Ok cool I get to speak about something I know :P IMO there is no need for *great* anymore - the queen or king has no real power or even influence. it's really just a *quirk* more than anything now... Many people increasingly don't see the need or point of the monarchy and many resent the money tax payers contribute to keep them around.... I have no real strong feelings either way.. So really I was just setting the scene regarding the need to be great.
Now as to Charles.. I am aware that some on here aren't fond of him... due to the Diana business... but I think they fail to understand that things were never really black or white there... and it's unfair of any of us to judge about matters we know very little of... and I say that as a fan of Diana... Charles was in a difficult position too... and at the end of the day monarchy are only human and yet they are expected to somehow be better than super human when it comes to love and life and emotions... But that said... I like him... I think he is a strong person, who has had a very difficult life, and who has had many pressures and problems that we cannot even imagine, because of his position ... e.g he was very badly bullied at school but had no one to turn to, was expected to somehow cope with it... If we blow our nose no one cares.. if he does it in public the world will hear about it..many pressures we cannot imagine as i say...
I think a LOT of what's gone into making him the person he is today are factors we cannot comprehend... again those pressures..the strict upbringing... the expectations...the need to always behave in a tightly controlled way... He knew he would never really get much of a chance to be king... he was really just always a man in waiting.. not really this or that but aware that he could one day have to take on that responsibility.... and yet he has managed to carve out a niche for himself. And personally I very much agree with him on his stance re the environment and even architecture.... I think it's brave of him to make a stand... Royalty are not supposed to have an opinion on anything.. so i admire that he does...
I think... when you hear him talk he talks sanely.. respectfully and he takes the burden of his position very seriously... I think the queen is fantastic in the role... I suspect CHarles cannot beat that but yea I think he will be ok...
Okay, so this might be weird, but what if someone is born into the royal family that wants no part of it? Can they quit, say, learn the banjo, move to San Diego and be a beach bum? Just asking because that's what I would want to do and I think it would suck if you were stuck doing something you have absolutely no interest in.
Well you make a very good point.... that's the burden CHarles has been under.. he has no choice.. pressure we cannot conceive of.. training all his life from his earliest memories. knowing he is who he is and the constraints of etiquette the *establishment* that we don't have...
Charles would have had it drummed into him more than anyone... after the abdication of Edward.. which was seen as the most awful thing.. the Queen mother, Charles's grandmother was very outspoken on that matter.. his abdication thrust her family into the burden.. and it's one of the reasons the Queen would never * retire* as she is very aware of the consequences of abdication.. the burden it throws onto others.. she feels its her responsibility...
That said the younger royals are less burdened.. much freeer and more able to be human ... this was, allegedly, part of Diana's legacy... she bucked the trend of the royals being seen as not able to be human... of always needing to behave in an exemplary way..
Hey wait a minute. I'm not English but I've followed Prince Charles' life a little because we have the same name, are about the same age, and we both have big ears. I thought because of the Camilla affair, Prince William is now going to be King. Not?
No that's not the case.. it hasn't been decided.. it's been postulated... but there has been no decision.. the decision is Charles's - re Camilla you have to remember that CHarles was given permission to marry her.. times change and what was once not acceptable for royals is now allowed.. normal people divorce and remarry...
Well I hope for my sake that my namesake will become King. That could mean when Prince Charles comes into his own that I, Charles, will also come into mine. You go Prince!
Camilla and Charles were married in a civil ceremony because the Church Of England refused to marry them, this in spite of the fact that if Charles were to become King he would be Head Of the Church, they had a service of "prayer and thanksgiving" not a blessing which they tried to pass off as a Church blessing. Royals can only be married in the Church, Princess Anne went to a Scottish Church for her second marriage, so I think that when the time comes the legality of Charles marriage to Camilla will be questioned. There is also the question of Camilla being married in the Catholic Church and at that time she became a Catholic even though it has been denied. According to the 1701 Act Of Succession if the heir to the throne marries a papist he forgoes forever the right to inherit the throne. Added to that as far as I know in the eyes of the Catholic Church Camilla is still married to Andrew Parker Bowles. Some of this already surfaced when Charles married Camilla but when the time comes for him to take the throne I believe there will be much legal discussion. After all that Charles and Camilla don't even live together, she has her own house and it has been well discussed that the taxpayers are footing the bill for the extra security and for the bungalow built on the grounds of her house to house the security people.
I have seen more than a few conversations with the Prince over the years about various topics, he seems a sober, intelligent fellow. I think he wouldn't embarrass his countrymen as their traditional figurehead, and would prepare the way for William more than adequately. Is there talk that Charles may pass the crown directly to Will?
Charles has been waiting to be king his whole life, I don't believe he will ever willingly step aside to let William take the throne. He declared that he wanted to be Defender Of Faiths instead of the traditional Defender Of The Faith which is our heritage but fairly recently he has announced that he will take the vow to Defend The Faith.
Read my comments and you'll see that he already has embarrassed his countrymen in more ways than one.
I have the utmost respect for the Queen, she has dedicated her life to her duty as monarch.
Charles is a spoiled sulky man who loves to lecture the peasants. He claims to be very involved in conserving energy but refused to allow the tenants on his estate to install double glazing to reduce heat loss because he thought it would spoil the appearance of the houses.
The other thing Charles claims to be a champion of is climate change even though he took a private jet to a conference on climate change leaving a huge carbon footprint. The irony of this obviously escapes him.
We won't go too much into the tampon Charlie incident, Charles had been well warned that his phone calls were not secure but he seemed to think nobody would dare listen in to him and made himself the laughing stock of the world. Not the behaviour one would expect of a future king.
Charles is completely out of touch with the ordinary people, Diana tried to raise William and Harry to understand the world outside of palace walls, taking them to McDonalds and making them wait their turn which infuriated Charles who simply couldn't understand what she was trying to do.
William giving Kate Diana's engagement ring was really a slap in the face for Charles who must surely see red whenever he looks at it. Charles himself has complained that he had not seen Prince George, his grandson, in months which must give some indication of how William feels about his father.
I believe that when the time comes for Charles to take the throne there will be a huge movement to abolish the monarchy altogether.
I've heard about that. In fact, I heard they now plan to move up the coronation to just three months after the queen dies. They usually wait a year after the monarch to install his or her successor. But the crown doesn't want to give people a long period to protest the monarchy. They want Charles in as soon as possible !!
Since when has England been sans a monarch for months? Henry II took the Crown from his dying father's hands. "The King is dead - ling live the Queen!" was declared within hours of George VI's passing, there is a delay of a few weeks to allow foreign heads of state to arrange to be present at the formal Coronation but the reign is held to begin instantly.
They always said the King/Queen is dead long live???? with the announcement. A good example is the Duke of Windsor who was prepared to be King after his father died in fact coronation plans were well under way, he assumed the role of King but then decided to abdicate because of Wallis Simpson. The coronation went ahead as planned but with a different King being crowned.
Edward's intention to marry Wallis Simpson was an excuse. Britain was determined to shunt Edawrd aside on ANY pretext - due to his close personal friendship with Adolf Hitler. His infatuation with Mrs Simpson was convenient. Had Germany won World War II, Hitler's intention was to install Edward as puppet king.
The whole royal family were pictured giving the Hitler salute before the war, they changed their name to Windsor to deflect the fact that they were of German origin. It is said that the Queen Mum never forgave the Duke for abdicating and forcing her husband to take the throne. She was the force behind his exile. I agree Hitler did plan to use the Duke and if I remember my history rightly both he and Wallis were shuffled off to some Carribean island to get them out of the way.
The name change from Saxe-Coburg was earlier, during the First World War, due to George V's fury at a comment made by HG Wells, referring to George's "alien and uninspiring court" in a popular newspaper. The King's reponse was, "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be DAMNED if I'm alien!" George's grandfather, Prince Albert (consort to Queen Victoria) was after all a German. Kaiser Wilhelm was George's cousin.
You don't know what you're talking about !! The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place on 2 June 1953. Her father died more than a year earlier on 6 February 1952.
Adaydreambeliever 