Return of the Prince

In a rare BBC television interview recently, Charles was filmed at his farm in Gloucestershire in southwest England looking every bit the county gent petting pigs and driving a muddy Land Rover. He spoke about his worry about bird flu and the effects it might have on poultry farmers, particularly those who follow his organic, free-range mantra.

"I feel so deeply for the poor old poultry farmers in this country," the prince lamented. "So many people you see have struggled away to get their chickens outside for all the right reasons. Then to find suddenly that they might have to shut them all up, I mean it's very, very worrying. . . . You can only pray."

He was even more passionate about climate change, calling it the "greatest challenge to face man" and urging world leaders to treat it with a "far greater degree of priority" -- a statement sure to endear him to the White House, which rates climate change roughly on par with Mr. Bean as a threat to mankind.

The Charlesian calm seems to trace to the wedding day. Before then, the storyline in the British press rarely varied: Charles was a bad husband and a lousy father -- a fruitcake who talks to trees. Camilla was a frumpy home-wrecker. The queen disapproved of the whole thing.

Then they married. The queen gave a warm toast -- they laughed, they cried. And except for a bit of cattiness about Camilla's wedding day hat (which did, to be honest, look a bit like a duck blind), the tone of public discourse changed. A truce seemed to be declared in the press, and the British public seemed to accept the idea of a widower and a divorcee finding each other in middle age and just getting on with it. Nobody forgot Diana, but they seemed willing to let Charles move on, as long as he does so quietly.

"The wedding acted as a soothing balm on the public. The tide turned because of the innate decency of people. I think they see that she's decent and he's happy," Dimbleby said. "The British public welcome their marriage, but they don't want it or her to be, as it were, in their face."

Since the wedding, Charles has made few appearances not related to the network of charities he runs, which raised more than $180 million last year. Often mocked for what many here see as his emphasis on goofy New Age pursuits, Charles has maintained a steady and serious advocacy for education, organic farming, the environment and more human-scale urban development -- which are reflected in his agenda in the United States. The trip's 21 public engagements include visits to organic farms in Marin County, north of San Francisco, and the National Building Museum in Washington.

It will be the prince's first official visit to the United States since 1994, although he has been back briefly in a personal capacity three times, most recently for the June 2004 funeral of Ronald Reagan. Harverson said the prince makes two official overseas trips a year and the destinations are chosen by the Foreign Office, depending on where they feel Charles can best serve British interests.

Harverson said the U.S. trip was originally scheduled for the fall of 2001 but was postponed because of the 9/11 terror attacks. He said the Iraq war, in which the United States and Britain are the key players, had nothing to do with timing of the prince's visit. "This is simply to reinforce the especially close relationship between the two nations and essentially fly the flag of Britain in America," Harverson said. There is more than a little speculation here that Charles is also trying to woo back anglophile U.S. tourists who still may be spooked by last summer's bomb attacks in London.

The prince and the duchess will meet President Bush and the first lady at the White House twice on Wednesday, first for a private family lunch and then the black-tie dinner -- a rare double-header. In a remarkable reversal, the prince known for raging self-doubt suddenly finds himself far more comfortable in his skin than a president whose famously unwavering self-assurance seems suddenly in doubt in Washington's current political atmosphere, which resembles the inside of an industrial wood-chipper.

Bush and Windsor (Charles's surname -- although his children's last name is officially Wales) have much in common. They were born two years apart, both into families of great privilege with strong-minded mothers, boys who in their youth didn't always seem sure they wanted the keys to the manor. They have both endured relentless poundings from the media. But there the similarities end between the embattled Texas rancher and the English country squire who has never seemed more relaxed.

John Lloyd, editor of the Financial Times magazine, said Charles and Camilla are trying to adjust the monarchy's role in public life to keep it relevant but protect it from too much unwanted attention.

By the time Charles becomes king, Lloyd said, most Britons will have no firsthand memory of the royal family's stoic leadership during the bombings of London in World War II. He said Charles won't have the bedrock support of that grateful generation, and he is "too odd and too eccentric to really count on much affection" from younger people.

"He will shift down several gears and try to keep the monarchy at a low key," Lloyd said. "And Camilla is very sensible; she knows the score."

Graham Smith of Republic, a group that wants to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state, said the British public is increasingly ambivalent about the monarchy. "Fifty years ago, we were brought up to believe that we should love and honor the royal family," he said. "They've now been downgraded to nothing more than just another celebrity family. They're just ordinary people now, nothing special. And people are asking why they should be in such a privileged position."

Dimbleby said privilege comes at a cost, including high-profile official trips to a nation still obsessed with Diana, where the new Duchess of Cornwall will be endlessly televised, scrutinized and measured against a memory.

"She's as tough as old boots," Dimbleby said. "She can take this."