King Charles III turns 77 today. He will be enjoying a typically packed day, with activities both ceremonial and personal. His Welsh association will be celebrated with a reception at Cyfarthfa Castle near Merthyr Tydfil, where he will be joined by guests including Gavin and Stacey’s Ruth Jones and fashion designer Julien Macdonald, all of whom will surely be preparing lusty choruses of ‘God Save The King’ and ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ as well as more traditional birthday greetings. Cannons will be fired, bells will be rung, and the usual pageantry brought to bear. But will it actually be a happy birthday for the monarch?
Since he inherited the throne just over three years ago, Charles has watched the Firm spiral from one disaster to another. Many of those are, of course, not circumstances he could have had any control over: the dual diagnoses of cancer for himself and the Princess of Wales at the beginning of last year, for instance, or the ongoing fallout from the activities of Prince Harry and Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
Charles’s symbolic role as father of the nation is the one his subjects will be looking at him to fulfil
The King could argue, quite reasonably, that he has acted with decisiveness in both latter cases, offering the hand of paternal reconciliation towards his errant younger son and, after considerable equivocation, stripping the disgraced former Duke of York of his home and titles. Yet the sense has come over the royal family that the ‘business as usual’ approach so adroitly implemented by Elizabeth II will no longer do. The late queen’s motto was ‘never complain, never explain’. It seems these days as if complaining and explaining is pretty much all the royals do, and it still isn’t enough.
Charles may be buoyed by the thought that things are not as bad as they could be for the monarchy. The Andrew scandal has dwarfed anything that has occurred since the abdication crisis of 1936 when it comes to providing an existential threat to the Firm. But Charles’s punishment of banishment and public shaming has made it clear that he has taken a staunch moral line on his alleged activities – too staunch, according to Andrew’s small but committed band of supporters who suggest that he has been found guilty without a fair trial. Yet most would consider that an embarrassing, toxic situation has been dealt with as effectively as it might have been, and it is a relief for the King that there is no groundswell of republican support emerging.
There will, one assumes, be few if any protests at Cyfarthfa Castle today. Had matters with Andrew been dealt with less effectively, this may well not have been the case.
Charles should enjoy today’s festivities, and then when he wakes up tomorrow, the difficulties and worries of his 77th year will come into focus. He is still having treatment for cancer, and the absence of public briefings about his condition has not quashed speculation in some quarters. The Andrew saga has not yet been concluded, and the potential for further embarrassing disclosures is high. Harry continues to be a source of sorrow, and it will not have escaped Charles’s notice that the Prince of Wales has shown little, if any, interest in the ceremonial or religious aspects of kingship that his father holds sacred. And, of course, the country that he reigns over is in a dire state, with a useless and incompetent government, a floundering economy and social inequality as bad as it has ever been.
There is little, if anything, that the monarch can do on a practical level to ameliorate most of these matters. Yet his symbolic role, as father of the nation, is the one that his subjects will be looking at him to fulfil. So far, Charles has been unable to grow into such a position, despite his best efforts. Those who are well disposed towards him – and the institution that he reigns over – will be hoping that the next year will be a less eventful, more successful one for him and the Firm. Otherwise, his 78th birthday, and beyond, will not be happy ones.
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