If Charles was hoping for smooth sailing and clear air after his accession to the throne, he was disappointed. Photo / AP
OPINION:
This week the new King went head-to-head with Downing Street in a move that would have been unthinkable under Queen Elizabeth but already he is being tuned out.
What would happen if Buckingham Palace declared war and no one noticed?
This is not entirely a theoretical question.
This week a fairly extraordinary face-off played out between the Palace and Downing Street, a sort of high-level political paso doble that would have been unthinkable under the aegis of Queen Elizabeth. But did anyone really, aside from royal obsessives and a few Fleet Street journalists care?
I’ll explain, never fear, but the key point in all of this is that this week, one of King Charles’ greatest fears came true, with final definitive proof that even as monarch his sons (especially one son) seem destined to perennially overshadow him.
So things started last weekend when the Palace put out a press release, announcing that on Friday the 4th the king will host a reception ahead of COP27, the UN’s climate change confab, with the US Special Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry as the headline international guest.
The King is to host a reception at Buckingham Palace on Friday ahead of the #COP27 Summit. pic.twitter.com/LIV5ZDUr6C
— Majesty/Joe Little (@MajestyMagazine) October 30, 2022
Superficially the release was about as dull as Queen Camilla’s Waitrose shopping list for the footmen (shiraz, dog treats, Heat magazine) – whoopee, the Palace was going to host a bunch of men and women in suits milling around and making small talk while being served vegetarian sausage rolls and a particularly middling sparkling wine.
But don’t be fooled: This reception, in fact, amounts to Charles coming dangerously close to publicly defying newbie Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
See, while last year’s COP26 in Glasgow attracted William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales along with Charles and Camilla, with Queen Elizabeth delivering her remarks via video after pulling out for health reasons, this year’s conference in Egypt is a different matter entirely.
Charles has, of course, an impressive green track record, having spent decades trying to get people to care more about the environment and less about Emmerdale, and converting his Aston Martin to run on wine and cheese. However, despite being “champing at the bit” to go to Cop, His Majesty has been barred from trundling along, first by that 45-day PM Liz Truss, followed by Sunak.
So what is a wily king with plenty of vino in the cellar and huge staterooms he could fill with as many UN flunkies as he fancies to do? Thus Charles has seemingly decided to circumnavigate Sunak by bringing much of the climate meeting to him. (Serious points for craftiness, Your Majesty).
The bottom line is that all of this is truly big stuff. The King, who is constitutionally required to follow the advice of the Prime Minister, has just, to some degree, thumbed his nose at Sunak, who is still so fresh in his new job that he is still finding Truss’ lip balms and well-thumbed copy of Trickle-Down Economics For Dummies in desk drawers.
But has anyone been paying much attention? Nope, largely because of Prince Harry and his spikily titled forthcoming autobiography Spare.
After less than two months on the throne, things are already going pear-shaped for His Majesty, with his reign eclipsed by the various shenanigans of the rest of the royal family and most notably his own children.
In some ways, the 73-year-old is the perfect monarch to meet this moment in history, a man who has dedicated much of his life to trying to make people sit up and take heed of our rapidly changing climate. His Majesty has waited his entire life to assume this role and right as he has done so, the cause he has devoted much of his life to has come to the political fore.
Right now should be his time to shine as a leader or at least as much of a leader as he can be now that, as sovereign, he is much more constrained in what he can say and do.
In a 2018 documentary he promised that he would not “meddle” as king, saying “I’m not that stupid”.
And yet… much of this is being obscured by the commercial derring-do of his younger son and the ongoing trans-Atlantic family ructions.
If Charles cured cancer tomorrow or managed to negotiate lasting peace in the Middle East, I feel like it would only hold the news cycle until Harry or his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, popped their heads above the parapet and decided to air some fresh grievance about the royal family or to take another potshot at the Palace.
What this week’s events have proven is that by and large, Charles is destined to come second, if not third, to Harry and his brother Prince William.
The way things stand at the moment, this dynamic is only going to become more apparent in the months to come.
At some stage Harry and Meghan’s Netflix series (which is a documentary about their “love story” according to the Duchess) will debut.
Members of the royal family have before made TV shows about themselves but those hours-after-hours of worthy viewing were devoted to some cause.
Last year William released a BBC offering called The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet and Harry co-produced Apple TV+’s mental health series The Me You Can’t See. There was also 1969′s Royal Family and 1987′s It’s A Royal Knockout but they were one-offs, not something longer, and the latter was done for charity.
Which is to say, The Only Way is Sussex will be a doozy of a first and will generate a hurricane of coverage and noise in the media and on social media. Ditto Harry’s autobiography. It’s unclear which might come out first.
How can septuagenarian Charles even begin to compete with the attendant social media and press hullabaloo?
Short of single-handedly ending the war in Ukraine, I’m not sure that anyone will even register what the King is up to for a good while now.
There is a certain dismal symmetry here for His Majesty. For more than 15 years he was outshone and generally outplayed by his glamorous wife, and then ex-wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, with him stuck as the fusty, besuited supporting actor to her dazzling star.
Decades on, now their sons, entirely by accident, are managing to do the same thing to their father and leaving him and his causes in their melodramatic shade.
It’s hard to not feel at least a twinge of sympathy for the King here, a man who no matter quite what he does or what role he occupies seems doomed to be eternally pipped at the post like some tragic Greek figure, like Sisphyus with a press release and good intentions.
To be an effective, impactful sovereign, for his reign to mean something, he needs people to pay him attention, something he may well only find harder and harder and with the rift between the Sussexes’ and London looking increasingly intractable.
Charles banging on about carbon emissions is hardly as interesting as Harry or Meghan offering up some fresh misery about their time inside the royal cage.
Still, he would seem to have a trick or two up his Savile Row sleeves if his sneak COP27 move is anything to go by. And, here’s hoping that Rishi Sunak doesn’t mind a miniature mushroom Wellington and making small talk with an army of wannabe Greta Thunbergs. Turns out, he’s going to Charles’ reception too.
King, 1: PM, 0.
Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal expert with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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