The New Yorker Radio Hour - King Charles III Takes the Throne

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

On May 6th, King Charles will become the oldest person to ascend the throne of the United Kingdom. He is a bit of an odd duck to be the king, Rebecca Mead thinks. Charles has “long made clear that he considers his birthright a burden,” she writes. In fact, many things are a burden: during the ceremonies following the death of Queen Elizabeth, the new king “got into not one but two altercations with malfunctioning pens. . . . As his biographer Catherine Mayer puts it, ‘The world is against him—even inanimate objects are against him. That is absolutely central to his personality.’ ” Mead—a subject of the king, as well as a staff writer—talks with David Remnick about Charles III’s coronation, the problem of Harry and Meghan, and the future of the British monarchy itself. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is Rebecca Mead, and this is London. After Queen Elizabeth II died, at the age of 96, King Charles III delivered a televised speech, his first public address as monarch. I speak to you today with feelings of profound sorrow. His eyes were roomy and his complexion florid. His hair, thoroughly silver, was brushed as carefully as it had been in 1953, when, as a fidgety four-year-old, he had endured his mother's almost three-hour-long coronation service in Westminster Abbey.

Queen Elizabeth was a life well-lived, a promise with destiny kept. That promise of lifelong service I renew to all today. Rebecca, has coronation mania begun on the streets of London? I don't really think it has. I mean, not as far as I've seen now. I just deeply disappoint. I've been invited to one party.

Okay, let's a start. I can't tell quite whether it's a serious party or a joke party. Charles has long made it clear that he considers his birthright a burden. Nobody knows what utter hell it is to be the Prince of Wales. He has reportedly complained. Although he is literally the most entitled man in the land, a royal can feel like an anachronism, and he apparently feels a kinship with certain other Britons who are marginalized.

Paddy Harvison, the prince's former communication secretary, says that Charles has a particular fondness for the sheep farmers of remote Cumbria, because they are about the most forgotten community you can find. Tom Parker Bowles, Charles' godson and later his stepson, grew up thinking that Charles's name was Sir, because that's all anyone ever called him. Yet Sir suffers from a peculiar aristocratic version of imposter syndrome. He is wise enough to know that, in almost any room he enters, other than one occupied by members of his family, he is likely to be the only person present, whose power and influence

derive entirely from his birth. Indeed, if Charles checked his privilege, there would be nothing left of him, just a crumpled pile of ermine and velvet and a faint whiff of Osavage. Elizabeth became queen when she was so young. Before really she had a chance to have a public profile or opinions of any kind. Charles has a long record, so it's hard for him to conceal himself. Are people bored with him? Are they eager to see him king?

What's the level of the degree to which people even care about what's about to happen? It's really funny. I mean, he's a person who has not been popular on and off, the whole marriage with Diana and the divorce and all of that didn't do his ratings very much good. And there have been opinion polls asking whether people thought he would be a good king or not. And there was kind of lukewarmer and maybe not so great. The minute the queen died or the week that the queen died, polls were taken again. How good a king will. Charles B. And his favourables doubled, which goes to show, I think, that the position brings with it a kind of gravitous and respect that many Britons just accept and defer to. Let's ask it a perennial American question, and maybe to some degree it's a British question, why still have a king in 2023? Many countries either have gotten rid of the monarchy entirely or have reduced it to such a point. Yeah.

Well, I think maybe part of it is that, you know, Britain did try to get rid of the monarchy at one point in the 17th century and indeed did get rid of the monarchy. And there were 11 years of Republican rule until the Houses of Parliament decided that they would rather have the monarchy back and Charles II came in and it's all been relatively stable since then. So, you know, we've been through that. We did try it and it didn't stick, let's say.

People often say, well, yeah, but look what happens when you have a president in the United States, for example, you can get a Donald Trump at the head of the country. Isn't it better to have somebody who is above politics, separated from politics? Of course, the answer to that is. That doesn't prevent you from having a buffoon. You had Boris Johnson, who's nobody's idea of dignity personified. That is true. but he wasn't the head of state. So this is an, I'm giving you the pro-monarchy argument here

is that you can have a head of state who's not an elected buffoon. Of course, you could also have a head of state who's a hereditary buffoon, which we could have had easily here if Charles had fallen off his polo pony at the age of 29, and we'd now be facing King Andrew the first.

God save us all. Charles is more popular than he once was, in part because he was once so very unpopular. All the same, wearing the crown will not alter his fundamental character. When, in the days after the Queen's death, he took part in ceremonies establishing his kingship, he got into not one but two altercations with malfunctioning pens. And his irascible response the second time,

I can't bear this bloody thing what they do every stinking time, was recognisable to anyone who has spent time observing him. As his biographer Catherine Mayer puts it, the world is against him. Even inanimate objects are against him. That is absolutely central to his personality. Rebecca Mead, reading from her essay on the New King Charles, back in a moment.

Now, you can't have a conversation about the Royals without talking about, of course, Harry and Megan. What's been the net effect of their estrangement, their Oprah interview, the book, all of it, on this whole proceeding and on the royal family. They do not look good from this side of the ocean. I mean, there has to be an ongoing narrative. And right now the ongoing narrative is they turned their backs

and they're off in California making loads of money and that's not very dignified or cool. So Harry, because, as you know, because I send you clips from it all the time, I read the dairy mail constantly, Harry will be at the coronation. Megan will not be at the coronation. Harry will be sat many rows behind the family.

What do you make of all this? I think it was a stroke of genius on the part of somebody in Buckingham Palace to arrange for the coronation to be on the same day as Harry and Megan's oldest child's birthday. Because that gives them the perfect answer. I mean, Megan can stay home, she can stay with Archie, celebrate him turning for or whatever it is that he's turning. And Harry can come, but he doesn't have to stay.

And I mean, you know, I just think it's like some, there's some genius event planning going on there. If I read your piece correctly, and you can correct me here if you want, you seem somewhat sympathetic toward Charles. You think he's gotten a bad rap? I think Charles is probably a very decent man. I think that he's a bit of a weirdo, and I say that with the... Loving respect. I do say it with loving respect. I mean, I think it's a good thing.

He wrote this book called Harmony that brings together all of his interests and passions and shows the ways in which they're all connected in this kind of sacred architecture, the golden mean, all that. that kind of stuff. And it's, it's kind of great. It's a little bit loopy. And it's kind of, and it's also sort of fantastic that he wrote it and produced this sort of manifesto. I don't think enough people have read it. I, I am sympathetic towards him. I think my position on the monarchy, broadly speaking, is that the strongest argument for its abolition is that it is a violation of the human rights of the individuals in the royal family to have to endure.

what they do have to endure. And I think to the extent that we should, you know, get rid of the monarchy, abolish the monarchy, it really should be for their sake, at least as much as for us. So your slogan would be, free the king. Totally. Free the lot of them. Rebecca Mead, our royals correspondent, and much else. Thank you so much. Thank you, David.

Rebecca Meade is a staff writer based in London, and the coronation of King Charles III. do I really need to tell you, is next weekend, so get up early. I'm David Remnick. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbes of Tune Yards. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.