Daniela Elser: Eight words that could bring down King Charles

OPINION:

King Charles III is having a very busy week indeed. The first full rehearsal of His Majesty’s coronation procession has taken place in the dead of night, involving the horses, carriages and military personnel forced to stay up way past their bedtime.

Meanwhile, he and wife Queen Camilla badly need to find the time to practise their bit of the big day using the model of Westminster Abbey that has been jerry-rigged inside the Buckingham Palace ballroom given so far they’ve only managed to get in one run-through.

So, it’s unlikely His Majesty has much time to skim the royal history books but he should. Because if there is one pertinent thing they teach a rookie sovereign, along with don’t trifle with the French and watch out for gout, is – beware idiot relatives.

The history of the British monarchy is littered with grasping brothers, sisters, uncles and cousins who regularly got up to no good and caused no end of trouble for even the best-intoned, industrious sovereigns.

And Charles? Oh, he is facing this very particular regal headache if only someone would point it out to him.

Because while in recent weeks His Majesty has been busy accepting bits of what the Vatican says is the true cross, a gift from Pope Francis (beats a Fortnum & Mason gift basket) and trying to work out why Queen Camilla is dusting off the ivory for her part in the coronation, a much more dangerous issue has been left to fester.

His idiot relatives.

Specifically Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s former bosom buddy, and Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, and www.republic.org.uk’s No 1 source of web traffic from California.

They are both a seemingly never-ending font of trouble for the monarch yet both remain part of the royal fabric. How much longer can these twin sources of furrowed-brow courtiers’ migraines be allowed to drag on, unresolved?

Both men routinely erupt like self-pitying ducal Kratos only for the palace to have to deal with the latest PR fires. They then temporarily take a few steps out of public view only for the whole process to begin again.

This is an issue that has been accidentally brought to the fore by another Prince – Hey there, Edward! – a man who has not done a single thing to earn a headline in his own right in a couple of decades. (Well, at least since the late Queen took his TV-making clapperboard away from him.)

Last month Charles finally gave Edward what had long been assumed to be his due, namely his late father Prince Philip’s dukedom of Edinburgh.

Prince Edward has put in the hard yards for his Duke of Edinburgh title. Photo / AP

This title upgrade has in turn necessitated that the royal family’s webmaster put down their can of Monster energy drink and update the official website, including the page listing the Counsellors of State.

But it’s not Edward who is the problem on the refreshed page but who else is listed.

Out of the seven members of the royal family who can be officially deputised to perform many of the duties of the King, three are non-working members of the royal family.

In fact, they are a man who faced a civil sex abuse case (an allegation he strenuously denied); a man who now makes his living sharing his trauma with paying audiences and banging on about the indignities of palace life; and a woman whose greatest contribution to modern history is once wearing a hideous hat.

They read like examples of the sorts of dreary people you should avoid at all costs at a dinner party, much less suitable candidates to ever fulfil some of the functions of the head of state.

Having Harry, Andrew and Beatrice as possible regal understudies makes about as much sense as letting Cheryl Cole deputise for the Home Secretary or Take That’s Gary Barlow getting to have a go as the governor of the Bank of England.

George I, the Hanoverian who founded what is now the House of Windsor, must be so proud.

Now before anyone starts putting their hands up in the back row, I know – last year Charles asked parliament to pass a new bill to extend the list of Counsellors of State.

Why is Prince Andrew a Counsellor of State? Photo / AP

This was done to add the redoubtable Princess Anne and our friend Edward to the list, thus ensuring that in reality, Andrew, Harry and Beatrice will likely never be called on to act as kingly stand-ins.

But it’s the horrendous look of it all: That an unemployed golf addict, a Sloaney girl about town and a man who supposedly makes podcasts for a living could ever be left in charge and could theoretically sign government documents or receive new ambassadors.

The fact that these three, who currently sit at the fifth, eighth and ninth positions in the line of succession still occupy official positions of this import, even if in all likelihood they will never have to, epitomises everything that a critic might loudly argue is wrong with the monarchy.

Specifically, why should a bunch of unqualified, unelected and unappealing people be allowed to hold these roles? That they could even theoretically be tapped to open parliament, sign official documents or hold Privy Council meetings?

The tacking on of Anne and Edward onto the counsellors list was, at the time, seen as a diplomatic move by the King, a way of ensuring that Prince “I’m just watching my sixth hour of golf” Andrew and the Duke of Netflix would never be called up to act in this capacity, while not hurting any sensitive spare feelings.

However, in hindsight dodging the actual problem was like applying a few Mickey Mouse band-aids over a bullet wound.

Charles’ No 1 job as King, along with slapping his royal warrant on pots of marmalade and keeping the souvenir industry afloat, is to protect the monarchy and right now the two biggest threats to the institution’s health and well-being are members of his very own family.

While the late Queen is now remembered with dewy-eyed adoration, her final years were blighted by her ineffectual handling of these errant Dukes.

Andrew was allowed to dodge legal servers by staying at her Scottish estate, then for months wage an only-going-to-end-in-disaster legal fightback against Virginia Giuffre’s sex abuse allegations. When he finally agreed to settle in February 2022, Her late Majesty reportedly ponied up millions and millions to settle the case.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre holds a photo of herself as a teen, when she says she was abused by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew, among others. Photo / Getty

And yet still she saw fit to let him try to repeatedly weasel his way back into public life even after that, notably at the service of thanksgiving for Prince Philip’s life at Westminster Abbey.

Then there’s Harry and wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, who have been left largely unchecked by the palace as they have spent the past two years telling anyone with a recording device what a rubbish lot the royal family is.

In both the Andrew and Harry cases, the late Queen sought short-term solutions and quick fixes to try to make these messy, complex situations go away and to get them out of the headlines as fast as possible.

However, they have not gone away; oh no. Instead, Charles has been left with the mother of all monarchical headaches.

He is about to face the nearly impossible job of following in the late Queen’s oversized footsteps.

In the months and years to come, after the high of the coronation has passed and we’ve all forgotten that His Majesty could only get three of the four members of Take That to perform as part of the historic event, we will be wholly in uncharted royal waters. (Unless the Bank of England asks Gary to take the reins for a bit and then it will only be two.)

Harry and Meghan are still a headache for King Charles. Photo / Getty Images

Will he be able to act as the unifying figure of nationhood that he is meant to be or go haring off on tangents such as trying to preserve British hedgerows or lobbying Downing St to put homeopathic remedies on the National Health Service?

Will he be able to keep steady the level of public support for the royal family in an age where inherited, unearned privilege is increasingly public enemy No 1? Where institutions of power are being held to account?

How can Charles ever contemplate this gargantuan task while the Andrew and Harry situations remain unresolved and continuing thorns in his side?

Which is a long way of saying, the King simply cannot afford for his brother and son and their ever-resilient egos and deep reservoirs of grievance to continue semi-regularly wreaking havoc.

So long as the eight words “The Duke of York” and “The Duke of Sussex” appear on the royal website as Counsellors of State, His Majesty is putting his reign – and the whole palace shebang – in jeopardy.

And god forbid if Beatrice is let loose on a Philip Treacy sale: the monarchy could not survive another disaster on that scale.

Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.