London Evening Standard/London

Prince Charles yesterday hit back over “ill-informed speculation” on his attitude to becoming king and insisted he knows exactly what is expected of him.
In an unprecedented move his top aide, Sir William Nye, issued a letter saying: “After half a century in public life, few could be better placed than the prince to understand the necessary and proper limitations on the role of a constitutional monarch.”
He added: “Should he be called to the throne, the prince of Wales will be inspired by the examples of his mother and grandfather, while drawing also on his own experience of a lifetime of service.”
The strongly worded letter to The Times, the newspaper that serialised journalist Catherine Mayer’s controversial biography Charles: The Heart Of A King, is the closest the prince could come to writing a response himself.
The move by Sir William, Charles’s most senior courtier, clearly shows how irritated the heir to the throne is by the claims made in the book.
Extracts published in The Times have questioned the prince’s suitability as king and claimed the Queen and palace aides fear Britain is not ready for his radical new style of monarchy.
In the letter Sir William says Prince Charles has “always preferred not to comment on matters which relate to a future whose date is unknown, and would arise only after the death of his mother”.
Sir William, principal private secretary to Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, concludes that if he becomes king the Prince “will seek to continue his service to this country and the other realms, to the Commonwealth and to the wider world”.
Mayer, an American journalist whose claims of close access to the prince have been forthrightly rejected, says in the book that Charles intends to be a campaigning monarch.
She says the Queen, who will be 89 in April, and her courtiers feel Britain is not ready for “shock of the new”.
Mayer, a Time magazine writer who met Charles while researching her biography and spoke to some of his closest aides, also claims Prince Philip is one of his son’s harshest critics and thinks him guilty of “selfish behaviour”.
Lawyers for the prince, 66, will scrutinise the book when it is published today after expressing concern the author used “artistic licence” over her claims about meetings with Charles.
His spokeswoman Kristina Kyriacou has said: “It is not an official book. The author did not have the access she claimed.”