Today marks the second anniversary of King Charles’s coronation, but celebrations are likely to be rather limited this time around. In truth, it is hard to call the past two years a particular success for the Royal Family. The king has suffered from cancer, for which his debilitating (and, it has to be said, ageing) treatment is still ongoing, as has his daughter-in-law. His younger brother has continued to bring shame upon the institution of the monarchy, most notably through shady financial dealings that have invited interest in his relationships with rumoured Chinese spies. His younger son has sold his birthright from his Montecito mansion, and complained vociferously about the privations that he has endured while counting the millions he made by betraying his family. The less said about Harry’s wife, a woman who makes the Wicked Witch of the West seem kind-hearted and self-deprecating, the better.
The coronation itself was a strange, not wholly happy affair. Penny Mordaunt marched around stern-faced holding a sword, which led some of the more hidebound Conservatives to announce that she should be made leader and made me think of the line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.” Or, indeed, a modern monarchy. Charles III has had the most prolonged wait to become king of anyone in the history of the institution, and when he finally tottered onto the throne at the age of 73, he was the oldest ruler that the country has ever had. He had the bad luck to follow Elizabeth II, who was not only wildly popular but also a tough, principled operator who followed the Firm’s unofficial motto ‘never complain, never explain’ to her final hour. Her son seemed destined to be the Brown to her Blair, the Major to her Thatcher. Was there any way that he could ever have been his own man, a modern monarch for a new post-Elizabethan era?
Two years into his reign, it is hard to argue that Charles has managed to achieve anything of any significance or note. He has certainly been his own man, which has made a mockery of his statement upon being king that he would put aside any partisan or personal sentiment and rule without any hint of the activism that he embraced as Prince of Wales. We were told that there would be no more of the notorious ‘black spider’ memos that he littered Blair’s desk with while he was PM. But activism takes many forms.
The monarch’s open embrace of Zelensky and Ukraine may be one that most of his subjects – and indeed his prime minister – agrees with, but it has reinforced the sense that this most headstrong of rulers is a bloody-minded disruptor who is not used to being contradicted. A minor but much-reported spat within a few days of his accession – losing his temper at a pen, he shouted ‘Oh God I hate this… I can’t bear this bloody thing’ – illustrated, in microcosm, how challenging it must be to manage a man who has been in an effective state of arrested development since his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969. Over five decades of hanging around waiting will do little for anyone’s sense of humility or restraint.
It is equally unfortunate that the remainder of the core Royal Family divide largely into those who rise to its complex and demanding responsibilities (the women) and those who sulk, scheme or skive (the men). The Queen, the Princess Royal and the Princess of Wales have all received decent press, because they combine good humour, a clear work ethic and some understanding of the way that our expectation of what the monarchy should be in the twenty-first century – as opposed to the historic presentation of bowing, scraping and unconditional deference – is one of far less noblesse oblige than the institution has been used to.
Harry has fully embraced a life of monetising his status, and has made himself tawdry and pathetic in the process
When Prince William married Kate Middleton in 2011, there were still commentators available to sniff about the presence of ‘a commoner’ in the Royal Family. These antediluvian figures have now either died off, clutching their commemorative Queen Victoria trinkets to the last, or realised that the Princess of Wales’s accessibility and charm is the greatest asset the modern monarchy possesses. Compared to her sulky, short-tempered husband, who seems far more animated when discussing Aston Villa than any social, political or religious issues, she is a likeable figure. Yet even she was at the mercy of the Firm’s lumbering communications department last year. Firstly, she was embarrassed by a poorly photoshopped image put out of her and her family at Easter, then, unbelievably, she had to take the blame for it publicly, rather than allowing whichever useless courtier responsible to be sent to the Tower of London. The whole affair had the air of an unforced error, and suggested that the behind-the-scenes operation, overseen by Charles’s private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, is nowhere near as nimble or resourceful as it needs to be.
Still, most of the negative publicity that the monarchy attracts stems from those figures worthy of comic opera: Prince Andrew and Prince Harry. Andrew’s presence with his fellow royals at this year’s Easter service was a typical piece of reputational mishandling. The only place that he should be, by rights, is in a Siberian gulag, but his birth has seen him maintain a level of luxury that few would reasonably consider that he is entitled to. The Duke of York’s curious ability to be cast out of the official working monarchy but still to pay the comprehensive bills he is faced with is a source of mystery to all who have taken even the most cursory glance into his opaque finances. Even leaving aside the residual foul taste left by his involvement in the Epstein affair, it seems extraordinary that there has been no serious reckoning for him. The closest that there came were two ho-hum dramatisations of the Newsnight interview last year, which made him look a buffoon rather than wicked and therefore, in their own way, let him off the hook. Yet even as he squats in Royal Lodge, brooding or counting his ill-gotten gains, he is as sinister as he is ridiculous.
The same cannot be said for his nephew, who has fully embraced a life of monetising his status, and has made himself tawdry and pathetic in the process. The Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson were widely criticised for writing two memoirs in the 1950s, but they look like models of restraint and loyalty compared to the Harry and Meghan show. So much has been written about their California-based antics, not least by me for this paper, that it is tedious to recount even one-tenth of their grasping, ungrateful ways.
Yet reputationally the Duke of Sussex has caused grave, possibly irrevocable, damage to the monarchy. His late grandmother skilfully derailed a bandwagon of allegations of racism and bullying with three simple words: ‘Recollections may vary.’ Since her death, however, nobody seems capable of responding to them with anything like a cogent dismissal. Instead, it has been more convenient to pretend that they do not exist.
If the Royal Family was elected, rather than divinely ordained, then there would inevitably be severe discontent with how the current administration has worked out so far. It is just as well for them that there can be no such democracy applied to the status quo. We will have Charles as king until he dies, and then we can expect King William to inherit the throne at a rather sprightlier age than 73. But much has changed since the heyday of the late Queen. The question now, amid failing health and reputation alike, is not so much whether the monarchy should continue, but whether anyone especially cares whether it does or not. The late Queen Mother used to fret that the greatest threat to the institution’s continued survival was indifference. Judging by the yawns that routinely greet the announcement of anything other than extreme bad news these days, it may be that that point has been reached by now. In which case, all I can say – with personal sympathy rather than any deep monarchical belief – is God save the king.
Comments