).

George VI died on 6 February 1952, after which Charles's mother acceded to the throne as Elizabeth II and he became heir apparent. Under a charter issued by Edward III in 1337, and as the monarch's eldest son, he automatically assumed the titles of Duke of Cornwall and, in the Scottish peerage, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. He attended his mother's coronation at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. He was later created Prince of Wales in 1958.

When Charles was five, Catherine Peebles was appointed as his governess to oversee his education at Buckingham Palace. He began attending Hill House School in West London in November 1956, becoming the first heir apparent to be educated at a school rather than by private tutors. He did not receive preferential treatment from the school's founder and headmaster, Stuart Townend, who encouraged the Queen to have Charles train in football, noting that boys on the pitch were never deferential to anyone. Charles later attended two of his father's former schools: Cheam School in Hampshire from 1958, followed by Gordonstoun in Moray in Scotland, where he began classes in April 1962. He became patron of Gordonstoun in May 2024.

Jonathan Dimbleby's authorised 1994 biography described Elizabeth and Philip as physically and emotionally distant parents, and criticised Philip for disregarding Charles's sensitive nature, including insisting that Charles attend Gordonstoun, where he was bullied. Although Charles reportedly referred to the school as "Colditz in kilts", he later praised Gordonstoun for teaching him "a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities". In a 1975 interview Charles said he was "glad" to have attended the school and that its "toughness" had been "much exaggerated".

In 1966, Charles spent two terms at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia, during which he visited Papua New Guinea on a school trip with his history tutor, Michael Collins Persse. Whilst based at Timbertop, he frequently travelled to the main Geelong campus as part of his schooling arrangements, residing in Cuthbertson House, one of the school's boarding houses. Charles later described his time at Timbertop as the most enjoyable part of his education. On returning to Gordonstoun, he became head boy, and left in 1967 with six GCE O-levels and two A-levels in history and French, at grades B and C respectively. Reflecting on his schooling, Charles later remarked that he "didn't enjoy school as much as I might have", adding that he was "happier at home than anywhere else".

Breaking royal tradition, Charles proceeded directly to university after completing his A‑levels rather than joining the British Armed Forces. In October 1967, he was admitted to the University of Cambridge to study archaeology and anthropology for the first part of the Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, later switching to history. During his second year he spent one term at the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, studying Welsh history and Welsh language. Charles became the first British heir apparent to earn a university degree, graduating from Cambridge in June 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree with lower second-class honours (2:2). Following standard practice, his BA was promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Cantab) in August 1975.

Charles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 26 July 1958, although his investiture did not take place until 1 July 1969, when he was crowned by his mother in a televised ceremony at Caernarfon Castle. The event was controversial in Wales amid rising Welsh nationalist sentiment. He took his seat in the House of Lords the following year, delivering his maiden speech on 13 June 1974, the first royal to speak from the floor since the future Edward VII in 1884. He addressed the House again in 1975.

Charles increasingly undertook public duties, founding the Prince's Trust in 1976 and travelling to the United States in 1981. In the mid-1970s he expressed interest in serving as Governor-General of Australia, following a suggestion by the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Fraser. The proposal was ultimately abandoned owing to a lack of public enthusiasm. Charles later remarked, "so, what are you supposed to think when you are prepared to do something to help and you are just told you're not wanted?"

Charles served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy during the 1970s. His military training began in 1969, in his second year at Cambridge, when he joined the Cambridge University Air Squadron and learned to fly the Chipmunk. He was presented with his RAF wings in August 1971.

After the passing-out parade that September, Charles embarked on a naval career and undertook a six-week course at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He subsequently served from 1971 to 1972 on the guided-missile destroyer HMS Norfolk, and on the frigates HMS Minerva from 1972 to 1973 and HMS Jupiter in 1974. That same year he qualified as a helicopter pilot at RNAS Yeovilton, and during his helicopter training completed commando instruction at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines at Lympstone. Charles then joined 845 Naval Air Squadron, a Royal Marines air support unit of the Fleet Air Arm, serving as a pilot aboard HMS Hermes and flying the Royal Marines commando variant of the Westland Wessex helicopter.

Charles spent his final ten months of active naval service commanding the coastal minehunter HMS Bronington, beginning on 9 February 1976. He retired from active service later that year with the rank of Commander. Two years later he undertook the parachute training course at RAF Brize Norton, having been appointed colonel-in-chief of the Parachute Regiment in 1977, and was a member of Parachute Course 841a. Charles gave up flying after crash-landing a BAe 146 in Islay in 1994, when, as a passenger invited to fly the aircraft, he was at the controls; a board of inquiry found the crew negligent.

In his youth, Charles was romantically linked to several women. His girlfriends included Georgiana Russell, the daughter of Sir John Russell, who was the British ambassador to Spain; Lady Jane Wellesley; Davina Sheffield; Lady Sarah Spencer; and Camilla Shand, who later became his second wife.

Charles's great-uncle Lord Mountbatten advised him to "sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down", but, for a wife, he "should choose a suitable, attractive, and sweet-charactered girl before she has met anyone else she might fall for ... It is disturbing for women to have experiences if they have to remain on a pedestal after marriage". Early in 1974, Mountbatten began corresponding with 25-year-old Charles about a potential marriage to his granddaughter, Amanda Knatchbull. Charles wrote to Amanda's mother, Lady Brabourne, who was also his godmother, expressing interest in her daughter. Lady Brabourne replied approvingly, but suggested that a courtship with a 16-year-old was premature.

Four years later, Mountbatten arranged for Amanda and himself to accompany Charles on his 1980 visit to India. Both fathers, however, objected: Prince Philip feared that his famous uncle would eclipse Charles, while Lord Brabourne warned that a joint visit would concentrate media attention on the cousins before they could decide whether to become a couple.

In August 1979, before Charles was due to depart alone for India, Mountbatten was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. When Charles returned, he proposed to Amanda. But in addition to her grandfather, she had lost her paternal grandmother and younger brother in the bomb attack, and was now reluctant to join the royal family.

Charles first met Lady Diana Spencer in 1977, while he was visiting her home, Althorp. He was then the companion of her elder sister Sarah and did not consider Diana romantically until mid-1980. While Charles and Diana were sitting together on a bale of hay at a friend's barbecue in July, she mentioned that he had looked forlorn and in need of care at the funeral of Lord Mountbatten. Soon, according to Dimbleby, "without any apparent surge in feeling, he began to think seriously of her as a potential bride" and she accompanied him on visits to Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House.

Charles's cousin Norton Knatchbull and his wife told Charles that Diana appeared awestruck by his position and that he did not seem to be in love with her. Meanwhile, the couple's continuing courtship attracted intense attention from the press and paparazzi. When Charles's father told him that the media speculation would injure Diana's reputation if Charles did not come to a decision about marrying her soon, and realising that she was a suitable royal bride (according to Mountbatten's criteria), Charles construed his father's advice as a warning to proceed without further delay. He proposed to Diana in February 1981, with their engagement becoming official on 24 February; the wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral on 29 July. Upon his marriage, Charles reduced his voluntary tax contribution from the profits of the Duchy of Cornwall from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. The couple lived at Kensington Palace and Highgrove House, near Tetbury, and had two children: William, in 1982, and Harry, in 1984. As of 2025, Charles has an estranged relationship with his son Harry, who relinquished his royal family obligations and moved to the United States in 2020.