Irving: King Charles is out of touch & behaving like an imperial viceroy

Love, love, love all of the thinkpieces about the British monarchy ahead of the coronation. I acknowledge that some of the predictions of gloom and doom are palace-approved – they want to set the bar very low (in hell) so that King Charles at least meets expectations. But mostly, it feels like every editor gave carte blanche to their reporters to write anti-monarchy screeds and the result is column after column, report after report of why this coronation sucks and King Charles is showing everyone why he’s a crappy king. The Daily Beast published one such screed from royal historian Clive Irving, and it’s all about how King Charles is dreadfully out of touch.

King Charles III’s coronation shows a man who has lost the plot: Piece by piece as they are disclosed, the details of Saturday’s crowning in Westminster Abbey show a monarch seriously out of touch with his subjects. Whether this reflects his own insularity or the work of courtiers trying to pump up the pomp and circumstance as part of a re-branding based on a kind of zealous flag-wrapped nationalism is unclear. It may well be a combination of both, in which Charles is being willingly manipulated into a more assertive role as head of state than his mother thought right.

The oath of allegiance: Nothing more clearly warned of this that his agreeing to the idea of making a brazen break from the protocols of Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. In place of the tradition of requiring only aristocrats to pay homage to the throne, at the same point in the cathedral ritual all of his subjects will be invited to take a personal vow of allegiance to him, “in heart and voice to their undoubted king”—a move with more than a whiff of the “dear leader” in North Korea.

Republican rhetoric or the actual national mood? Comments from republicans reflect that people are only now discovering that the king’s personal wealth has soared to almost obscene levels while their own, at best, has barely moved in 15 years. The coronation occurs at a time of rising destitution – former Prime Minister Gordon Brown listed 7.5 million households in fuel poverty, 14 million living in damp or substandard housing, 400,000 children without a bed of their own, and nearly 10 million people cutting back on food for want of the ability to pay for it.

People are mad about the coronation quiche: It is against that background that Charles and Camilla chose quiche for the traditional coronation dish to be served at street parties—Elizabeth II’s was coronation chicken. They offered a recipe for it: “a crisp, light pastry case and delicate flavors of spinach, broad beans and fresh tarragon.” It is in such banal details that the condescension of the king and queen consort is revealed and becomes most offensive—in effect, this is the “let them eat quiche” coronation.

Viceroy Charles: Today, King Charles seems to struggle most with the loss of that public deference to the throne. He’s always believed in the simple superiority of royal rank, no matter that in his case it is automatically bestowed, not earned. As soon as he puts on a uniform, with a carapace of medals and heavy with trimmings of gold braid, he seems reinforced in his own sense of stature, if not exactly a commander-in-chief, an imperial viceroy with a striking resemblance to his uncle and mentor Lord Louis Mountbatten.

The vanities of the king: Of course, the king’s merits have yet to be fully tested. The missteps of the coronation could be just a bump in the learning curve. But calling for blind allegiance not simply to him but to the Windsor “heirs and successors” is a cringe-making demand that reaches back to the vanities of George III.

[From The Daily Beast]

Not a reference to Mad King George! Oh well! I’ll admit, I didn’t think the coronation quiche was that big of a deal. It made Charles look sort of elitist, but he’s a king, isn’t elitism part and parcel? The more pressing concern is absolutely how much personal wealth Charles has inherited and how little transparency there is around any part of the financial aspect of the monarchy. I also think it’s telling that Charles and his advisors really bungled the whole national-oath-of-allegiance thing. You knew it was bad when even the die-hard royalists were criticizing it and saying that they would never make that pledge.

Oh, and South Africans want the Star of Africa back.

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 4, 2023

Photos courtesy of Instar, Avalon Red.

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