A Kansas City Philanthropist in King Charles's Court
Julia Irene Kauffman remembers King Charles III's coronation and opens up about her longtime support of his charities as well as their special friendship
I first heard of Julia Irene Kauffman in 2008 from the late Robert Higdon, who was then the executive director of the Prince of Wales Foundation based in Washington, DC. His role since setting up the foundation in 1997 had been to attract wealthy donors from the United States, Europe, and Asia to support Prince Charles’s wide-ranging charitable initiatives. For $20,000 per couple, these benefactors were treated to lavish dinners each spring and fall hosted by Charles at royal palaces and castles in England and Scotland.
I was intrigued by Julia Irene Kauffman because she developed a close relationship with Charles despite rarely attending those extravagant dinners. How was it that she regularly met with the King over private lunches or dinners at his homes? She had inherited a fortune from her billionaire stepfather, Ewing M. Kauffman, and was a generous supporter of Charles’s projects for more than two decades. But her closeness to Charles has less to do with how much she gave than with the targets of her giving. Julia Irene Kauffman concentrated her support on the two charities that may be closest to Charles’s heart: The Castle of Mey on the northern Scottish coast—formerly the home of his beloved grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother—and Dumfries House, the run-down eighteenth-century mansion in southwest Scotland that he rescued, preserved, and restored as a Palladian jewel filled with exquisite furnishings and artwork while transforming the rest of the estate into a hub for education and vocational training.
My interest in Julia Irene Kauffman deepened when I learned that among the scores of Charles’s American patrons, she was one of a select few invited to attend his coronation in Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023. Not only was she in the congregation of some 2,200 people, but she also had a prime seat behind one of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s oldest friends, the 13th Earl of Airlie, and his wife Virginia, the Countess of Airlie, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen for more than fifty years.
A mutual friend put me in touch with Julia Irene, and last week she and I had a long telephone conversation in which she offered a number of private glimpses of Charles, including the King’s nickname for her, his unusual lunchtime choices, the new decor in Balmoral Castle, and what he and Camilla watch on television together. She is a contemporary of the seventy-five-year-old King, and it’s easy to see why her down-to-earth manner and ready laugh appeal to him.
“I learned all my curtseying and all my manners”
Julia Irene was born in Canada, where she was privately educated and accustomed to singing “God Save the Queen.” “I went to a Scottish Presbyterian school in Toronto, and I wore kilts and was piped to class every day,” she told me. Charles III “must for some reason feel very comfortable with me,” she said. “I suppose it’s because as a child I learned all my curtseying and all my manners. They say the royal family doesn’t think about that, but it has to occur to them.”
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