Colin Sheridan: Heavy the head that wears the crown

Monarchs, even disinterested ones, are prone to being told exactly what they want to hear

King Charles III probably would have been better suited to an ordinary life, like the rest of us. 
File picture: Toby Melville/PA Wire

What is monarchy? From whence does it derive its sanction? What has been its gift to humanity? Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history.  It derives its only sanction from the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer, and its gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities.

James Connolly 

You’d almost feel sorry for King Charles. He didn’t ask for this. We know he didn’t, because at various moments during the many seasons of The Crown, he muttered those very words. “I didn’t ask for this, mummaaye.” 

He has always struck me, not so much as a reluctant royal, but a disinterested one. Bet down by decades of decadence and family interference. Homesick at boarding school. Lovesick in an unhappy, arranged marriage. Actually sick of his dysfunctional family. 

He probably would've been better suited to an ordinary life, like the rest of us. 

A couple of years in Sandhurst, followed by a dead-end role with zero accountability as a wealth manager at daddy's firm on Lombard St. 

Short days and long, Aperol Spritz-filled evenings. Wet lunches. Polo at the weekends, a short drive to the Cotswold's in a top-down MG to cure the hangover. 

If you offered him all the trappings of kingship (grazing and fishing rights, prima nocta, free parking in Belgravia), but none of the ribbon-cutting responsibilities, I’d guess he’d chop your head off. 

Or, just bite your hand off. He might even just let you have the job. Hand over the phone. Have a serf scribble down the passwords. Give you his fob.

Where did it all go wrong? Birth, as Beckett mused, was the death of him. What hope did he have? Especially when one brother, Edward, was so forgettable as to be completely forgotten, and the other, Andrew, was, well, much too into Jeffrey Epstein. 

His sister, Princess Anne, seemed sound, but, being a woman, didn’t really matter. There was no hope of abdication, as his uncle wiped his eye. There’s nothing worse in a family when somebody does the one thing you really want to do yourself right before you. 

King Edward screwed Charlie by skipping town with the American actress. One abdication a century is enough for any royal family, and he already played his get-out-of-jail card by divorcing Diana and marrying Camilla. 

You can imagine how that talk went down with his Lilibet: “Marry her, son, but then you must be king.” 

It’s a lot, and I feel for him. It started on day one with the cluttered desk and the inattentive aides. Then, the leaky pen. He couldn’t catch a break. Such is his complete disinterest in the job that I forgot he was king. Or that there was a king. 

The King of England was quietly quitting. It was quite a novelty, then, seeing him back on the news this week. 

In Australia, of all places, where he was met with a very articulate critique of his family's legacy by a woman (of all things) called Lidia Thorpe, an independent senator from Victoria.

“You are not my King,” Thorpe, an outspoken advocate for Indigenous rights, politely told him.

“You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us — our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people.” 

The press described Thorpe's intervention as “heckling,” but I’m not so sure. Her rather succinct summary of the great post-colonial hangover will likely have been the most honest words Charles heard on his trip down under. 

Australian senator Lidia Thorpe protests during the ceremonial welcome to Australia for King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Australian Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Victoria Jones/PA Wire

Monarchs, even disinterested ones, are prone, after all, to being told exactly what they want to hear.

I wondered how all of this would’ve played out on The Crown? Charles, initially taken aback by “this aggressive, indigenous woman,” would ruminate on the long flight home. Have flashbacks to his time in Llwynywermod, when a miner accidentally crossed in front of him, and the future king was faced with his own mortality in the face of a common, soot-faced working man.

“But does she have a point, Camilla?” he’d say, momentarily conflicted, his team of pillow-fluffers vehemently shaking their heads behind him. 

“Should we give them the skulls back?” 

Camilla, kind of face, would go full Good Will Hunting and comfort her mythered husband, “It’s not your fault, dear. Get some rest. Remember, we have the Marchioness of Lansdowne and the Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen in the Cotswold's this weekend. 

"You need to be in the full of your health for the grouse.” 

Social media, so bad at so much, can redeem itself in such moments. My favourite post, though, was a simple reminder of James Connolly's speech ahead of the King George V’s visit to Dublin following his coronation in 1910.

“We will not blame him for the crimes of his ancestors if he relinquishes the royal rights of his ancestors; but as long as he claims their rights, by virtue of descent, then, by virtue of descent, he must shoulder the responsibility for their crimes.” 

True dat, James, true dat.

Charles may not have asked for it, but, now that he has it, he may as well get used to being hit by a few Thorpedos.

Otherwise, he should just stay at home.