Celia Hall is confident that Charles is going to be a good king. “If he follows his mother’s example, everything will be fine,” says the 44-year-old registry office, near St James’s Palace where the 73-year-old monarch’s appointment was announced. Her husband Justin agrees: ‘He was able to learn from the best teacher imaginable, his mother’, says the steel mechanic, wearing a West Ham United shirt. According to him, that was the favorite club of the deceased queen.
Together with their daughter Lilly, the East London couple are on their way to Buckingham Palace on Saturday morning with a bouquet of flowers, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new King and his eldest son William, the new Prince of Wales. This is not easy because of the crowds and roadblocks. With the palace gates lined with flowers, the royal parks are beginning to resemble the Chelsea Flower Show. As the mourners quietly make their way, cannon shots are heard from Hyde Park in the distance.
These booms follow the official transfer of the kingship. A special session of the Privy Council, the Crown Council, is held in the Throne Room on Saturday morning. It is a ritual that goes back to the time of the Anglo-Saxons. Due to lack of space in the new king’s palace, there is only room for 200 of the 718 members. The newly appointed Prime Minister Liz Truss is present, as are her six predecessors. Also present is the captain of ‘His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition’, Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer as well as Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish Nationalists who accepted Charles’s appointment without hesitation.
Charles wants to modernize the royal family
The British royal family is known for lagging behind progress at an appropriate distance. In 1953, after a long and fierce debate within the palace walls, it was decided to broadcast the coronation of Elizabeth II for the most part live on television. This time, the decision had been made to share the Privy Council’s coronation committee seat directly with the public. A meeting of this council on Wednesday to mark the appointment of a new prime minister had to be canceled because Elizabeth was too weak.
Charles is for modernizing the royal family. He wants to make the royal family smaller, after the Orange model, and there are even rumors that he wants to give Buckingham Palace, the working palace, a destination comparable to that of the Royal Palace on Dam Square. However, admitting television cameras is not without risk, as it turns out on Saturday morning. The British are unsurpassed masters of ceremonies, but sometimes they drop a stitch. For example, the table is too small for the document on which Charles III had to put his scribbles.
When Charles takes a seat, the inkwell and the box with the fountain pen are in the way. Waving his right hand, he orders a footman to quickly remove the belongings. He’s obviously sad and tense, but this doesn’t come across well, at least not on social media. Charles does not possess his mother’s composure. In his book Charles: the man who will be king biographer Howard Hodgson has already noted that this royal child sometimes throws tantrums, which would partly be the result of his role as a public figure, always being polite and laughing.
After the hearing, the Garter King of Arms enters the balcony to announce the arrival of a new king. An hour later, this proclamation is repeated at the Royal Exchange, the stock exchange in The City, and a day later in Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh and many other cities. A practice that dates back to a time when there were no newspapers and other media to spread the news. This ritual transference has been the same for centuries, with the only difference that a mass of arms raised with mobile phones now partly obscures the view of the announcement.
Thousands of healthy Britons are standing along the boulevard
Also along the Mall, the wide boulevard that leads to Buckingham Palace, are many thousands of royalists, as well as numerous tourists. They see the Grenadiers marching past, followed by Charles stopping his Rolls to shake hands with some of his subjects. Prince William is making himself heard for the first time since his grandmother’s death. “I knew this day would come,” he said in a statement. “But it will be a while before the reality of a life without grandma will sink in.”
Meanwhile, the scenario of Operation London Bridge is being followed. The British flags, which have been flying at half-mast since the Queen’s death, will be flying again at the top of the mast after the proclamation, but will be lowered again on Sunday. At the Wellington Barracks, the Welsh Guards cleaning the cannons draw attention. Charles meets ministers at Buckingham Palace. In his previous life as crown prince he was in the habit of giving ministers unsolicited policy advice, but he has now lost that freedom.