YOU King Charles III - Commemorative edition
THE KING HE WILL BE
Charles doesn’t have that special brand of magic his mother had but he’s determined to make his mark in a challenging world
KING Charles III has a hard act to follow. When his mother acceded to the throne, she was just 25, an almost ethereal beauty with an hourglass figure and the magnetism of a movie star.
She reigned for 70 years, overseeing some of the most momentous changes and events in history and presiding over family disintegrations and dramas with steely astuteness and stiff-upper-lip stoicism.
She was The Firm’s real rock star, the one who kept the mystery and magic of the royal family alive, and when she died some of the sheen faded too.
Queen Elizabeth may have had tiny size four feet, but she’s left big shoes to fill. And now it’s up to the man who waited in the wings for a record seven decades to make his mark on history.
In many ways, Charles has been more fortunate than his mother, who was so young when she became monarch she was robbed of the chance of living any kind of life of her own.
The king, on the other hand, has done plenty. He went to university. He had strings of gorgeous young lovers. He had time to indulge passions such as the environment, farming and architecture. He was even permitted to divorce and marry his mistress.
But Charles has never had his mother’s star quality – in fact, after Diana’s death he was so deeply unpopular many hoped he’d be overlooked and the crown passed to his son William instead.
Yet becoming king was Charles’ birthright and “with the fullness of time”, as his mother was wont to say, he’d become monarch. Now here he is – and the figure he cuts is vastly different to the vision his young mother was at her coronation.
CHARLES has been mocked for talking to trees and called a tweedy radical and a red-cheeked landowner who looks like he’s stepped out of an 18th century painting. Which may be harsh, but the 74-yearold king is a public figure – and that means he’s fair game and has to take it on the chin.
But the king has his supporters too. Opinion polls have shown many people in the UK are positive about their new monarch and believe he will do a good job.
Things have moved on a lot since Diana died. Charles still lags behind William and Kate in the popularity stakes, but he’s earned respect and admiration as a hard-working individual with his heart in the right place and a desire to keep the monarchy relevant.
The king, like all of us, has inherited bits of both his parents. Philip was tough and Charles, while far more sensitive and intuitive than his father ever was, can be tough too. The queen was fair and Charles is fair too.
He’s also spent years being groomed for this role and is determined not to make a hash of it.
“He knows his time is limited,” a palace insider says. “He’s not a young man and he wants to put systems in place that make sense and are sustainable.”
Today’s world is very different to the one in 1953 when the queen was coronated.
The necessity of the monarchy is being debated more than ever, thanks to the internet generation who don’t hesitate to question and criticise.
People are asking why, at a time when the difference between the haves and have-nots is starker than ever, the UK has a family living in extreme wealth and enjoying extraordinary privileges because tradition dictates it.
Charles is well aware of this, which is why he hit the ground running almost as soon as the queen died.
For starters, he made it clear that he wanted his coronation – Operation Golden Orb, as the planning of the occasion is called – to be a more pared-down, mindful affair.
“It’s still going to be everything you’d expect from a coronation,” Jennie Bond, the BBC’s former royal correspondent says. “Except more inclusive, relevant and less archaic.”
The king, conscious of the cost of living crisis, said he wanted 2 000 people at his coronation, unlike the 8 000 who squeezed into Westminster Abbey to watch his mother be crowned. The queen’s coronation service ran for over three hours; Charles’ would be just an hour. There were questions in the run-up to the occasion about whether a coronation was necessary at all. After all, it’s just a symbolic occasion – Charles is king whether he’s anointed with holy oils and receives the St Edward’s Crown or not.
The estimated cost of the coronation is £150 million (R3,4 billion), which
would be a fortune even if the UK was rolling in cash. But polls showed the majority of the British people wanted an official event to celebrate the country’s rich and unique past.
“It’s a huge milestone in the history of the UK and the Commonwealth,” Michael Donelan, the UK’s culture secretary says.
The three-day festivities to herald the coronation would bring people together, he added. “It will celebrate the mixture of tradition, modernity and the community that makes our country great.”
Events like the coronation also do a great deal to shore up the popularity of the monarchy, Bond says.
“There will be millions of people watching the pageantry, so a big cheer goes up for the monarchy on these occasions.”
BUT the coronation is about more than pomp and circumstance, street parties and tea towels with Charles and Camilla’s face on them. It’s also a symbol of unity for the royal family, which has been fraught with tension following Prince Harry and Meghan’s attacks and Prince Andrew’s disgrace.
William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, will be front and centre along with Camilla, says royal expert Katie Nicholl. “We’re going to see the projection of the new fab four, which is really going to define Charles’ reign.”
As the future king and queen, William and Kate will rise in stature, take on more responsibility and support the king as he gets stuck into his role.
Charles is understood to consult his oldest son in most matters – and that includes the Harry and Andrew problems.
Two months before the coronation, news emerged the king had made some major decisions to “put to bed” some of the issues plaguing The Firm.
That included the eviction of the Sussexes from Frogmore Cottage, the home in the grounds of Windsor Castle they were gifted by the queen.
“Charles wanted to act decisively and quickly ahead of his coronation,” an insider told The Sun. “He feels the situation with Harry and Meghan has been dragging on far too long.”
Yet Charles isn’t cutting his son off without somewhere to stay in the UK: he’s believed to be considering offering the Sussexes Prince Andrew’s old apartment in Buckingham Palace when they’re in the country.
“The king isn’t a bad man,” an insider told The Mail on Sunday. “He has no wish to deprive the Sussexes of a base in England.”
But Charles has made his point. He may miss his son and regret not seeing his grandchildren, but he’s very much in charge.
He’s cracking the whip when it comes to Andrew too. When the queen was alive, she protected Andrew, long believed to have been her favourite son, and insisted on keeping him in the royal fold.
But the duke, cast out from public life due to his involvement with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the fallout that continues to haunt him, no longer has his mother to hide behind.
The king is a different kettle of fish – and Andrew has gone from the frying pan into the fire. Charles has told his brother he has to move out of the Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park, which he’s lived in for more than 20 years. The king is reportedly slashing his brother’s annual allowance of £250 000 (R5,5m) in a bid to cut costs. Andrew had been receiving money from the Duchy of Lancaster, the private estate of the monarch, thanks to the generosity of his late mother.
However, Charles told Andrew his life as a senior royal was over, a palace source says. “He said to Andrew, ‘You have to accept this’.”
The king has been kinder to his youngest brother, Edward, and made him Duke of Edinburgh – the title held by their late father – to mark his 59th birthday.
Edward and his wife, Sophie, the new Duchess of Edinburgh, had been unfailingly supportive of the queen over the years and are widely respected for their hard work and lack of drama. And the king rewarded them for it.
It’s typical of Charles’ style, a royal insider says.
“He wants people to work for their rights and privileges and not simply feel entitled to them.”
Charles has grown into himself over the years and knows what he wants, Camilla said in a TV interview to celebrate her husband’s 70th birthday.
“He’s pretty impatient. He wants things done by yesterday.”
‘The king wants to make his mark and put systems in place that make sense and are sustainable’