Britain has a new king
Charles III will now lead the world’s most famous monarchy...
...and arguably its most successful
Queen Elizabeth II transformed Britain’s royal family
And earned a firm place in the nation’s heart
The new king has an extraordinarily large pair of shoes to fill
It will be a very, very difficult job
But we will survive, it’s all in the breeding you know
The world is already looking at Charles...
...the longest-serving heir apparent in British history...
...and the oldest British king to assume the throne
How will he lead a successful modern monarchy?
Charles has to do two things, he has to keep his family together...
...and he has to keep the dignity of the monarchy burnished
We’ve seen Charles enough as heir apparent to know...
...that he is going to do some things differently when he becomes king
The greatest book written on the monarchy...
...still the greatest book written on the monarchy, is a book written...
...by a former editor for The Economist called Walter Bagehot...
...and the book was called “The English Constitution”
It came out in a fortnightly magazine in 1865...
...and the essential point that Bagehot makes in that is that...
...Britain is divided between two sets of institutions: the efficient institutions...
...which do the work of government and dignified institutions...
...and the most important of those dignified institutions is the monarchy
Generations of British monarchs have studied Bagehot’s writings
His influence has even made its way into Netflix’s hit show “The Crown”
There are two elements of the constitution, wrote Walter Bagehot in 1867
Bagehot still contains lessons for Charles today...
...like the importance of religion for the British monarch
In 1956 a third of the British public professed...
...the belief that the queen had been specially chosen by God
Almost 70 years later...
...being accepted as a monarch in Britain isn’t quite so easy
Britain’s population is wildly different now...
...to when Charles’s mother came to the throne
Britain was a kind of a stodgier place
It ate five times more cabbage...
...when Elizabeth came to the throne than it does now
It’s much more international
It’s much less white than it used to be and it’s much less religious
So Charles has to appeal to everyone in Britain...
...and that is a very different Britain to the one that his mother took over
Charles’s coronation will be a civic ceremony but also a religious one
As king, he’s now head of the Church of England, the country’s state church
As heir, Charles made a point of supporting a range of different faiths
He visited places of worship like his mother did...
...and he did more, openly learning from other religious texts
Like other sacred texts...
...the Koran offers some profound and perceptive understanding
And now he has a new title
Charles is now Defender of the Faith
The monarch is the defender of the Anglican Church
Now Charles, at one point, relatively radically said that he wanted...
...to be known as Defender of Faith
In other words, defender of religious belief in general, as opposed to of Anglicanism
The fact that Charles even considered...
...describing himself as Defender of Faith...
...is a clear sign that he intends to be an inclusive monarch...
...and one who is conscious of the great variety of the nation over...
...which he is going to be ruling
Charles may not go so far as becoming Britain’s first official inter-faith king...
...but he is likely to continue the strong support...
...he showed for other faiths as a prince
Spiritual leadership isn’t Charles’s only new responsibility
He’s taken over as head of a large family...
...and with big families can come division
Families fall out, families disagree
And that’s certainly true of our current royal family
But I think for all of the personality clashes...
...the queen was respected by the various members of that family...
...and she tried to hold it together
I think the new king will find it difficult to be as unifying a force as his mother
Keeping the family together will be very difficult...
...particularly because of his relationship with his youngest son
Falling out is one thing, but wayward royals have tested the public’s patience...
...and risked bringing the idea of monarchy itself into disrepute
Elizabeth’s popularity enabled her family to weather repeated scandals...
...with little questioning of the concept of royal rule
Even political critics weren’t immune to her charms
Many, I would say most, Australian republicans are Elizabethans as well
But Charles isn’t as popular as his mother
A very good measure of just how popular Elizabeth was...
...was the fact that we basically have no republican movement in this country
I think Charles will be less successful than his mother in rallying opinion
It will be difficult for Charles to be able to do that
Elizabeth could do it because she’d been there for so long...
...and because she did her job with consummate skill
Charles is a more controversial figure
He’s got more pronounced opinions on things...
...and he has had a difficult training
His marriage to Diana was an exceptionally controversial one
And I suppose in love?
Of course
Whatever in love means
So it will take time for him to earn the right to get people to say...
...that I may not be a monarchist, but I’m a supporter of the new king
With Charles as king people may be less forgiving...
...when the next scandal hits...
...but Charles has plans to save the monarchy from itself
I’m pretty sure that the new king thinks...
...that he needs to slim down the monarchy
I think that he has been very embarrassed...
...about the behaviour of some members of the family...
...and indeed by his own youthful behaviour
And I think also he’s quite conscious...
...of the issue of value for money that the public is willing to tolerate
Britain currently has seven senior working royals...
...funded by profits from the Crown Estate to attend engagements for the Crown
In 2021 the royal family cost British taxpayers £86.3m
A slimmed-down royal family would mean a smaller wage bill...
...and leave less room for scandal
There are constant leaks from Clarence House...
...that Charles is going to pursue a more slimmed-down royal family
In Sweden the royal family has been drastically slimmed down...
...pretty much just to the heir and the spare and there are hints...
...that this is exactly what Charles is going to do here
Watching the bottom line might endear Charles to a nation of shopkeepers
But time will tell how thrifty a man...
...who allegedly has a valet iron his shoelaces can really be
Charles may have a household full of help...
...but being king has its restrictions as well
The received wisdom is that the modern monarch has to be inscrutable...
Charles has come very close to looking like he’s doing too much already
As Prince of Wales, Charles often spoke his mind
Famously passing judgment on subjects from farming to architecture...
...raising more than a few eyebrows
What is proposed, seems to me like a monstrous carbuncle...
...on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend
He has even been accused of meddling in politics
Most notoriously in the infamous “black spider” memos, a series of letters...
...he wrote to government ministers
In them, he expressed views on political policy...
...that some interpreted as an attempt to influence Westminster
The monarch’s job is to unite the country
Queen Elizabeth II was careful never to say anything controversial in public...
...or get caught expressing political views in private
It’s a role Charles hasn’t always played
Fundamentally, they’ve got to be like a royal mum to the nation
They can put heart in the politicians when they come to talk to them...
...but they can’t actually tell you what to do...
...because just as it annoys you when your mother tells you what to do
It’s not just annoying, but potentially for the royal family, disastrous
If Charles were to take his right to warn too far, it could trigger a constitutional crisis
It’s a scenario that’s captured the public imagination...
...even inspiring a popular play and film
Empowered by ancient decree I do use my royal prerogative...
...to dissolve the parliament at once
This is a fictional scenario but it’s based on a grain of truth...
...Charles’s apparent eagerness to speak his mind in public
Organic farming delivers the highest quality, best-tasting food...
...produced without artificial chemicals or genetic modification
If, despite a warning from the prime minister given in the weekly audience
Charles as king continued to voice opinions...
...publicly on matters of political controversy, then I would expect...
...the next step might be for the prime minister to write to the monarch...
...reminding him of his constitutional duties as sovereign...
...and, in effect, having given an oral warning...
...this would now be a written warning and it would be a very serious next step
It’s happened before
In 1912 Herbert Henry Asquith, the prime minister, was forced to write a letter...
...to George V telling him to keep his opinions to himself
On that occasion, the monarch listened
So long as the monarch expresses any concerns...
...that they might have in private to the prime minister...
...that’s not crossing any political or constitutional boundary
It’s only when the monarch begins to express opinions publicly...
...on matters of political controversy that might cause the government difficulty...
...that that behaviour becomes unacceptable
But there are signs that Charles is ready to adapt to the demands of his new role
I think he’s less of a wildcard now than he was
He is married to a woman he loves
He’s been training for this job for a very, very long time...
...and he has a strong set of opinions...
...in the background, but an enormous willingness to do the right thing...
...to keep this institution thriving
In 2018 Charles told a BBC documentary...
...that the idea of him continuing to meddle was “complete nonsense”
There may be a new face on the throne...
...but familiarity will also be a hallmark of Charles’s reign
I think, like all these things, there’s a great need for cool heads
King Charles III is the continuation of a tradition...
...an unbroken form of government going back nearly 400 years...
...since the previous Charles was on the throne
Under British law, the monarch never dies
As one reign ends, the next monarch’s reign instantly begins
As Charles knows, probably better than most...
...when it comes to the British monarchy
...continuity is as important as change