The long wait of charles III, the new king of England

Reporter | Qian Boyan

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With the death of Elizabeth II, who reigned for 70 years, Prince Charles, the 73-year-old, the first heir to the Throne, automatically succeeded to the throne as the new British monarch.

"We deeply mourn the passing away of a precious monarch and a beloved mother". After Charles III made his first statement in the name of the King of England, Tras, who had been Prime Minister for only two days, also gave a speech in Downing Street to officially confirm the former as the new monarch, ending his speech with "God bless the King".

The new king is standing

Since Charles's full name was Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor, he himself could theoretically choose any of these names as titles, but one of the considerations for determining this title until the last minute was the historical controversy of the two previous Kings of England under the name "Charlie". Charles and Charlie are synonymous in English.

Charles I, born in 1600, twice sparked civil wars in England due to fierce conflicts with the English state, and was eventually guillotineed by Cromwell, the Protector of the Country. He was also the only king in English history who could not die well, and his son Charles II was dubbed the "Happy King" by historians for his enthusiasm for revelry.

Regardless of whether Charles III could reverse the bad reputation of his predecessors, the new king would have to complete a series of complicated processes before he could officially ascend the throne.

According to custom, within 24 hours of the Queen's death, a coronation commission led by Privy Council Speaker Modant (President of the Privy Council) will draft the Queen's official obituary at St James's Palace in London to celebrate the previous monarch and pledge support for the new monarch. In the next 24 hours, Charles III would, as was customary, become Supreme Leader of the Church of England at St. James's Palace and swear an oath to protect the Church of Scotland. As Charles III chanted "Blessed The King" and played the national anthem on the balcony of St. James's Palace that day, the British national anthem, which had been beginning with "Blessed Queen" since 1952, would be changed back to "Blessed King".

As for the more solemn coronation ceremony, it will take nearly a year due to the arrangement of preparatory work. Elizabeth II succeeded to the throne in February 1952, but was not officially crowned until June 1953.

For the past 900 years, the King's coronation has been held at Westminster Abbey. Counting from William the Conqueror, the first King to be crowned at Westminster Abbey, Charles III will be the 40th King to be witnessed by Westminster Abbey. At the coronation ceremony, the Archbishop of Canterbury will wear the crown of St. Edward on the head of Charles III to complete all the procedures for the new King's succession.

With Charles III's automatic succession as the new King, Camilla, the former Princess of Wales and Charles III's second wife, has automatically been given the title of Queen Consort (not Queen). Prince William, the eldest son of Charles III and the second in line to the British throne, did not automatically ascend to the new Prince of Wales, but only automatically inherited his father's title of Duke of Cornwall, and Princess Kate was automatically given the title of Duchess of Cornwall accordingly.

Unlike the title of Prince of Wales, the first heir to the throne, which requires a separate canonization and is exclusive to the Crown Prince, the eldest son of the current King of England automatically receives the title of Duke of Cornwall according to the custom. The current Queen Camilla, although theoretically able to hold the title of Princess of Wales, was only able to use the title of Duchess of Cornwall in public due to the influence of Princess Diana and the existence of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772.

In addition, Prince William's three sons, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, each advanced to become the second to fourth heirs of the King of England, and Prince Harry, the second son of Charles III, remained the fifth in line.

Long wait

Unlike Elizabeth II, who ascended the throne at the age of 26, 64 years have passed since charles III was crowned Prince of Wales in 1958, and charles III has been the de facto crown prince for 70 years by virtue of his duchy of Cornwall in 1952, and surpassed Prince Liechtenstein as the longest-awaited crown prince in world history on May 8 this year.

Charles III was crowned Prince of Wales at the age of 9 and then attended Goldenston School in Scotland and Trinity College at Cambridge University, making Charles III the first Crown Prince in the British Royal Family to receive education through social schools rather than private teachers, and the first Prince of Wales in history to master the Welsh language. Charles III then followed in his father's footsteps and served in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy until 1976.

Compared with charles III's unremarkable growth experience, his twists and turns in love and marriage experience are more widely concerned by the outside world.

Charles III's pre-marriage scandals included Jane Wesley, daughter of the eighth Duke of Wellington, his current wife Camilla, and Sarah Spencer, daughter of the eighth Earl of Spencer and sister of Princess Diana. Charles III's early life of debauchery is thought to have stemmed from the advice of Prince Philip's uncle, the first Earl of Mountbatten, to "sow widely before marriage".

In 1981, Charles III finally chose to marry Diana at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, a lavish wedding watched by more than 750 million people worldwide on television, also known as the Wedding of the Century.

However, Charles III's marriage soon rifted. On the one hand, Princess Diana became grumpy under the enormous pressures of royal life and always had a strained relationship with the attendants of Kensington Palace; Charles III, on the other hand, began to cheat in marriage, still with camilla, her old lover before marriage. According to Jonathan Timberby, a biographer chosen by Charles III, Charles III did not have any obvious emotional impulses when he chose Diana as a potential spouse, and Charles III did not seem to love her.

Princess Diana, unable to tolerate her husband's affair, also began cheating on her family riding coach, Major James Hewitt. It was not until 1992 that british Prime Minister Major announced the formal separation of Charles III and Diana in the House of Commons.

With Charles III and Princess Diana acknowledging their affair in media interviews in 1994 and 1995, their marriage officially ended in 1996.

After Diana's death in a car accident in Paris in 1997, Charles III insisted on going to Paris to recover his ex-wife's body and hold a royal funeral for her, and his single father and the funeral with two little princes on foot to pay for his ex-wife's funeral improved Charles III's poor public image.

After Diana's death, Charles III's relationship with Camilla became public, and she eventually married in 2005. Since both had previously been married, in order to avoid repeating edward VIII's mistakes, the Church of England announced in 2002 that divorced people would be allowed to remarry.

Although Charles III was able to hold only the position of Crown Prince for a long time, he was actively involved in public and philanthropic causes as a representative of the British Royal Family. He has personally founded and personally managed 18 charitable organisations, which raise up to £100 million a year and are active in areas such as sustainability, education and youth development.

At the same time, as the former queen grew older, Charles III was long entrusted with the responsibility of representing the royal family in official affairs. According to the Daily Telegraph, Charles III was the most scheduled and hard-working member of the royal family, attending even 600 official events in 2011.

His vast experience in public service also made Charles III familiar with the already routine and mechanized work of the King. Since the founding of the Hanoverian dynasty, it has become natural for the monarch to stay as far away from parliamentary politics as possible and to adhere to a non-partisan position. But royal power, already "caged" by law, can actually exert enormous influence at critical moments. For example, edward heath was elected prime minister in 1974 and Gordon Brown in 2010 when the UNITED Kingdom experienced political deadlocks in the hanging parliament, both of which were ultimately resolved through negotiations with the royal family; When Boris Johnson pulled the royal family down in 2019 and forced a five-day recess in parliament, the royal family's balancing hand role in the British political system was once again highlighted.

However, unlike Elizabeth II, who rarely expressed public opinions, Charles III, who was keen to participate in public events, used to express a strong personal tendency. He never hides his views on different political issues such as climate change, agriculture, and alternative medicine, and much of the discussion of press freedom is evident in charles III's 2014 play King Charles III. This also means that Charles III may not have been the same listener as his mother when he listened to the Prime Minister's work reports every week.