The time has come for Carlos III, the king who has had the longest time to prepare for his coronation, always waiting, until Queen Elizabeth, his mother, died last September at the age of 96, after breaking all the records of a reigning monarch. In England. Carlos III has spent his life training to be king and has had all the time to think about what his reign would be like, which has just begun at 74 years of age. Kings do not retire. In any case, they abdicate or are overthrown.
No one knows what an ordeal it means to be the Prince of Wales, he said in a speech at Cambridge, his university, on his 30th birthday. He also stated on that distant date that "my big problem in life is that I don't really know what my role in life is." He had to find one and he did not take refuge in the hobby of horses that his mother practiced so much, but he spread his own ideas about modern architecture, organic farming, climate change and alternative medicine. He always bordering on politically correct and raising frequent controversies. He has been described as a philosopher king, lover of rural life, who would like to manage a corral with chickens and a flock of sheep. A king of pre-industrial society who could build bridges with the environmental trends that are coming.
He is a king with his own ideas who must already know that he will have to keep them to his personal thoughts, because his institutional role must adhere to tradition, to what the governments in power say and to represent a country that mostly accepts the monarchy as the cornerstone of its political system. A king who reigns, but does not rule, no matter how well informed he is.
It is worth asking why the British are mostly monarchists being such a practical people and so inclined to defend their individualism and their particular interests. Precisely because they have known how to make changes and revolutions that do not attack the principle of legitimacy. King Faruq of Egypt, a great playboy and a creation of British imperial diplomacy, said that only five kings were assured of the throne: the four in the deck and the king of England.
The problems of the kings do not affect governance. They are humans who do not command, but who represent an apparently neutral institution and of which, in addition, the sovereign is the head of the Anglican Church. It is ironic, considering that the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is a Hindu, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is a Muslim of Pakistani origin and his father was a bus conductor for the capital.
The British monarchy manages complexity with the experience that comes with the passage of time. That is why it lasts and overcomes crises, despite its personal miseries. Tradition is not a problem, but an ancestral habit in a society that is more conservative than adventurous. So much so, for example, that the Scottish separatists would continue to be linked to the British crown in the event that Scotland one day became a state.
Few peoples are as sensitive as the British to the beauty with which time adorns things. There are many old statesmen, worn out and polished by the contradictions that have dwarfed what had been a great empire for more than two centuries. They like the old, cold universities, without facilities, where hot water has practically just been introduced. There are many Britons who consider the monarchy an absurd and outdated institution. The percentage of young people who are carefree or opposed to a king who is by birth and not by merit is higher than among mature Britons. In any case, the acceptance of the monarchy is majority, with more than 65% supporters. But since the political class also shows signs of deficiencies and frivolity, the English are left with what they have, a system of appearances, color, representation and formal but practical functioning of politics.
Carlos III's relations with his brothers are complicated. And those maintained by Guillermo, the heir, and his brother Enrique are few, if not non-existent. The specter of his mother, the people's princess, Lady Di, has conditioned the relationships of the hard core of the royal family. Camilla Parker Bowles, the crowned queen, has come to the throne after a long period as the lover of the current king. Carlos III is attributed to a reflection shared with friends when some years ago he would have said that "they want him to be the first Prince of Wales in history who has not had a lover!".
All monarchs have a personality that they try to adapt to the times in which they live. Carlos III will have to preserve the British national identity that his mother symbolically represented with a prudent, but effective, professionalism. His links to the Commonwealth of nations will be disputed, and the integrity of the United Kingdom will have to pass the test of Scottish independence and the challenge of Northern Ireland deciding one day to push to join the Republic of Ireland.
I remember the month of July 1981 covering the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer for this newspaper. They passed through Fleet Street, the street of the press, with a carriage to St. Paul's Cathedral. The festivities of that wedding lasted several days. The people and the tourists surrendered to their passing with balloons, confetti, streamers and commemorative flags. A lot of water has passed down the Thames and the British will now continue to sing “God save the king”. I can't imagine a republican England.
