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LONDON — He’ll have to put a sock in it now.
Shush up about all the things that mattered to him as the Prince of Wales but on which he’s allowed to make no polemical comment as King Charles III.
With the beginning of the Carolean era — a term that originates from Carolus, the Latin version of Charles, most recently used to describe the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), son of Charles I, who was beheaded for treason — the new sovereign will have to set aside issues that have long consumed him, including those which, once considered eccentric, are now entirely in vogue: the environment, climate change, organic agriculture, sustainable development, horror over contemporary architecture.
Ceaselessly Charles has tilted at the windmill of the corrupting influence of modernity. Year after year he’s sent off letters to political ministers — up to some 1,500 per annum — written in longhand, known as “black spider memos,” decrying this and that and are inherently political. That was barely tolerable in an heir — plenty of huffiness from recipients — entirely unacceptable in a constitutional monarch who is compelled to remain staunchly apolitical.
Where once he may have been humoured — more often ridiculed, especially in establishment media — little latitude will henceforth be afforded an enthroned Charles, unless he figures out a refitted way to pull off this gig without pulling down the whole royal construct. The rules are pretty clear, though, for hereditary monarchy, British style. And surely Charles, groomed to the Crown since he was three years old, knows this better than anyone.
He, with his endlessly spun opinions shared in countless opinions and crusades formally supported — starkly different from the social causes, some quite edgy, promoted by his discarded first wife, Diana — watched his mother, Elizabeth II, toe this line for seven decades. Nobody actually knows what the Queen thought about anything, except on the extremely rare occasions when she deftly and not so subtly made her government of the day aware: deep opposition to apartheid in South Africa and an aversion to Zimbabwe’s strong-arm president Robert Mugabe. Stripped him of his honorary knighthood in 2008, did Elizabeth, as a “mark of revulsion” at his human rights abuses and “abject disgust” for democracy over which Mugabe presided, as the British Foreign Office put it.
The public, particularly Charles’ younger subjects, may yearn for a more progressive and activist King, to boost his relevance, but that’s just not on. Although Charles might still find a means to harmonize kinghood and personal principles whilst cleaving to constitutional law. That would take Machiavellian cunning.
At 73, Charles is no longer the callow Prince of yore who, in his authorized biography, whinged about the distant parenting of his mother and father while he was growing up, a domestic domain — the how-to — that Elizabeth largely acceded to her husband, Prince Philip, as her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, did to the Teutonic strictness of Prince Albert.
A wiser Charles, ripened by his own challenges with the skittish Diana and, more recently, the schism that opened up with younger son Prince Harry bolting the family, quitting The Firm — steered to revolt by his American wife, the former Meghan Markle (though still pimping their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex) — must have long buried his resentments. Certainly Charles was exquisitely and poignantly venerating of his mother — “my darling mama” — in his first public remarks to the nation Friday evening.
On Saturday morning, when Charles was formally proclaimed monarch by the Accession Council, the ceremony televised for the first time, maintained that affecting tone. “It is my most sorrowful duty to announce to you the death of my beloved mother, the Queen,” he told the privy council, lords and politicians, present and former prime ministers, religious luminaries, inside the scarlet-damasked State Apartments of St. James Palace, oldest royal residence in London. “I know how deeply you, the entire nation, and I think I may say the whole world, sympathize with me in the irreparable loss we’ve all suffered. It is the greatest consolation to me to know of the sympathy expressed by so many to my sister and brothers, and that such overwhelming affection and support should be extended to our family in our loss.”
Adding: “My mother gave an example of lifelong love and of selfless service. My mother’s reign was unequalled in its duration, its dedication and its devotion. Even as we grieve, we give thanks for this most faithful life.”
The King made clear his deep awareness of the duties and “heavy responsibilities” of sovereignty, “which have now passed to me.”
“In picking up these responsibilities, I shall strive to follow the inspiring example I have been set in upholding constitutional government and to seek the peace, harmony and prosperity of the peoples of these islands, and of the Commonwealth realms and territories around the world.”
That’s us too, Canada.
It was both heraldic and stirring, even primeval, this arcane ritual, swathed in regalia and pageant, a tableau of tradition that, probably, the United Kingdom had even forgotten it had, 70 years passing since the procedure last unfolded. Charles, of course, became King the instant his mother breathed her last — continuity of monarchy, which is the beating heart of the matter.
The King signed a declaration and oath before the assembled: Charles R, Charles Rex. Prince William — pronounced as Prince of Wales by his father the previous evening — in morning suit, signed as witnesses, as did Camilla, Queen Consort, the same title held by Charles’ late grandmother, the Queen Mum.
Is it churlish to recall that palace functionaries had avowed, before Charles’ second marriage 17 years ago, that Camilla would never be referred to as Queen, that she would most likely be invested as “Princess Consort?” And how much faith should be placed in the vows Charles makes now when he so infamously broke his marital vows to Diana during their turbulent marriage. Although, to be fair, she did the same.
Everything we’re supposed to erase from memory in the spirit of reconciliation, Diana — who would have been Queen — barely a footnote these days, a quarter-century after death.
The placard-sized document is a ceremony that dates back centuries, though never like this, combining the modern with the ancient, attendees recording the event on their smartphones, no different than tourists videotaping happenings not far distant outside Buckingham Palace, where crowds continued to grow and the carpet of bouquets expanding around the wrought iron gates.
Afterwards, the principal proclamation — “by consent of tongue and heart” — was read aloud by the garter king of arms from the balcony of St. James, to a public crowd gathered below in Friary Court, followed by thundering gun salutes at the palace, at Hyde Park, at the Tower of London.
Those present then sang the national anthem, God Save the King — it stills rolls awkwardly off the tongue — and ceremonial troops gave three cheers for the new sovereign. From St. James, a procession walked through quietly solemn streets to the Royal Exchange for a second proclamation, with yet another to follow in Scotland on Sunday, then moving throughout the U.K.
Nobody does pomp and circumstance and ritual like the British.
There was reconciliation in the air as well at Windsor where, to the surprise of everyone, William and Kate and Harry and Meghan emerged through the castle gates, proceeding as a foursome to view the floral arrangements and go walkabout in the crowd. It was the first time the quartet had been seen together since before the Sussexes picked up their dolls and dishes and decamped to California, via British Columbia.
Meghan, several commentators observed, looked rather anxious, perhaps fearing she might be the target of boos from a citizenry that hasn’t forgiven her for the breach between brothers and the pain Harry’s departure caused the Queen. There wasn’t any such rudeness.
It has not been explained when or how this rapprochement came about, though Charles, in Friday’s speech, had made notable reference to love for Harry and Meghan. But death of a family member, a beloved grandmother, often heals festering wounds among kinfolk. It’s a pity that Elizabeth didn’t live to see it. Nor did Harry, as reported, arrive at Balmoral in time to see his grandmother before she died.
From Sunday to the state funeral at Westminster Abbey a week Monday, the narrative will return to Queen Elizabeth. But Saturday was quite profoundly about Charles.
As King Charles, he will have to leave the earlier Charles — of salad days and adult scandal, of dilettantism and hubris — behind.
He may never be adored, as was his mother. But he can be admired and respected, as Good King Charlie, by the grace of his own honour.
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