The Queen is Dead, Long Live Some Dude

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground,/And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

The other day, His Majesty Charles the Third—by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His Other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith—decided not to attend the Cop27 Climate Change Summit, scheduled for next month in Egypt. In making that decision, Charles took advice from his Prime Minister, Liz Truss, because new to the throne as he is, His Majesty expects to rely often on such counsel when determining royal policies for ruling the realm . . .

No, I know. That’s not what happened. The Prime Minister told Charles he couldn’t attend the summit (his views on environmental matters are out of sync with the current policies of Great Britain). The Palace denied that Truss gave Charles an order to that effect, and why would she? Brits can be quite polite. If she tells him she thinks he'd better not, he can’t go.

To me, “monarchy” means lawmaking by a single person, and I’m against that, and I hope you are too. Regardless of climate-change policy, it’s a good thing that the so-called monarch of Britain has no choice but to do what the Prime Minister of Britain says. But what’s striking me now is that Charles has only had this gig for a few weeks and already there’s been exposure of the political fiction that his predecessor, Queen Elizabeth II, was able to maintain as a truth for more than seventy years.