ABSTRACT
For the next few years a large question mark hovered over Prince Charles’s future. He was filled with adolescent uncertainty about his role in life. He spent his days in idleness and frustrated boredom and was deeply distressed by his mother’s death but kept his feelings hidden from everyone. His family life was not very different from that of many unhappy princes reared in courts across Europe. Like James, their fathers had married a bloodline for pedigree, not for love; this system wrought devastating unhappiness on offspring taught to disregard their biological mother once she had performed her “duty.” Few royal fathers could spare time for the patient nurturing their children needed. Because they were Princes of the blood, the children were expected to be naturally endowed with all the qualities of the anointed that would bring them to adulthood sound in mind and body.
