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Portrait of Charles III

Monarchs · Saxe-Coburg & Windsor

Charles III

1948–

House of Windsor — the reigning monarch

In office: 2022–present

Charles III acceded on 8 September 2022 after the longest apprenticeship in British history: seventy years as heir and sixty-four as Prince of Wales. Crowned in May 2023 in a shortened, multi-faith ceremony, he has carried on the environmental and architectural campaigning of his years as Prince of Wales while working through a cancer diagnosis announced in February 2024. He remains on the throne as of September 2026, with the Prince of Wales as his heir.

How to spot them

  • ▸The oldest person ever to accede to the British throne, at 73
  • ▸Prince of Wales from 1958 to 2022, and invested at Caernarfon in 1969
  • ▸Organic farming, Poundbury, the Prince's Trust and a long quarrel with modern architecture
  • ▸Queen Camilla; the heir is William, Prince of Wales, and then Prince George

In the reign

A charity founded with a naval severance payment to help disadvantaged young people into work (1976)

The Prince's Trust, renamed the King's Trust in 2024

A proposed extension to a London gallery is called a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend (1984)

The speech to the RIBA on the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing competition

A model town built on duchy land in Dorset to traditional principles of street and scale (1993)

Poundbury, on the edge of Dorchester, masterplanned by Léon Krier

The first British coronation in seventy years, shortened to two hours and opened to other faiths (2023)

6 May 2023 at Westminster Abbey, with Camilla crowned queen

A palace announcement of a cancer diagnosis, found during treatment for an enlarged prostate (2024)

Announced 5 February 2024; treatment continued through 2025 and was reduced in 2026

A sovereign reads a Speech from the Throne in Ottawa, only the third time a monarch has done so (2025)

27 May 2025, opening the 45th Parliament of Canada — the first by a sovereign since 1977

An unprecedented second state visit by an American president, hosted at Windsor rather than Buckingham Palace (2025)

Donald Trump's visit of 17–19 September 2025, with the largest ceremonial guard of honour in living memory

A king and a French president preview an eleventh-century embroidery returned to England for the first time in 900 years (2026)

The Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum; the private preview with President Macron was on 2 September 2026

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born 14 November 1948; he was four at his mother's coronation and nine when created Prince of Wales in 1958
  • •He was the first heir to the throne to earn a university degree, in archaeology, anthropology and history at Trinity College, Cambridge
  • •He married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and divorced in 1996; she died in 1997. He married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005
  • •He acceded on 8 September 2022 aged 73, the oldest British sovereign at accession, and was crowned on 6 May 2023
  • •He waited 70 years as heir apparent and held the title Prince of Wales for 64 years, both records
  • •Four prime ministers have served in his reign: Liz Truss, appointed by his mother days before her death, then Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham, appointed on 20 July 2026
  • •He made a state visit to the United States from 27 to 30 April 2026, the first by a reigning British monarch since 2007, and addressed both houses of Congress
  • •He announced in a Stand Up To Cancer message that his treatment schedule would be reduced from the start of 2026, calling it a personal blessing
  • •He is Head of the Commonwealth and sovereign of fifteen realms; the heir apparent is William, Prince of Wales

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources