A little over 12 months ago, Charles finally inherited the top job. From Brecon to Bordeaux, the Castle of Mey to the coronation, here’s how the new king and queen have got on.
If you were a courtier looking back over the past six months since the coronation, you would point to the successful state visits and the walkabouts and the cries of vive le roi on the streets of Paris. You would tell me that King Charles III is a cost-cutting monarch in a cost-of-living crisis, a man who switches off lights and turns down the thermostat at Buckingham Palace.
If you were not a courtier, and feeling treasonous, you might remember that back in June we were given some proof of Charles’s long-stated desire to cut costs and slim down the monarchy. “The King has given up a home in Wales, as he cuts the costs of his residences,” I read at the time, “and is attempting to ‘rein in’ his household bills.” In future, a courtier said piously, when in Wales the king will help out the local economy by staying in a hotel. And we have to concede that nothing says “we’re all in this together” like vacating a house in Wales you rarely visit and turning down the heating in a palace you never stay at. The poor king has barely half a dozen homes to call his own any more, not counting the ones in Romania. Vive le roi!
Joking apart, it’s no job for a pensioner. Charles turned 75 in November. Camilla turned 76 in July. Granted, neither of them has to cook dinner when they get home. But a coronation in the rain is not for the fainthearted or vaguely arthritic, and in the build-up there was a lot of “nobody mention Californians or the Koh-i-Noor” to contend with. On the day, though, few could be uncheered by Prince Harry’s placement behind Princess Anne’s hat.
The new king barely had time to change out of his coronation mufti before the daily tedium of monarchy crowded in: arriving high commissioners and departing ambassadors; visiting tapestries in Scotland and stallholders in London. He’s hosted garden parties at Holyrood and welcomed the new lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan with small talk at Buckingham Palace. Harry should give thanks every day that he was the spare.
There have been state visits to Germany and France, although the latter was delayed by rioting in Bordeaux and the banlieues. Charles has spoken German in the Bundestag, while Camilla smiled gamely. He’s spoken French in the French Senate, while Camilla smiled gamely.
It seems overwhelmingly likely that the couple viewed sausages and sauerkraut with unfeigned delight in Berlin and we know for a fact that they ate lobster at Versailles, where Charles gave another speech, Camilla smiled gamely and nobody mentioned the revolution.
But Charles went alone on a trip to Romania to try his hand at crafting, perhaps because Camilla said words to the effect of, “Are you joking?” They both went to Kenya. The trip was well received; and everyone who remembered William and Kate’s state visit to the Caribbean slept soundly once again. The good news continued with the police announcement that an investigation into cash-for-honours allegations involving the Prince’s Foundation, the King’s charity, was being dropped. “Hurrah!” they may have cried at Clarence House, Birkhall, Highgrove, Sandringham, Balmoral, the Castle of Mey and Windsor, or possibly all of them, not forgetting Camilla’s private house, Ray Mill. But nowhere in Wales, remember? Austerity bites.
It’s been six months of firsts: first Royal Ascot as King and Queen, first speech as King at the state opening of Parliament, and the first proof that Charles has an excellent game face. His government, he read without snorting, planned to tackle climate change by extracting more oil and gas from the North Sea. Mostly, though, it’s the sheer nuttiness of being king: tea at Windsor with Joe Biden, or the president of Estonia, or a state banquet at Buckingham Palace where the guests included a K-pop girl band who seem unlikely to have featured on Charles’s Spotify Wrapped list of most listened to tracks. He’s been to the Chelsea Flower Show and the Sandringham Flower Show, where there was a pie in his image, complete with crown and big ears. What must it be like to come face to face with a pie of your face?
Turning to the troublesome personnel, there have been small wins with Andrew, who was successfully banned for the second time from prancing round Windsor in his Garter robes. But the fails have been bigger: Charles allowed him to wear the robes to the coronation. Maybe Andrew threatened him with worse, although short of lederhosen it’s difficult to imagine quite what.
He’s also failed to evict him from Royal Lodge into somewhere more suited to a man with no income. There he remains, in a mansion with his ex-wife, who’s taken a gig as an agony aunt on ITV. He spends his days wearing fleeces with the royal insignia, presumably in case we forget who he is, riding horses stabled and paid for by others. His ex-wife speaks often about her role as custodian of the late Queen’s corgis. You couldn’t make it up.
Charles is said to find it frustrating that, too often, “personal issues intrude on the public duty”. But there is the festering sore that is the Sussexes. If Charles speaks to them, or doesn’t speak to them, we hear about it and, as lawyers know to ask, who benefits from that? His camp, their camp? Omid Scobie? The corgis? Rumour has it that Harry was refused a bed on the royal estate over the summer, and that he might look kindly on being offered a house to replace Frogmore.
Charles has had to watch as Harry complained to the High Court that press intrusion led Chelsy Davy to decide that “a royal life was not for her”. This was no doubt appreciated by the woman herself, who has long since moved on and pursued a private life that Harry may one day, who knows, wish to emulate.
On Charles’s birthday the personal issues just kept intruding: who was invited to his private dinner and who wasn’t (clue: don’t bother booking the private jet from LA); whether Harry would phone his father to say happy birthday (he would!) and, when he had, what was said (“Happy birthday! Giz a house?”).
We know for sure that William and Harry never speak, because no one in California has revealed what was said. It also seems that while Harry turned down an invite to stay at Balmoral, he wouldn’t be averse to spending Christmas at Sandringham. The idea seems to have met with curiously little enthusiasm by the wider family. Royal watchers hoping for Meghan and Kate to skip to church on Christmas Day should brace themselves now for disappointment.
As for Charles, it’s his first Christmas as crowned king. All those years waiting for the top job… It just goes to show: be careful what you wish for.
Written by: Hilary Rose
© The Times of London
