Cannons rang, bells tolled, and mourners paid their respects. Now King Charles III of Great Britain faces the challenge of preserving a thousand-year-old monarchy that his mother nurtured for seven decades, but which has an uncertain future. The challenge is immense.
Personal affection for the queen has meant that the role of the monarchy in British society has hardly been discussed in recent years, but now that she is gone, the royal family has to grapple with questions about whether she is still relevant in a modern nation. and multicultural that looks very different from when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952.
Amid a global reexamination of the history of colonialism and slavery that has seen protesters tear down or deface statues in British cities and has seen universities such as Oxford and Cambridge change their course offerings, an institution that was once it was the symbol of the British empire facing renewed scrutiny.
Charles will try to “maintain continuity” while also trying to signal that the royals are ready to adapt, said Anna Whitelock, professor of the history of the modern monarchy at City University London. However, he faces a series of questions.
“What place does a monarchy have in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society?” Whitelock asked. “And is it the right conglomerate for the nation? And should it be the monarch who represents the UK abroad? What does she say about us? Is it a bastion of tradition that people should applaud? Or is it actually a progress check that doesn’t really represent the inclusive and diverse society that people hope Britain will now become?”
And there’s another, more personal, question lurking in the background: Is a 73-year-old white man the best person to deal with those problems?
Charles waited longer than any other heir to take the throne and in many ways embodies the modernization of the monarchy. He was the first monarch not to be educated at home, the first to earn a college degree, and the first to grow up under the increasingly intense gaze of the press.
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Achievements.
He has been lauded as an early proponent of the environmental movement and won accolades for working to improve the lives of young people in disadvantaged communities, but he also has a reputation, perhaps undeserved, as a somewhat uptight older man who feels more at ease. on the polo field or one of his country estates than in the football-mad cities of modern Britain.
