In Pictures: The Prince of Wales’s 1969 investiture
The ceremony was organised by the then Earl of Snowdon, who was married to the Queen’s sister Princess Margaret.
Fifty years ago, the Prince of Wales was invested with his title on July 1 in 1969.
The ceremony, watched by a television audience of 19 million people in the UK, and millions more worldwide, was two years in the planning.
From April of that year, he spent nine weeks at the University of Aberystwyth learning Welsh.
It showed day-to-day family life, from the Duke of Edinburgh frying sausages on a barbecue to the Queen sitting at the breakfast table, as well as preparations for the investiture.
Images were also taken in 1969 of Charles go-karting with his five-year-old brother Prince Edward, and slicing a loaf of bread in his student kitchen at Trinity College, Cambridge University.
There were various visits to Wales for the prince including a walk and a picnic in Snowdonia after chairing a countryside committee meeting at Bangor University – a month before his big day.
The central feature was a low, simple, circular dais made of Welsh slate, below a modern perspex canopy, with three contemporary backless thrones for the Queen, Charles and the Duke of Edinburgh, and distinctive vermilion red investiture chairs for guests.
The sword was a symbol of justice, the coronet a token of rank, the ring a token of duty and the rod a symbol of government.
The rod, ring and sword regalia were the same used by the future King Edward VIII at his Prince of Wales investiture in 1911, while the gold coronet was newly created.
