Doctor Honoris Causa

His Royal Highness

The Prince of Wales
University of Bucharest

His Royal Highness

The Prince of Wales

2014

Doctor Honoris Causa

His Royal Highness

The Prince of Wales
Laudatio

Your Royal Highness,

Your very distant ancestors and ours, the Romans, used to mark
with a white stone all festive days (albo lapillo notare diem). Today is one of
those happy days when the Senate of Bucharest University is assembled to
award you an honorary degree.

The University of Bucharest, an offshoot and direct continuator of
The Princely Academy of St. Sabba established in 1694, received university
status in 1864, which means that the entire academic community will be
celebrating in mid-July of this year its 150th anniversary as a fully-fledged
higher education institution. The University takes enormous, justified pride
in your gracious acceptance of an honorary doctorate. In this you have been
preceded by King Carol II of Romania in 1938, His Majesty King Michael
of Romania (October 2012) and King Simeon II of Bulgaria (November
2012). Among the recipient Heads of State and Government were the
President of Indonesia, Sukarno (1960), the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile
Selassie (1964), the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1966), the
President of India, Shanker Dayal Sharma (1994, who, like yourself, Royal

Highness, was an alumnus of Trinity College Cambridge), the President of

the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel (1994), the President of France, Jacques
Chirac (1997), the President of Namibia, Sain Nujoma (1998), the President
of Turkey, Sleyman Demirel (1998), the President of Chile, Ricardo Lagos
Escobar (2004), the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (1996) and
the Premier of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker (2003).
The Prince of Wales, eldest son of The Queen and Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, was born at Buckingham Palace at 9.14 pm on 14th
November 1948.

A proclamation was posted on the Palace railings just before
midnight, announcing that Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth had been
safely delivered of a son. It was announced later that the baby Prince weighed
7lb 6oz.

On 15th December, Charles Philip Arthur George was christened in
the Music Room at Buckingham Palace, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr
Geoffrey Fisher.

The Princes mother was proclaimed Queen Elizabeth II at the age of
25, when her father, King George VI, died aged 56 on 6th February 1952. On
The Queens accession to the throne, Prince Charles as the Sovereigns eldest
son became heir apparent at the age of three.

The Prince, as Heir to The Throne, took on the traditional titles of
The Duke of Cornwall under a charter of King Edward III in 1337; and, in the
Scottish peerage, of Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord
of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

The Prince was four at his mothers Coronation, in Westminster Abbey
nd
on 2 June 1953. Many who watched the Coronation have vivid memories of
him seated between his widowed grandmother, now to be known as Queen
Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and his aunt, Princess Margaret.

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh decided that The Prince
should go to school rather than have a tutor at the Palace. The Prince started
at Hill House school in West London on 7th November 1956.

After 10 months, the young Prince became a boarder at Cheam
School, a preparatory school in Berkshire. In 1958 while The Prince was at
Cheam, The Queen created him The Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.
The Prince was nine-years-old.


In April 1962 The Prince began his first term at Gordonstoun, a
school near Elgin in Eastern Scotland which The Duke of Edinburgh had
attended.

The Prince of Wales spent two terms in 1966 as an exchange student
at Timbertop, a remote outpost of the Geelong Church of England Grammar
School in Melbourne, Australia.

When he returned to Gordonstoun for his final year, The Prince
of Wales was appointed school guardian (head boy). The Prince, who had
already passed six O Levels, also took A Levels and was awarded a grade
B in history and a C in French, together with a distinction in an optional
special history paper in July 1967.

The Prince went to Cambridge University in 1967 to read
archaeology and anthropology at Trinity College. He changed to history for
the second part of his degree, and in 1970 was awarded a 2:2 degree.

He was invested as Prince of Wales by The Queen on 1st July 1969
in a colourful ceremony at Caernarfon Castle. Before the investiture The
Prince had spent a term at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth,
learning to speak Welsh.

On 11th February 1970, His Royal Highness took his seat in the
House of Lords.

On 8th March 1971 The Prince flew himself to Royal Air Force
(RAF) Cranwell in Lincolnshire, to train as a jet pilot. At his own request,
The Prince had received flying instruction from the RAF during his second
year at Cambridge.

In September 1971 after the passing out parade at Cranwell, The
Prince embarked on a naval career, following in the footsteps of his father,
grandfather and both his great-grandfathers.

The six-week course at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, was
followed by service on the guided missile destroyer HMS Norfolk and two
frigates.

The Prince qualified as a helicopter pilot in 1974 before joining 845
Naval Air Squadron, which operated from the Commando carrier HMS
Hermes. On 9th February 1976, The Prince took command of the coastal
minehunter HMS Bronington for his last nine months in the Navy.

On 29th July 1981, The Prince of Wales married Lady Diana Spencer

in St Pauls Cathedral who became Her Royal Highness The Princess of

Wales.

The Princess was born on 1st July 1961, at Park House on The Queens
estate at Sandringham, Norfolk. She lived there until the death in 1975 of
her grandfather, the 7th Earl, when the family moved to the Spencer family
seat at Althorp House in Northamptonshire.

Lady Dianas father, then Viscount Althorp and later the eighth
Earl Spencer, had been an equerry to both George VI and The Queen. Her
maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a close friend and lady in
waiting to The Queen Mother.

The Prince and Princess of Wales had two sons: Prince William,
born on 21st June 1982; and Prince Harry, born on 15th September 1984.

From the time of their marriage, The Prince and Princess of Wales
went on overseas tours and carried out many engagements together in the
UK.

On 9th December 1992, The Prime Minister, John Major, announced
to the House of Commons that The Prince and Princess of Wales had agreed
to separate.

The marriage was dissolved on 28th August, 1996. The Princess
was still regarded as a member of the Royal Family. She continued to live
at Kensington Palace and to carry out her public work for a number of
charities.

When The Princess was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31st August
1997, The Prince of Wales flew to Paris with her two sisters to bring her
body back to London. The Princess lay in the Chapel Royal at St Jamess
Palace until the night before the funeral.

On the day of the funeral, The Prince of Wales accompanied his two
sons, aged 15 and 12 at the time, as they walked behind the coffin from The
Mall to Westminster Abbey. With them were The Duke of Edinburgh and
The Princesss brother, Earl Spencer.

The Prince of Wales asked the media to respect his sons privacy,
to allow them to lead a normal school life. In the following years, Princes
William and Harry, who are second and fourth in line to the throne,
accompanied their father on a limited number of official engagements in
the UK and abroad.


On 9th April 2005, The Prince of Wales and Mrs Parker Bowles were
married in a civil ceremony at the Guildhall, Windsor.

After the wedding, Mrs Parker Bowles became known as Her Royal
Highness The Duchess of Cornwall.

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall were joined
by around 800 guests at a Service of Prayer and Dedication at St Georges
Chapel, Windsor Castle.

The Service was followed by a reception at Windsor Castle hosted
by Her Majesty The Queen. It is intended that The Duchess of Cornwall
should use the title Her Royal Highness The Princess Consort when The
Prince of Wales accedes to The Throne.

The Duchess supports The Prince of Wales in his work. Through
the years, His Royal Highness developed a wide range of interests which
are today reflected in The Princes Charities, a group of not-for-profit
organisations of which The Prince of Wales is Patron or President.

The group is the largest multi-cause charitable enterprise in the
United Kingdom, raising over 100 million annually. The organisations are
active across a broad range of areas including education and young people,
environmental sustainability, the built environment, responsible business
and enterprise and international.

The charities reflect The Prince of Waless long-term and innovative
perspective, and seek to address areas of previously unmet need.

These interests are also reflected in the list of more than 400
organisations of which His Royal Highness is Patron or President.

The Princes interest in fields such as the built environment, global
sustainability, youth opportunity, education and faith have been elaborated
over many years in a large number of speeches and articles.

In 1998, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales paid the first of
his annual visits to Romania. The media reported the event as the first
visit by a Prince of Wales to this country. Well, they were wrong. A couple
of years later, I was able to give an unofficial academic denial in an article
published in book form by Humanitas Publishing House along with other
articles contributed by Romanian and British colleagues, dealing with the
inception of English studies in Romania and of Romanian studies in the
UK. The book, titled Mutual Understanding. 125 Years of Anglo-Romanian

Relations, was presented at a Symposium hosted by the British Library in

London on 12th October 2005, with the support of the Romanian Embassy.
The first ever visit to Romania by an heir apparent to the British Crown
took place in late October 1888. The highly distinguished visitor was
Edward, Prince of Wales and future king of Great Britain and Emperor
of India as Edward VII. He spent one day in Bucharest and several days
at Pele Castle in the Carpathians, the summer residence of King Carol I
and Queen Elizabeth, after which he departed by train to Gheorghieni, in
Transylvania, to meet Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary for a bear
hunting-party in the mountains.

It is known worldwide that His Royal Highness owns a few rural
properties in Transylvania, including one at Viscri, in Braov County.
Viscri (German Weisskirch) is almost twice as old as Bucharest, having
been settled shortly after 1162 by Saxon, Flemish, Luxembourger and
Wallon colonisers (called collectively alii Flandrenses) sent by King Gza II
of Hungary. The village, with its 12th century old fortified church, is one of
seven localities in Transylvania on the UNESCO World Heritage Site List.
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, a great lover of architecture (as
witnessed by his book A Vision of Britain: A Personal View of Architecture)
has set a personal example to the entire world of how old buildings can be
restored and conserved without spoiling the environment.

Recalling Poloniuss words Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet, Act
II, scene 2), I will conclude by saying that His Royal Highness has a magic
wand which he wields marvellously: he manages to be in Transylvania even
when he is in London. Exactly a fortnight ago, on 15th May, he attended at
No.1 Belgrave Square the Festival of Transylvania, a cultural event organized
jointly by the Romanian Embassy and the Romanian Cultural Institute in
London. The event was calculated to celebrate the natural beauties and the
old traditions of Transylvania as seen through the eyes of contemporary
British artists.

Since 1998, His Royal Highness has put Romania back on the map of
Europe, where she used to hold a place of honour in the concert of European
nations, especially in the times of Queen Marie, his great-great aunt. By
offering him an honorary degree, the University of Bucharest is honouring

10

itself. By accepting the Degree, His Royal Highness has implicitly

acknowledged his perfect awareness of our love and admiration for him.


Your Royal Highness,

As a token of recognition of your exceptional life and work
dedicated to the British race, the British Commonwealth of Nations
and the world at large, and epitomized in the motto Ich dien (I serve)
on your badge that fully entitle you to say, echoing the poet, Exegi
monumentum aere perennius, the Senatus Academicus and the Rector
Magnificus are justly proud to confer upon you the academic degree of
Doctor Honoris Causa. Dignus est intrare in nostrum doctum corpus.
Plaudite, cives!

Written and spoken on behalf of the University Senate by Professor

Emeritus Adrian Nicolescu, formally Vice-Rector in charge of doctorates and
research, this day of 31st May 2014.

11

Curriculum Vitae

His Royal Highness

The Prince of Wales
Biography

The Prince of Wales, eldest son of The Queen and Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, was born at Buckingham Palace at 9.14 pm on 14th
November 1948.

A proclamation was posted on the Palace railings just before
midnight, announcing that Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth had
been safely delivered of a son. It was announced later that the baby Prince
weighed 7lb 6oz.

On 15th December, Charles Philip Arthur George was christened in
the Music Room at Buckingham Palace, by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Dr Geoffrey Fisher.

The Princes mother was proclaimed Queen Elizabeth II at the age
of 25, when her father, King George VI, died aged 56 on 6th February 1952.
On The Queens accession to the throne, Prince Charles as the Sovereigns
eldest son became heir apparent at the age of three.

The Prince, as Heir to The Throne, took on the traditional titles of
The Duke of Cornwall under a charter of King Edward III in 1337; and, in
the Scottish peerage, of Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew,
Lord of the Isles, and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

The Prince was four at his mothers Coronation, in Westminster
Abbey on 2nd June 1953. Many who watched the Coronation have vivid
memories of him seated between his widowed grandmother, now to be

12

known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and his aunt, Princess
Margaret.

The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh decided that The Prince
should go to school rather than have a tutor at the Palace. The Prince
started at Hill House school in West London on 7th November 1956.

After 10 months, the young Prince became a boarder at Cheam
School, a preparatory school in Berkshire. In 1958 while The Prince
was at Cheam, The Queen created him The Prince of Wales and Earl of
Chester. The Prince was nine-years-old.

In April 1962 The Prince began his first term at Gordonstoun,
a school near Elgin in Eastern Scotland which The Duke of Edinburgh
had attended.

The Prince of Wales spent two terms in 1966 as an exchange
student at Timbertop, a remote outpost of the Geelong Church of
England Grammar School in Melbourne, Australia.

When he returned to Gordonstoun for his final year, The Prince
of Wales was appointed school guardian (head boy). The Prince, who
had already passed six O Levels, also took A Levels and was awarded a
grade B in history and a C in French, together with a distinction in an
optional special history paper in July 1967.

The Prince went to Cambridge University in 1967 to read
archaeology and anthropology at Trinity College. He changed to history
for the second part of his degree, and in 1970 was awarded a 2:2 degree.

He was invested as Prince of Wales by The Queen on 1st July
1969 in a colourful ceremony at Caernarfon Castle. Before the investiture
The Prince had spent a term at the University College of Wales at
Aberystwyth, learning to speak Welsh.

On 11th February 1970, His Royal Highness took his seat in the
House of Lords.

On 8th March 1971 The Prince flew himself to Royal Air Force
(RAF) Cranwell in Lincolnshire, to train as a jet pilot. At his own request,
The Prince had received flying instruction from the RAF during his
second year at Cambridge.

In September 1971 after the passing out parade at Cranwell,
The Prince embarked on a naval career, following in the footsteps of his

13

father, grandfather and both his great-grandfathers.

The six-week course at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, was
followed by service on the guided missile destroyer HMS Norfolk and
two frigates.

The Prince qualified as a helicopter pilot in 1974 before joining
845 Naval Air Squadron, which operated from the Commando carrier
HMS Hermes. On 9th February 1976, The Prince took command of the
coastal minehunter HMS Bronington for his last nine months in the
Navy.

On 29th July 1981, The Prince of Wales married Lady Diana
Spencer in St Pauls Cathedral who became Her Royal Highness The
Princess of Wales.

The Princess was born on 1st July 1961, at Park House on The
Queens estate at Sandringham, Norfolk. She lived there until the death
in 1975 of her grandfather, the 7th Earl, when the family moved to the
Spencer family seat at Althorp House in Northamptonshire.

Lady Dianas father, then Viscount Althorp and later the eighth
Earl Spencer, had been an equerry to both George VI and The Queen.
Her maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a close friend and
lady in waiting to The Queen Mother.

The Prince and Princess of Wales had two sons: Prince William,
born on 21st June 1982; and Prince Harry, born on 15th September 1984.

From the time of their marriage, The Prince and Princess of
Wales went on overseas tours and carried out many engagements
together in the UK.

On 9th December 1992, The Prime Minister, John Major,
announced to the House of Commons that The Prince and Princess of
Wales had agreed to separate.

The marriage was dissolved on 28th August, 1996. The Princess
was still regarded as a member of the Royal Family. She continued to live
at Kensington Palace and to carry out her public work for a number of
charities.

When The Princess was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31st
August 1997, The Prince of Wales flew to Paris with her two sisters to
bring her body back to London. The Princess lay in the Chapel Royal at

14

St Jamess Palace until the night before the funeral.

On the day of the funeral, The Prince of Wales accompanied his
two sons, aged 15 and 12 at the time, as they walked behind the coffin
from The Mall to Westminster Abbey. With them were The Duke of
Edinburgh and The Princesss brother, Earl Spencer.

The Prince of Wales asked the media to respect his sons privacy,
to allow them to lead a normal school life. In the following years, Princes
William and Harry, who are second and fourth in line to the throne,
accompanied their father on a limited number of official engagements in
the UK and abroad.

On 9th April 2005, The Prince of Wales and Mrs Parker Bowles
were married in a civil ceremony at the Guildhall, Windsor.

After the wedding, Mrs Parker Bowles became known as Her
Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall.

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall were joined
by around 800 guests at a Service of Prayer and Dedication at St Georges
Chapel, Windsor Castle.

The Service was followed by a reception at Windsor Castle hosted
by Her Majesty The Queen. It is intended that The Duchess of Cornwall
should use the title Her Royal Highness The Princess Consort when The
Prince of Wales accedes to The Throne.

The Duchess supports The Prince of Wales in his work. Through
the years, His Royal Highness developed a wide range of interests which
are today reflected in The Princes Charities, a group of not-for-profit
organisations of which The Prince of Wales is Patron or President.

The group is the largest multi-cause charitable enterprise in the
United Kingdom, raising over 100 million annually. The organisations
are active across a broad range of areas including education and young
people, environmental sustainability, the built environment, responsible
business and enterprise and international.

The charities reflect The Prince of Waless long-term and innovative
perspective, and seek to address areas of previously unmet need.

These interests are also reflected in the list of more than 400
organisations of which His Royal Highness is Patron or President.

The Princes interest in fields such as the built environment,

15

global sustainability, youth opportunity, education and faith have been

elaborated over many years in a large number of speeches and articles.

Education

On 10th May 1955, Buckingham Palace announced that The Prince
would go to school, rather than have a private tutor, as had previous Heirs
to The Throne.

The Prince, who had received private tuition in the Palace nursery
for 18 months from his governess Catherine Peebles, attended Hill House
School in West London full time from 28th January 1957.

On 14th August 1957, Buckingham Palace announced that The
Prince would attend Cheam, the preparatory school at Headley, near
Newbury, Berks, which had been attended by his father from 1930 to 1933.
The Prince began his first term on 23rd September 1957.

The school days began at 7.15 am with the rising bell, prayers were
at 7.45, breakfast was at 8 and lessons began at 9. After a 6 pm high tea,
bedtime for the younger boys was 6.45 pm.

During five years at Cheam, The Prince played cricket for the
First Eleven, joined in school games of football and rugby, and took
part in amateur dramatics. He was appointed Head Boy in his final year.
The Prince had started his time at Cheam as the eight-year-old Duke of
Cornwall. He left on 1st April 1962 as the 13-year-old Prince of Wales.

Buckingham Palace announced on 23rd January 1962, that His
Royal Highness The Prince of Wales would attend Gordonstoun, the
public school on the shores of the Moray Firth in Scotland. The Princes
father, The Duke of Edinburgh, had been among the first pupils when the
school was opened in 1934 by Dr Kurt Hahn.

Dr Hahn had developed a regime founded on belief in an
egalitarian society, with firm principles of human conduct: the strong
must be courteous to the weak, and service to others is more important
than self-service.

On 1st May 1962, The Prince was taken to Gordonstoun by The

16

Duke of Edinburgh, who piloted a Heron of the Queens Flight from

Heathrow to RAF Lossiemouth before the final drive to the school.

From February to July 1966, The Prince of Wales spent two terms
at Timbertop, a remote annexe of Geelong Church of England Grammar
School in Melbourne, Australia.

While attending Timbertop, The Prince joined in a school trip to
Papua New Guinea, led by his history tutor Michael Persse. After seeing
examples of the folk art of the Papuan people, The Prince expressed
concern in an essay that traditions there were being allowed to wither, a
theme he took up later in his life.

When The Prince returned to Gordonstoun for his final year, he
was made school guardian, or Head Boy and, after years of communal
living, was given his own study bedroom.

In March 1967 he played the Pirate King in a school production of
Gilbert and Sullivans Pirates of Penzance.

The Prince, the first Heir to The Throne to sit public examinations,
took his GCE O Levels at the age of 16, passing English language, English
literature, Latin, French and history and later mathematics.

He took his A Levels in July 1967, getting a B in history and a C in
French, also gaining a distinction in an optional special paper in history.

The Prince went on to university, rather than straight into the
Armed Forces, and in Autumn 1967 he arrived at Trinity College,
Cambridge. The Princes grandfather, King George VI, had studied
history, economics and civics for a year at the same college, from
October 1919.

The Prince chose to take a first year course in archaeology and
physical and social anthropology and arrived at Trinity College on 8th
October 1967. In March and April 1968, The Prince of Wales spent time
studying archaeological sites in France and taking part in excavations in
Jersey.

On 8th April 1968, it was announced that The Prince had decided
to change from archaeology and anthropology to history from the next
academic year starting in October.

In his first examination at Cambridge, the results of which were
published on 14th June 1968, The Prince was awarded a 2:1 in the first part

17

of the archaeology and anthropology exams.

In April 1969, The Prince of Wales left Cambridge to spend a term
at the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, where he studied Welsh
and the history of the Principality.

The Prince left the University College of Wales in June 1969,
a week before his Investiture as Prince of Wales by The Queen at
Caernarfon on 1st July.

As part of the social side of university life, The Prince joined
Trinitys drama group, the Dryden Society, in November 1968 and
appeared in two of the societys annual revues. In the 1970 revue, Quiet
Flows the Don, The Prince played a sports commentator, an antiques
expert and a weather forecaster and in another, he played the part of a
church padre in the societys production of Joe Ortons black comedy
Erpingham Camp.

On 10th March 1970, The Prince flew from Heathrow Airport to
visit New Zealand, Australia and Japan, returning on 15th April in time
for the start of his final term at Trinity. Other royal duties during The
Princes final year at Cambridge included attending the State Opening
of Parliament, being formally introduced into the House of Lords and
attending his first Privy Council.

On 12th May 1970, The Prince of Wales raised in public some
of his concerns about the environment and conservation, which were
to remain central to his thinking over the coming decades. In his debut
at a Cambridge Union debate, he spoke to the motion that This house
believes that technological advance threatens the individuality of man and
is becoming his master.

The Prince made it clear that he was not formally for or against
the motion. I am in a slightly difficult position, he said. He expressed
concern at the extent to which people had become creatures of technology,
and of the pollution which could be the result, and suggested there was
sometimes a need for the purpose of new developments to be questioned.

On 23rd June 1970, The Prince of Wales the first Heir to The
Throne ever to take a degree was awarded a 2:2.

On 2nd August 1975, His Royal Highness, piloting a Royal Air
Force helicopter, returned to Cambridge to receive his MA.

18

Military Career

On 16th June 2012, Her Majesty The Queen appointed The Prince
of Wales honorary five-star rank in all three services. The appointment
recognises the dedicated support of Hir Royal Highness to The Queen,
in her role as Commander-in-Chief.

The Prince of Wales is Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal and
Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

His Royal Highness began his career in the Armed Services in
March 1971, when he started a four-month attachment with the Royal
Air Force at Cranwell, Lincolnshire.

The Prince had already gained his private pilots licence, and
flew himself to Cranwell on 8th March, in a twin-engined Basset of The
Queens Flight, to start advanced training to qualify as a jet pilot.

Flight Lieutenant The Prince of Wales was awarded his RAF
wings at Cranwell on 20th August 1971.

On 15th September, The Prince joined the Royal Naval College,
Dartmouth, under the graduate entry scheme, as Acting Sub-Lieutenant.
The Duke of Edinburgh, and his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, had
both been at Dartmouth.

Nearly two months later, The Prince flew in a troop-carrying
RAF Britannia to join the destroyer HMS Norfolk at Gibraltar. While
training for his bridge watch-keeping certificate, The Prince attended a
one-day course in escaping from a submarine, at HMS Dolphin, Gosport.
This included an exercise during which he was released from a chamber
100 ft below the surface of a water tank. In February 1972, The Prince
attended a one-day course in the submarine HMS Churchill.

During the next two and a half years, The Prince attended a fourmonth course at Portsmouth and served on four more ships. A 1974
Pacific voyage on the frigate HMS Jupiter included calls at Singapore, New
Zealand, Tonga, Western Samoa, Honolulu, San Francisco, Acapulco
and Bermuda. On 1st May 1973, The Prince of Wales was promoted to
Acting Lieutenant.

On 2nd September 1974, The Prince joined the Royal Naval Air
Station Yeovilton for helicopter flying training, before being assigned to

19

845 Naval Air Squadron as a pilot on board the commando carrier HMS
Hermes.

Following a lieutenants course at the Royal Naval College,
Greenwich, The Prince was given command of his own ship, the
minehunter HMS Bronington, for the final ten months of his active
service in the Royal Navy, ending on 15th December 1976.

The following January he was promoted to the rank of
Commander. He was promoted again, on his 40th birthday in 1988, to
Captain in the Royal Navy and Group Captain in the Royal Air Force.

On 14th November 1998, the Ministry of Defence announced
that The Prince of Wales had been promoted to 2-star Rank in all
three Services of the Armed Forces to coincide with his 50th birthday.

His Royal Highness was again promoted in all three Services on
th
his 54 birthday in 2002, becoming Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy, Air
Marshal in the Royal Air Force and Lieutenant General in the Army.

In 2006, The Prince was promoted to Admiral in the Royal Navy,
General in the Army and Air Chief Marshal in the Royal Air Force.

The Prince of Wales holds honorary rank and appointments in
many branches and regiments of the Armed Services.

On being appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the Parachute Regiment,
a few months before he was 30, The Prince asked to take part in the
parachute training course.

The Prince felt he could not look them in the eye or wear the
Parachute Regiments famous beret and wings badge unless he had done
the course, he told his biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, 15 years later.

I felt I should lead from the front or at least be able to do some of
the things that one expects others to do for the country, said The Prince.

By the time he left in 1977, His Royal Highness had completed
more than five years active service in the Royal Navy.

By joining The Royal Navy, His Royal Highness was following
in the footsteps of his father, The Duke of Edinburgh, grandfather, King
George VI and two great-grandfathers. The Prince joined the Royal
Naval College, Dartmouth, in September 1971 and nearly two months
later left to join his first ship.

20

The Romanian legacy

in the vision of His
Royal Highness The
Prince of Wales

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has a long-standing
interest in Romania and has visited the country regularly since his first
visit in 1998.

On his first visit to Transylvania, The Prince was struck by the
legacy of this area. In 2006, The Prince bought and renovated two houses
in rural Romania to help protect the unique way of life, which has existed
for hundreds of years, through the promotion of sustainable tourism.

He has said that he was particularly moved by the plight of
the remarkable fortified Saxon villages in Transylvania, that were built
centuries ago by German settlers, who were encouraged to go there to help
withstand Tartar and Turkish invasions. Sadly, due to mass migration,
many of these villages have ageing populations and are in decline.

In addition, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales is a
passionate believer that the unique landscape of Romania is not only of
global importance but could, if managed in a sensitive and integrated
way, make a substantial contribution to the countrys economic growth.

21

University of Bucharest
Virtute et Sapientia
3646 Mihail Koglniceanu Bvd.,
Bucharest, Romania
Phone: +4021 307 73 00
Fax: +4021 313 17 60