If his first full day on the throne is any indication, King Charles seemed ready to chart at least a slightly different course. He looked more like a U.S. president on the campaign trail than the latest steward of a 1,000-year-old hereditary monarchy.
Britain's King Charles III, back to camera, greets well-wishers as he walks by the gates of Buckingham Palace following Thursday's death of Queen Elizabeth II, in London, Friday, Sept. 9.
It’s not that Queen Elizabeth II didn’t meet her subjects. She did, often. But this felt different — a bit less formal, a bit more relaxed and personal. Charles spent almost 10 minutes greeting people pressed up against the crowd-control barriers, smiling, waving, accepting condolences and the occasional bouquet of flowers as the audience broke out in a chorus of “God Save the King.”
Charles' efforts to engage with the public more intimately reflect the fact that he needs their support. There are difficult issues ahead, most pressingly how the 73-year-old king will carry out his role as head of state. “It doesn’t mean he’s involved in the daily broil of politics or speaking for a specific piece of legislation,” Kerry told the BBC. “But I can’t imagine him not … feeling compelled to use the important role of the monarch, with all the knowledge he has about it, to speak out and urge the world to do the things the world needs to do.”
In an interview for a 2018 documentary broadcast on his 70th birthday, Charles said he would behave differently when he became king because the monarch has a different role than the Prince of Wales.“I’ve always been intrigued if it’s meddling to worry about the inner cities, as I did 40 years ago, and what was happening or not happening there, the conditions in which people were living,” he wondered. “If that’s meddling, I’m very proud of it.
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