I explain to you that King Charles III will be king. Speak Caprarica
Everything (or almost) about King Charles III. Conversation with the journalist and writer Antonio Caprarica, an expert on the history and culture of the United Kingdom
Today Charles III will be crowned King. A formal investiture, as England has had a new ruler since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who crowns the eldest heir to the British throne, and his wife Camilla as Queen consort. Buckingham Palace explained that a ceremony will be staged in Westminster Abbey that will make us reflect on the role of the sovereign in the modern era, the King of a multicultural and multiethnic people.
We talked about the coronation of King Charles with the journalist and writer Antonio Caprarica, in the bookstore with “Carlo III. The Fate of the Crown” (ed. Sperling & Kupfer).
What do you think will be the themes that will characterize the reign of King Charles?
I think there will be two fundamental themes: the environment, or if you want sustainability, on the one hand and the second will be inclusiveness. Carlo is a very cultured man, very well prepared and also intelligent, perhaps one of the few in a dynasty, such as that of Windsor, which does not include great intellectuals. It can be said that Charles is the most prepared and perhaps the most intelligent of the sovereigns who have succeeded in these 200 years. He is perfectly aware of the challenges of our time.
The environment is a theme dear to King Charles, even when it was not "fashionable",
He was one of the forerunners, I write about it in the book (Charles III. The destiny of the crown, and Sperling & Kupfer), they even made fun of him, they said he was a prophet of disasters when he raised the alarm about perhaps irreparable damages which we were causing to the environment in which we live.
How will you address the issue of inclusiveness?
Inclusiveness has to do with the radical changes in England over the past seven decades. In 1948 England was still denying entry into the country to the 450 Jamaican refugees from the Windrush, a dramatic page in immigration to Great Britain. Over the next seventy years 18% of the British are of another ethnic group; therefore, it can be said that in Europe, Great Britain is the country with the highest multi-ethnic density and where almost 1/5 of the inhabitants are not of English origin, nevertheless they feel fully integrated into British society and are proud of their Britishness. It is clear that the country's highest institution is facing the problem of how to make it clear to everyone that British society is open, available and inclusive even at the highest levels and on the top rungs of the social pyramid.
Rishi Sunak himself, the British Premier, is of Indian origin.
Sure, just mention the British Premier or the Mayor of London who is of Pakistani origin, the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly who is African-British so to speak and we could go on. So King Charles' concern, and it's certainly an absolutely commendable trait, is to have a coronation ceremony that reflects this new England. The difference could not be more abysmal and more visible, it will be before our eyes during the coronation ceremony: instead of the 8000 guests, in the 99% whites and nobles who crowded Westminster Abbey for Elizabeth's coronation, we will have only 2000 invited and of these a large part will belong to ethnic minorities, and a large part, even of those called to play a role in the more or less sacred function of the coronation, are women or belong to ethnic minorities, or both other thing together.
Can you give us an example?
Yes, for example, to deliver the Scepter of the Dove to the King, which is one of the two sceptres given to the King at the time of his coronation, will be for Baroness Floella Benjamin, who arrives from Trinidad & Tobago. And then again it will be Elizabeth Anionwu, a former nurse of Nigerian origin who will deliver the globe to the King, which is one of the symbols of his power, and then there will also be other exponents of ethnic or religious minorities who will deliver other important symbols of the insignia to the King gifts. So there is a gulf from the '53 coronation as in all the roles there were white, noble males.
In your opinion, how will King Charles take care of relations with the Commonwealth?
This is a rather complicated point, in the first place because relations between Charles and the Commonwealth have never been idyllic, in the sense that Charles has always been rather distracted with respect to this entity which represented, instead, a fundamental and focal point of his mother's attention . His own role as leader of the Commonwealth would not have arrived had it not been for a direct and decisive intervention by Elizabeth II. Today, however, it finds itself filling this role, and it is clear that it will try to slow down what appears to external observers to be an inevitable process of disintegration of this community.
The Commonwealth is a very loose, very vague community, it is not a political community, it is not an economic community, so much so that today, after Brexit, Great Britain is trying to enter into direct trade agreements with each of the entities that make up the Commonwealth ; thus, it's actually a kind of ircodeer that mostly serves Britain as a reminder of the great imperial power it was until 1947.
It is clear that there must also be an evolution in relations with the Commonwealth, where, moreover, the push, by that handful of former Dominions who still recognize the King of England as their Head of State, to get rid of him is very strong, next, obviously, will be Jamaica. So it will be necessary to make an effort of Charles's imagination to be able to place the English monarchy at the center of this canvas which, however, has a strong tendency to fringe.
How will King Charles III's openness to different religious faiths marry with his role as head of the Anglican church?
Precisely on this point there has been some friction, perhaps even some tension, between the Royal Palace and the primate of the Anglican Church, the archbishop of Canterbury. For it is true that Charles is the head of the Church of England but the head in temporal matters, because spiritual leadership is reserved for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The coronation is an entirely Christian ceremony, it is something that has to do with the history of Christian and medieval Europe, the first English coronation we know of is that of King Edgard in 973 and it has always been a fundamentally sacred ceremony, which is inserted within the Christian rite of the Eucharist, and therefore of the sovereign who enters into communion with God who is his sovereign and commits himself with him to be a good shepherd of his sheep on earth.
Now this intimately Christian ceremony will be intertwined with the arrival and presence of other faiths, which will form a real profession of faiths in the body of the religious ceremony, in which there will be exponents of Judaism, Islam, Sikhs , who are an important community in Great Britain. When all this happens in the midst of a Christian ceremony, it inevitably arouses some perplexity and some tension with the Anglican Church, whose number of faithful, however, is declining visibly day by day.
We are now at the point where Anglicans who attend Sunday services number no more than a million once or twice a month. On the other hand, it is true that Charles clarified, already a long time ago, precisely due to the multiethnic and multicultural imprinting of his training, that he under the title of defensor fidei, defender of the faith which was given by Leo X to Henry VIII, he prefers the title of defender of the faiths not of a single faith.
Can the family disputes between King Charles III and his second son Henry, and between the heir to the throne William and his brother, have political repercussions?
It is inevitable. Henry may very well decide to go to the South Pole instead of California, but if he really wanted to find freedom he should say "I give up my inheritance rights the same goes for my children and descendants". As long as Henry doesn't do this, a sign that in reality he has no intention of truly breaking with the royal family, and that he finds it more convenient to try to keep his feet in both shoes, whatever Harry does has constitutional relevance, because he is fifth in line of succession and his children are sixth and seventh.
Now, unlikely as it is that there could be an outbreak of plague wiping out all heirs and paving the way for Henry and his descendants, the reality is that Henry, though an American duke, still has constitutional significance in Britain; therefore, whatever he does has an impact on the life of the family and the monarchy. This is the reason why Carlo is trying to play a role of peacemaker which, however, seems to me very complicated.
How important will be the role of Queen consort Camilla? He addresses the topic in his book?
It is already very important. In the book “Charles III. The fate of the crown” (ed Sperling & Kupfer) tells how Carlo's life, page by page, line by line, is interwoven with that of Camilla. She is the permanent presence in Carlo's life. All focus on Charles's wait for the throne, and leave out the fact that Charles waited some 33 years to finally bring to the altar the woman he wanted and could not have when they were young. Thirty years have passed in which he has waited to realize his projects, his dreams with this woman. I always say that Carlo was faithful all his life to only one woman, unfortunately it wasn't his wife. And this is generally condemned.
So Camilla's role has always been decisive. Camilla, unlike Carlo, is not an intellectual but shares with Carlo the love for the countryside, for nature, for horses, for polo, they have the same sense of humor. Camilla's presence was decisive for stabilizing Carlo's character, for finally giving him that feeling of certainty, security, destiny that escaped him in a very tormented childhood and adolescence, because she was very introverted, marked from episodes of bullying, both in the family and in the schools he attended.
In short, Carlo is a man who has struggled to discover his deepest self, and in this discovery I believe that Camilla has played a fundamental role. Apart from the fact that the only person in the world able to deflate the pomposity of which Carlo occasionally falls victim, and is the only one able to tell him 'Come on, finish it and bring me a gin and tonic'. This is what he accepts only from her.
(Article also published in Policy Maker )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/re-carlo-iii-caprarica/ on Sat, 06 May 2023 08:11:10 +0000.