Michael L Nash wonders if Prince Charles’s accession will usher in a new style of monarchy
The day after a new biography of Prince Charles was published (Charles: The Heart of a King by Catherine Mayer) the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery fired 41 guns in Green Park, to mark the 63rd anniversary of his mother’s accession. Clearly now, and perhaps for some time, we are in a period of transition. But, as the writer states: “The Queen is inviolable, her son is not.”
The book brings into sharp focus a number of the issues, both present and in the foreseeable future, which need both attention and address. The Times’ editorials in the last month have concentrated on the need for royal reform, something echoed by Mayer: “It will always be better for the Windsors to initiate reform rather than it being imposed.” It is interesting to note, as she does, that the Way Ahead Group, an informal meetings of senior royals and aides, which began during the Annus Horribilis of 1992, was disbanded in 2011, its aspirations now being
