The Man Who Is King

What for a King will Charles III make?

The new king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as the leader of the union, has to respect the role of the government and find new ways to promote his causes - King Charles III is well known and greatly renowned for his environmentalist views and his expertise in urban planning - without getting involved into politics.  He also has to pacify the nationalists stirrings of the Scots and the Welsh as those two peoples seek independence for their homelands, even as he promises a sense of stability and continuity.  His mother did all of that very well; Charles has yet to prove he can do that.  

Charles needs to reassure the British people that he can serve as a symbol of unity and a common identity at a time when Britons feel less sure of themselves than they did even in the lowest ebbs of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.  The British economy is foundering, Prime Minister Liz Truss is distrusted by half the electorate, and the populace is still trying to figure out what it means to be British in a period after Brexit and during growing discontent with the whole idea of a monarchy - not just in Britain itself but in that free association of mostly ex-British colonies with their onetime mother country known as the Commonwealth, which Charles now heads. Meant to promote peace and freedom among its members and maintain strong ties with Great Britain, the Commonwealth shows some signs of fracture, most notably with many countries wanting to sever their direct ties to the Crown.  Barbados became a republic and ended the role of the British monarch as its head of state, and other countries like Jamaica and Australia are looking into the idea.  (Canada will likely remain a realm of the Crown, which makes sense - the only model Canadians have for a republic is us.)  Not to put too fine a point on it, but Charles has to make Britain feel whole again.   

As king, Charles III is going to have to do more to keep the monarchy together than just cut ribbons and open Parliament.  He does have the skills to serve the United Kingdom the way his mother did - he has strong ties to Scotland, he respects the traditions of the state, and he is probably more knowledgeable about how society works than any monarch who preceded him except for Elizabeth II herself.  At the least, no one should expect the 73-year-old Charles to command the same reverence that his mother did; Elizabeth was an ideal matriarch who connected with her subjects with aplomb and was well-liked.  At the most, Charles' age will allow the royal family to take a breather and take stock of itself as it prepares for the immediate and extended future.  For a constitutional monarch's assumption of the throne at an advanced age after a predecessor's long reign produces the same conditions the Vatican seeks in choosing a pope - the pope essentially being a priest-king - who is old and is not likely to last too long after a predecessor's very long pontificate.   He is to be a caretaker leader who keeps his realm going long enough before a younger successor can rejuvenate it with vigor.  The best example of this is the accession of King George V in 1910 following the sedate period of the nineteen zeroes - known as the Edwardian era in honor of George's father, King Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910.  Edward had been a caretaker king after his mother Victoria's long reign.

Britons may already be looking past the new Carolean age and to the Gulielean era - that of the future king, Prince William.

This 1998 painting of members of the British royal family surrounding the Queen Mother - with William strategically positioned to loom large over other family members, especially his father - pretty much sums things up.