{"id":35584,"date":"2023-05-06T12:57:12","date_gmt":"2023-05-06T08:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/?post_type=articles&p=35584"},"modified":"2023-05-06T13:01:55","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T09:01:55","slug":"king-charles-coronation-monarchy","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/king-charles-coronation-monarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"The King’s Gambit: What Will The Future Of The British Monarchy Hold Under King Charles III?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The King’s Gambit, Courtesy of Raw Pixel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II broke on 8 September, it was a moment that many had long expected \u2013 but the outpouring of emotion was more unprecedented than imagined. Great Britain plunged into 10 days of national mourning. There was blanket coverage across TV stations as everything from theatre shows to sporting events were cancelled. Thousands flocked to Buckingham Palace to lay floral tributes and a quarter of a million devoted subjects joined the eight-kilometre queue to file past the late sovereign\u2019s coffin as her body lay in state. Former England football captain David Beckham waited 12 hours overnight to pay his respects, saying, \u201cWe all want to be a part of something where we honour the magnificent life of our Queen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Condolences and tributes flooded in from global figures and Royals, cementing the 96-year-old\u2019s iconic status. Former US President Barack Obama delivered one of the more stirring tributes to Queen Elizabeth. \u201cCertainly, I can say that getting to know her was one of the great privileges of my years in office. Your Majesty, it would be an understatement to say the world has changed a bit in the seven decades since you first came to power. But your character never has. Your life has been a gift \u2013 not just to the United Kingdom, but to the world. And it is with gratitude for your leadership and the kindness that you\u2019ve shown me and my family that I say, may the light of your crown continue to reign supreme.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting that the British Monarch\u2019s death signified an \u201cend of an era,\u201d Queen Rania of Jordan shared, \u201cShe may be the Queen of England but I think symbolically she is the Queen to all of us. To me, she is the Queen of the world. Not only did she have an incredible impact during her lifetime, but in her passing, she unified the country. They came together and remembered what is most important, which is that they are all unified in their love for their country and their Monarch.\u201d<\/p>\n

An unchanging presence throughout the British public\u2019s lives and the only Monarch the majority of us have ever known, the Queen represented stability in an ever-changing world. With her vibrant style and her face adorning everything from banknotes to coins and stamps during her 70-year reign, she was one of the most recognisable faces in the world. But could her death signal the beginning of the end of the British Monarchy as we know it?<\/p>\n

Graham Smith, CEO of the anti-Monarchy pressure group Republic, thinks so. \u201cThe Queen was the Monarchy and the Monarchy was the Queen,\u201d he insists. \u201cIt\u2019s a very different institution now which people are very happy to criticise and challenge.\u201d The group\u2019s #NotOurKing hashtag went viral across social media as King Charles III embarked on his first tour as Monarch.<\/p>\n

Republic believes the answer lies with replacing the Monarch with an elected head of state and a parliamentary democracy, viewing
\nthe Royal Family as nepotistic and undemocratic. So too do 80,000 supporters, with the movement gathering momentum each day. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a huge surge in supporters and received \u00a345,000 [Dhs188,200] in donations between the Queen\u2019s death and the funeral, which is quite a substantial jump in our income,\u201d he tells us. \u201cThe Monarchy is bad for our constitution, the institution is very secretive and they misuse public money all the time. As for the myth that they generate millions for tourism, it\u2019s only around three percent of our total tourism income.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arguably, the bigger issue is the lack of acknowledgement that many communities face conflicting feelings over the death of the Queen, which are as valid as those who chose to openly mourn her passing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kehinde Andrews, author of The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World, was one of the voices sharing feelings of detachment. \u201cFor the children of the British empire, those of us who were born here and those of us who were born in the 15 nations of the \u2018Commonwealth,\u2019 the Queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy,\u201d she writes. \u201cShe may have been seen as an institution but for us, she was the manifestation of the institutional racism that we have to encounter on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

British \u2013 and Brit(ish) \u2013 writer Afua Hirsh agrees, \u201cIn Britain, minoritised people are remembering this Elizabethan era through the lens of racism that was allowed to thrive during it… This is a Britain that has lost its Queen \u2013 and the luxury of denial about its past\u201d. Newspaper opinion pieces like these became thorns amidst emotional mainstream headlines such as: \u201cOur hearts are broken,\u201d and \u201cGrief is the price we pay for love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resplendent funeral which was hastily turned into a national bank holiday brought the United Kingdom to a standstill. World leaders and dignitaries flew in to pay their respects to the late Queen. Supermarkets and shops remained shut. Even the closure of food banks failed to prompt a national outcry amid a cost of living crisis. The pomp, pageantry and processions that followed were exempt from criticism. But is the tide turning? \u201cThe viewing figures for the funeral was less than the Euro 2020 final,\u201d argues Graham. \u201cMost people just got on with their normal day. What we saw on TV did not reflect the way most people were responding to the Queen\u2019s death.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the winds of change blow through the palace corridors, what can we expect from King Charles III? After all, the empire the Queen came to rule in 1952 bears very little resemblance to the modern kingdom of 2022.<\/p>\n

After his first speech to the nation, King Charles, visibly grief-stricken, was praised for his masterclass first address. \u201cThe future of the monarchy looks very promising,\u201d Royal biographer and broadcaster, Penny Junor, tells GRAZIA. \u201cLike it or loathe it, the Monarch is there to lead us in a soft power way and to represent the nation itself. At times of grief and in times of jubilation we look to the Monarch to lead that emotion. He did that. We were a bit lost, we\u2019d lost our Monarch and there he was making all the right noises about the future and reassuring us that he was there, and would serve with the same dedication as his mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

British Future, a UK-based think tank polling in June around the Queen\u2019s Platinum Jubilee celebrations (arguably when patriotism was at an all-time high) found that almost 60 per cent of the public wanted to keep the Monarchy for the foreseeable future. Twenty-five per cent thought that the death of the Queen would be a good time to become a republic while 85 per cent expect that Britain will still have a Monarchy in ten years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cKing Charles III inherits the Monarchy from his mother in a much more robust condition than many would have predicted,\u201d Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, explains. \u201cThere has been little variation in the level of support for a republic despite all of the personal tribulations and rapid social changes of recent decades. The challenge is to secure broader reach across the nations of the UK, and particularly across generations. The media coverage has both accurately reflected the broad public goodwill towards the recently bereaved King, but also somewhat exaggerated the scale of the blanket consensus. After the mourning period, the dissenting minority may get a fairer share of voice. A modern constitutional Monarchy should have no fear of open debate. It requires
\nbroad sustained consent, not universal assent, to be legitimate in our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those in the Royal courts note that King Charles is no stranger to debate, and has quietly demonstrated his leadership qualities for years. From founding The Prince\u2019s Trust in 1976 to transform the lives of vulnerable young people \u2013 actor Idris Elba and music producer Naughty Boy both credit the charity\u2019s grants for kick-starting their careers \u2013 to being a steadfast Royal presence during periods of unrest. He made multiple visits to Tottenham after the 2011 London riots, tasking a number of his charities and businesses with collaborating with locals to provide vital support in the area.<\/p>\n

When it comes to religion, the sovereign holds the title \u2018Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England.\u2019
\n\u201cI personally would rather see it as defender of faith, not the faith as it means just one particular interpretation of faith, which I think is something that causes a fair bit of problem and has done for hundreds of years,\u201d King Charles said. \u201cPeople have fought each other to the death over these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

King Charles\u2019 1993 speech entitled \u201cIslam and the West\u201d reverberated across the Islamic world. Dr. Farhan Nizami, founder of the Oxford Centre for Islamic studies, which the King has been a patron for decades, was in the audience for the iconic speech. \u201cBefore he delivered the lecture I had no idea of what tremendous impact it was going to have. The very fact that a person in his position was prepared to stand up and say those things, and express it in such a genuine fashion is what made the difference,\u201d Dr. Nizami recently shared. \u201cWe\u2019ve had Nelson Mandela come to speak at the centre, we\u2019ve had senior world figures but in terms of its shelf life, I think the then- Prince of Wales lecture is in a world of its own. It went on to alert us to the prejudices and stereotypes that are taking over now and that we cannot allow our mutual ignorances and differences to lose sight of the commonality between these two worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kehinde observes the Queen was cherished as she famously did not rock the boat \u2013 The King is a different story. \u201cAbolishing the Monarchy is long overdue. Now might be an opportunity because the Queen was so popular, and the Commonwealth countries are definitely not all keen on Charles,\u201d he told Politico magazine. \u201cAnd now, as Caribbean nations are renewing their demand for Britain to pay reparations for slavery, it looks like the Monarch will be removed as Head Of State more quickly in the former colonies. That will hopefully have a knock-on effect in Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Penny disagrees. \u201cI don\u2019t believe they\u2019ll be a revolution as the Monarchy suits Britain very well because it\u2019s a constitutional Monarchy,\u201d she muses. \u201cThe Monarch doesn\u2019t have the power a President would have so therefore the Monarch cannot turn into a dictator. Look at the world and the presidencies you can see around, crazed with power. Look at even [Former US president, Donald] Trump trying to come back. The Prime Minister can\u2019t wield limitless power because of the Monarchy and the Monarch can\u2019t because of parliament. It\u2019s a system that works very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to royal sources, King Charles\u2019 reign heralds the new dawn of sovereignty, including a \u2018slimmed down\u2019 version with fewer working Royals. Unlike Queen Elizabeth\u2019s 1953 coronation which cost \u00a31.5 million [Dhs$6.3 million] \u2013 the equivalent of \u00a346 million [Dhs$192 million] today \u2013 King Charles has expressed his desire for a less extravagant ceremony. It\u2019s this self-awareness, many suggest, which will serve as the blueprint for his modern Monarchy. For now, only time will tell if the Royal Family can remain the beloved institution for years to come or whether the younger \u2018woke\u2019 generation will demand more than evolution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":42676,"featured_media":35585,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[260,35,3209],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Will The British Monarchy Hold Under King Charles III?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With the coronation of King Charles set to take place in Westminster Abbey today, we predict what the future holds for the British monarchy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/king-charles-coronation-monarchy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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