“It is on the international stage that the new King may make his mark most tellingly.”
Trevor Phillips
As we progress through the pomp and splendour of the Coronation over the next few days, many will be asking themselves, ‘what is the relevance of the monarchy in today's world?’. With a virtually symbolic political role, family discord which is straining the hereditary principle on which the royal family is based, and displays of opulence which contrast strongly with the Bank of England's instruction to us last week that ‘people need to accept that they are poorer’, it can often appear to be only tradition which supports the establishment of monarchy.
There is, however, a global perspective which our current set of international leaders find really challenging, and which clearly resonates strongly with Charles's mindset. His late mother understood it fully, and her greatest achievement was to transform an old-fashioned traditional empire into the family of nations which is now the Commonwealth.
Will Charles reign forward, spending the majority of his time travelling the world and building one human family in which discord can become a thing of the past? Or will he just rein back here in the United Kingdom, allowing parochial pressures for contraction to eclipse this wider opportunity?
The jury is out ..
So many of Charles’s passions are wholly in the right place — for example in his concern for the environment, and in his commitment to young people (as shown through the Prince's Trust). He clearly sympathises with those whose lives are being ruined by conflicts and poverty, although he may be at a loss at present to know how to tackle these evils. Meanwhile his acceptance of people from all religious backgrounds and none is clear and welcome, and next weekend's ceremonies will bear out his wish for inclusivity at all levels.
So, there’s no doubt that he has the credentials for changing our world for the better, and his role as Head of the Commonwealth gives him the platform to do just that.
I therefore strongly support the final section of Trevor Phillip’s weekend essay in The Times, from which the quotation at the head of this commentary is drawn. As Trevor Phillips says, ‘It is only by his actions that he can answer the question hanging in the air next Saturday — what exactly is the monarchy for?’.
In the first few years of, and throughout, Queen Elizabeth's reign she travelled extensively, building relationships throughout the newly-formed Commonwealth and many other countries. As those who have watched ‘The Crown’ will recall, some of these could not even start to have been tackled by traditional politicians.
Almost single-handed she built a family of nations unparalleled in human history, living with respect for one another and able to tackle global challenges with a genuine concern for the long-term future: something which short-term democratic politicians find deeply challenging, as we noted on 14th November 2022. It was interesting to hear Princess Anne referring to this need for a long-term perspective in an interview with CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Charles now needs to draw up those themes in which he can become the catalyst for global responsibility. At the head of his list will, of course, be the environment and rebuilding our respect for the natural world. But not far behind must be a concern for everyone to share in the opportunities of wealth creation, and to build global acceptance of the constitutional implications required to enable its long-term vibrancy through inter-generational rebalancing.
His role, therefore, needs to be as a global ambassador, using his stature as monarch and Head of the Commonwealth to bring real change.
Charles has travelled a long way since his early days as an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge. I was there myself, a year or two behind him; but we never had the opportunity to meet — it's a big college. The photograph of him which has been carried by the BBC and various newspapers over last weekend conveys the anxiety and strain that he must have experienced, and over these past fifty years he has clearly found confidence in a new stability.
I wish him well over the years ahead, and I hope he goes on to achieve the same degree or more global integration that his mother achieved.
Many international leaders will gather for the Coronation next Saturday, and this will be a great opportunity to build first-hand relationships to the extent that they do not already exist. This should be followed by an intense programme of world travel — so please, your majesty, delegate your tasks here in the United Kingdom to others, and focus on the opportunity to achieve the one human family for all our descendants, which should be our legacy.
Gavin Oldham OBE
Share Radio