The 1 Skill of Queen Elizabeth’s King Charles Has ‘Never’ Had Is Now a ‘Danger’ to His Reign, Royal Author Says
King Charles III has big shoes, err, a big crown, to fill the British royal family after Queen Elizabeth II. According to a royal author, he’s simply “never” had the ability to “connect” with the public like his late mother.
King Charles can’t ‘connect’ with people like the queen did
Sept. 8, 2023, marked the one-year anniversary of the queen’s death but also King Charles’s first year on the throne. Discussing where the king stands today, royal author Clive Irving explained the 74-year-old isn’t in an ideal situation.
Namely, he’s “struggling to connect” with people, a problem his mother didn’t have. “When Charles appears, he doesn’t connect,” Irving told the US Express (via Express). “I felt that very strongly at the time of the coronation that he looked almost morose throughout the whole ceremony.”
King Charles officially became king on May 6, 2023. The Westminster Abbey ceremony in London, England, cost an estimated $126 million.
“It’s almost as though he’s in danger of disappearing completely from the public consciousness,” the author of The Last Queen went on. “He’s never been able to connect in the way that his mother connected.”
King Charles is ‘poor at the job’ of leading the monarchy compared to Queen Elizabeth
Irving continued, saying a year after taking the throne, it’s “stunningly clear” King Charles isn’t quite on his late mother’s level. “The most glaring thing at the moment is that after a year, it’s become stunningly clear how brilliant the queen was at the job and how poor he is at the job,” the author said.
“She [Queen Elizabeth II] connected through the TV screen or with people in person,” Irving explained. “When Charles appears, he doesn’t connect.”
Tom Bower, the author of Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, echoed the same comments. However, he noted many people are still behind the monarchy.
“Charles’s popularity is clearly nothing like his mother’s,” Bower said. “But the monarchy is still popular.” In his opinion, it falls to the king’s oldest son, Prince William, and his wife, Kate Middleton, to “keep the whole flame going.”
‘The Crown’ may become another problem for King Charles
Beyond King Charles’s apparent “danger of disappearing,” there could be another problem on the horizon for him and his reign: The Crown. The sixth and final season of the Netflix original series based on Queen Elizabeth’s reign is set to premiere on Nov. 16 (episodes 1-4) and Dec. 14 (episodes 5-10), respectively.
The final chapter includes the death of King Charles’s ex-wife, Princess Diana, as played by Elizabeth Debicki, as well as the aftermath. Similar to The Crown Season 5, the award-winning series’ final installment may influence the public’s view of King Charles.
“I think the concern, certainly by the king, is that the younger generation, the Netflix generation, may well tune into the series and not be able to distinguish fact from fiction,” Katie Nicholl, a royal expert, said. “[They] may base their opinion of Charles based on his past and what they’ve seen represented in The Crown.”
