Tardis

New to Doctor Who or returning after a break? Check out our guides designed to help you find your way!

READ MORE

Tardis
Advertisement
Tardis
Charles III
ImagesAvailable

Charles III, formerly known as Prince Charles, was the king of the United Kingdom who succeeded Elizabeth II. Charles reigned with his Queen, Camilla, and was succeeded by William V. (PROSE: Revenge of the Judoon)

History[]

As Prince[]

Early life[]

PrinceCharlesTIL

Charles as a Prince, during his mother's coronation. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern)

Charles was the Queen's eldest son. Charles Windsor Griffiths was named after him. (PROSE: Attack of the Cybermen)

In 1953, he appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace and waved to the crowds after the coronation of his mother, Elizabeth II. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern)

Marriage to Diana[]

In 1981, (TV: The Lodger) he married Princess Diana. (PROSE: Prisoners of the Sun) Melanie Bush believed them to be a strong couple. (AUDIO: Spaceport Fear)

He was photographed during his wedding to Diana. Said picture was altered by the Monks during the 2017 Monk invasion. (TV: The Lie of the Land)

During the Martian Invasion on 6 May 1997, the Prince of Wales and his sons were on the royal jet on course to London when the Martian ship entered the atmosphere, diverting to Madrid. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

In the late 1990s, Princess Diana died in a car crash. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) This was a tragedy which affected so many people, (PROSE: Father Time) including Elton John (PROSE: That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress) and Sixth Doctor companion Evelyn Smythe, who dearly wished to go back to save her. (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness)

With Camilla[]

Charles and Camilla were popular items of gossip in 2005. (AUDIO: One Rule)

By 2010, he had married Camilla. In that year, Clyde Langer and Rani Chandra faced two Automatons who were looking for the estranged crown prince of their homeworld. Clyde jokingly offered them to take Prince Charles and Camilla as a replacement. (TV: The Empty Planet)

When the Tenth Doctor found that Edward VII had disappeared along with Balmoral Castle in 1902, he warned that the future of the royal family, along with the rest of history, was threatened. Saying that, along with the rest of his successors, there would be no Charles III. (PROSE: Revenge of the Judoon)

As King[]

As Rani Chandra explained, in the same way Gavin was the son and the heir to his father, Prince Charles was the son and the heir to the Queen. (TV: The Empty Planet)

Elizabeth II assumed in 1977 that Charles would be King by 2022, before learning, to her amazement, that she would be celebrating her seventieth year on the throne in that year. (PROSE: The Platinum Sceptre) However, according to another account, the British Army had a group called the King's New Delta Squadron by 2020. (AUDIO: Black and White)

Upon seeing the Council House of Kirith, the Seventh Doctor wondered what King Charles would have to say about its blend of architectural styles. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Apocalypse)

Legacy[]

Charles III was immediately succeeded by King William V. (PROSE: Revenge of the Judoon)

Other references[]

Jones suggested that a UNIT soldier would kick "the Prince of Wales, old Carlo", up his "royal britches" were he so ordered by his officer. (TV: The Green Death)

Alternate timeline[]

In an alternate timeline briefly created by Jamie McCrimmon in which the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was a failure, the name Charles III was taken earlier by the grandson of James II, Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was the reigning monarch of England and Scotland in 1788. (AUDIO: The Glorious Revolution)

Behind the scenes[]

  • In the real world, King Charles is the great great grandson of King Edward VII, firstborn son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the elder brother of Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward, and the father of William, Prince of Wales and Prince Harry. He inherited the throne from his mother following her death on 8 September 2022,[1] and was himself the Prince of Wales from 1958 to 2022. Revenge of the Judoon, which mentions the lineal succession of Edward VII to Charles in DWU continuity, was published in 2008, 14 years before the then-Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall became King; Charles inherited the throne three years after the death of the book's author Terrance Dicks.
  • Charles married Camilla in 2005, which Yvonne Hartman alludes to in One Rule.
  • A King is briefly mentioned by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in the 1989 TV story Battlefield (set a few years in the future, which the story also mentioned in dialogue). A King is likewise also briefly mentioned in the 2005 audio story The Longest Night. As the 2008 novel Revenge of the Judoon establishes Charles as the next monarch after Elizabeth in the DWU, this is apparently what King is being referred to in both of the previous stories. However, in the real world, Charles succeeded Elizabeth as the King eleven years after the death of Lethbridge-Stewart actor Nicholas Courtney, and 33 years after the initial broadcast of Battlefield, a story which first aired a little over halfway through Elizabeth's 70-year reign, and 17 years after the release of The Longest Night, released roughly three-quarters into her reign. Indeed, TV stories like Survivors of the Flux establish Kate Stewart as the head of UNIT before 2017, suggesting that the DWU's Queen Elizabeth outlived Kate's father Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
  • Charles has been portrayed by Christopher Bowen in the telefilm Princess in Love, Paul Rhys in the docudrama The Queen, Tim Piggott-Smith in the play King Charles III and its television adaptation, Jon Culshaw in various comedy sketches, Josh O'Connor in the Netflix series The Crown, and was voiced by Dan Stevens in the animated series The Prince.
  • In 2013, Charles and Camilla paid a visit to the TARDIS set at BBC Wales' Roath Lock studios where they met Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman as well as posing with Daleks and Cybermen.[2]
  • At the real-life coronation of King Charles III on Saturday 6th May 2023 at Westminster Abbey, Floella Benjamin carried the Sceptre with the Dove, a component of the Crown Jewels.[3]
  • Prior to becoming King, it was speculated that Charles may have adopted a different regnal name. In 2005, The Times reported that the then-Prince Charles had privately discussed taking the name George VII upon his accession as King, in order to avoid association with "the bloodiest periods in the monarchy's history" and to honour his grandfather, George VI.[4] Terrance Dicks and Nigel Robinson both correctly predicted in their respective novels, Revenge of the Judoon and Timewyrm: Apocalypse, that Charles would instead choose the name Charles III.

Footnotes[]

Advertisement