GREAT BRITAIN: The Royal Road

One day last week, nine-year-old Prince Charles of England accidentally tripped over a classmate’s toes in a soccer match at Cheam School outside of London. Cried the injured party: “Hey, Fatty, get off my foot!” A husky lad, His Royal Highness squared off and began throwing punches. It was all rather humiliating; but a few days later Charles got a name that sounded a good deal nicer than mean old Fatty.

In a tape-recorded message. Queen Elizabeth II, who was bedded in London with a sinus infection, announced to wildly cheering crowds at the Empire Games’ final ceremony in Cardiff, Wales that Charles was getting the title which Edward I first bestowed upon his own son in 1301. “I intend,” said the Queen, “to create my son Prince of Wales today. When he is grown up, I will present him to you at Caernarvon.” In addition to being Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Charles Philip Arthur George can also look forward to being Earl of Chester and Knight of the Garter. The last Englishman to hold such honors: the former Edward VIII, now Duke of Windsor, whose classmates at the Royal Naval College at Osborne would on occasion ignominiously guillotine him in a partly opened window —in stern reminder of the fate of Charlie I, a King who stepped on too many toes.