May is for Monarchy. The May 19, 2018, royal wedding of England’s Prince Harry to American actress Meghan Markle is, of course, big news this month. So is the naming of the third child born last week to Kate Middleton and Prince William. The newborn, dubbed Louis Arthur Charles, is now fifth in line for the British throne, bumping his uncle. Prince Harry, into sixth place. Meanwhile, the Netflix historical drama, “The Crown,” remains among the “most binge-watched” shows on television.
Our regal fascination is rooted in history. Once the capital of a flourishing British colony, Portsmouth citizens used to walk up King Street (now Congress Street), worship at Queen Anne’s Chapel (now St. John’s) and guard the royal armory at Fort William and Mary (now Fort Constitution.) But Portsmouth has attracted few royal visitors since 1775. That’s when a Portsmouth mob drove our last royal governor and family–Sir John Wentworth, his wife Frances, and their infant son–out of provincial New Hampshire, never to return under penalty of death.
It’s a stretch, but since the American Revolution, Portsmouth can claim to have hosted two future English kings–sort of. The first Prince of Wales barely stopped here long enough to wave, and was 59 years old by the time of his coronation. The second Prince of Wales to stop here, at age 69, is still waiting. (UPDATE: King Charles III was crowned in 2022 at age 73.)
Once and future king
In 1860, after many requests, Canada finally got its first royal visitor. Queen Victoria, reluctantly, allowed her eldest son, Albert Edward, to make the dangerous ocean voyage. “Bertie,” as he was known, was initially a poor student and not on the best of terms with his mother, the Queen, who considered him frivolous and reckless. “I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder,” Victoria once wrote to Bertie’s older sister.
Victoria was “repulsed,” according to one report, by the thought of extending her son’s tour from Canada into the United States where the 18-year old heir apparent was warmly received. But the grueling schedule of appearances gave the prince headaches and he reportedly nodded off during dull ceremonies. He especially liked smoking cigars, drinking, and dancing with young women. In Boston, the future king met New England’s top literary lions: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.
America was on the brink of its five-year Civil War as Bertie left Boston on October 20, 1860, after four months on the road. According to a handwritten letter recently sold at auction, the train carrying the prince to Portland, Maine, paused briefly at the station in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Shoving his way through a dense crowd, the letter writer caught a glimpse of the future King Edward VII, a sight he never forgot. “What an excitement the little fellow made in this country,” the Portsmouth, NH spectator later wrote.
Even his mother had to admit that Albert Edward’s American tour was a diplomatic success. But when Victoria’s beloved husband Albert died the following year, she went into deep, prolonged mourning. The queen and her eldest son remained estranged. The Prince of Wales married in 1863, but the fashionable playboy reportedly engaged in at least 50 extramarital affairs. Then the longest reigning monarch in British history, Victoria died in 1901 after 63 years on the throne. Crowned King Edward VII, the playboy prince reigned for nine years and died in 1910.
Bonnie Prince Charles
On July 20, 1973 a Portsmouth Herald editorial headline pleaded, “Hopefully the Seacoast Will Give Prince Charles a Chance To Be Himself.” The city was all atwitter with news that the young Prince of Wales was to arrive aboard the HMS Minerva on August 13. British Navy officials hoped that the heir apparent “can be received as nearly as possible without fanfare.”
“Lt. Charles Windsor,” the newspaper explained, “is a chap who has to bear a lot of burdens, not the least of which is the fact that he can’t move around the way an ordinary 24-year-old bachelor would. You might say that he attracts a crowd. And why not? His mother is a bit famous in her own right, being Queen Elizabeth II of England.”
Prince Charles, the Herald noted, would be “the first royal personage ever to walk our streets.” Albert Edward, to be accurate, had passed through town on October 20, 1860, but never set foot on Portsmouth soil. Back then, the Navy battery had fired out a 21-gun salute as Bertie’s train crossed the “rickety trestle” of Old Portsmouth Bridge to Kittery and on to Portland for his departure back to England.
HMS MInerva fired a 21-gun salute upon arriving at Portsmouth Harbor in the summer of 1973. And the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard responded. The salute was merely ceremonial the newspaper took pains to point out. It would take place “no matter who was on board a visiting foreign naval vessel, and, after all, Prince Charles is just another of Minerva’s officers.”
A life in waiting
But he was not just another British naval officer. Archived photos show a perpetually smiling Prince Charles, outstanding in his crisp white officer’s uniform, being feted at Wentworth by the Sea in New Castle by hotel owners Margaret and James Smith. Accompanied by a bearded Arthur Brady, Mayor of Portsmouth, Charles also mingled with 300 invited guests at the Governor Goodwin Mansion at Strawbery Banke Museum. He attended church, observed a parade, dined quietly at the Matthew Marsh House on State Street, and was rumored to have tried surfing small waves at Hampton.
The royal visit dovetailed perfectly with the 350th anniversary celebration of the city’s founding in 1623. The fact that the original 1623 fishing settlement in Rye was quickly abandoned a few years later did not dampen the festivities in 1973. Prince Charles charmed them all.
“He came, they saw, he conquered,” Herald reporter John Whiteman wrote on August 17. Prince Charles “captured a piece of the New World that seemed only too happy to surrender itself for awhile.”
As with the young Prince Bertie more than a century earlier, Prince Charles’ charm offensive won the day. “If he ran for office tomorrow he’d scoop up a lot of votes,” one guest at the champagne reception exclaimed.
Another comparison is unavoidable. Albert Edward waited almost his entire life to become king. His mother, Queen Victoria, set a record as the longest-reigning British monarch. She served 63 years, seven months, and two days. That record was broken by Queen Elizabeth II, who occupied the throne for 70 years and 214 days.
Copyright 2018 by J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.
Chatting with the Dead 