Michael Cole, former BBC Royal Correspondent, looks at the year ahead for King Charles and says his family are the first to feel the iron fist of a new sort of monarch. This article first appeared in the Sunday Express.
The New Year will put the stamp on the new King’s reign. It has started well, despite serious challenges that might have daunted anyone who hadn’t had 70 years’ preparation for the job.
Ten episodes of “The Crown”, dramatizing the painful breakdown of his marriage to Princess Diana, were swiftly followed by six hours of accusation, resentment and hurtful personal criticism by his younger son and daughter-in-law in Netflix’s vindictive “documentary”, “Harry & Meghan”.
All this, immediately after the Queen’s funeral which followed the televised Council of State when, deftly and with great dignity, King Charles assumed the heavy burden of majesty, assuming ancient responsibilities that govern his kingdom’s complex constitutional monarchy.
Give or take a troublesome fountain pen, his conduct during these essential ceremonies, under the unblinking gaze of the cameras, was faultless and gave an indication of the bold and resolute monarch King Charles III is going to be - and I was not his greatest admirer when he was Prince of Wales.
He was wise not to respond to the charges laid at his door during 360 minutes of venom and vitriol from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. With kindness and fatherly forbearance, he let it be known that they would be welcome at his Coronation on 6 May.
Showing good manners in the face of bad is the best way to disarm malice. The King’s magnanimity was astute too, putting the onus on Meghan and Harry to accept the invitation, which would prompt an accusation of hypocrisy, or reject it, which would indicate their small-minded petulance.
The Coronation would present another serious problem for Prince Harry. All princes present in the Abbey would be required to kneel and swear an oath of allegiance to the newly-crowned King, vowing their lifelong devotion and loyalty as “liegemen of life and limb”.
Would Prince Harry be able to do that with a straight face, after his bitter public denunciation of the family that has given him life, love, fame and fortune?
Might he follow the practice of anti-royal left-wing MPs who cross their fingers behind their backs when taking the Loyal Oath before assuming their seats at the start of a new parliament?
Little will surprise King Charles. He has seen much, learned a lot and will reign in a different way from his mother, a peace-maker who always sought consensus, believing everything would turn out alright in the end.
The new King is not afraid to assert himself. His family have been the first to feel the swinging fist of majesty.
Younger brother Andrew is banished to royal Siberia, with no hope at the age of 62 of re-admittance to public life.
Youngest brother Edward is told he won’t be Duke of Edinburgh, even though the title was promised to him by the late Queen and Duke.
Prince Harry and his wife could lose their titles “H.R.H” if he really rattles skeletons in the Palace closet when his tell-all personal memoir, “Spare”, is published on 10 January.
The King is dispensing tough love to his family. There’s more to come - and the accent is on tough.
No one has been slapped down harder than Edward’s wife Sophie. Close to the Queen late in her life, she will not now become the Duchess of Edinburgh, remaining Countess of Wessex, a place that does not exist outside of the novels of Thomas Hardy.
How she feels about the title that was promised to her going to seven-year-old Princess Charlotte, as has been suggested, can only be imagined.
Only sister Anne, the Princess Royal, appears safe from demotion or in-house humiliation as the new Monarch gathers the reins into his own hands. He sees it as slimming down the House of Windsor. But other family members regard it as naked self-aggrandisement.
And King Charles may need his family’s support, if the police investigation into the Cash-for-Honours scandal, involving two of his pet charities, turns into the criminal prosecution of his once most trusted aide, former valet Michael Fawcett.
Before the Queen died, when he was still Prince of Wales, the King could have been called as a witness had the Crown Prosecution Service decided to bring a case under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act of 1925. Now he enjoys sovereign immunity from appearing in one of his own courts.
But if prosecution does go ahead this year, he would not escape uncomfortable involvement, as the Queen discovered when her former footman Paul Burrell was prosecuted in 2004 on the trumped-up charge of stealing Princess Diana’s property. It took the Queen’s unprecedented intervention to halt the case which was then dismissed.
Choppy waters may lie ahead but that hasn’t stopped the King jettisoning those he regards as not wanted on his royal voyage, focusing entirely on the direct line of succession - himself, Prince William and nine-year-old Prince George.
That’s fine in theory. It is understandable that the King has no ready use for two spare princesses, Beatrice and Eugenie, daughters of disgraced Andrew. But he may regret this royal cull if he needs robust family support, which he may.
The Coronation of Queen Camilla isn’t without problems. There is lingering public disquiet about the third person in Princess Diana’s marriage ascending the throne that might have been hers.
More than one constitutional expert may yet question whether, under several royal marriage acts, it was legal for an heir to the throne to contract a civil marriage, as the then Prince of Wales did to Mrs Parker Bowles at Windsor’s Register Office in 2005.
At times like that, the King might warmly welcome a public show of support from within his family. If so, he may find that it is unavailable, even on his royal command.
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