The Coronation of King Charles III will play out on Saturday. Charles has decreed it shall be a more modest Coronation than his mother’s.
But that’s like a billionaire buying a Bentley instead of a Rolls Royce because he wants to appear modest. Because this three-day event still promises pomp and pageantry worthy of a king.
Never mind that speculation about Harry and Meghan attending has dominated media coverage of the planning. The late word is that he, but not she, will attend.
I am an avowed anti-monarchist. And this blog is replete with commentaries denouncing monarchy as an anathema to democracy. But I trust that will not prejudice what follows too much.
The Coronation of King Charles III
This Coronation is a consummation long in waiting. But this crowning of palace intrigue would make even Lady Macbeth blush.
We all watched it play out like a Shakespearean tragedy on the world stage. And it never mattered that the players were not actors but real people. Granted, they were all living fairy-tale lives. That is what made them seem so unreal.
Whatever the case, we never saw them as real people. Of course, Harry and Meghan did much to change that. This, with their post-Megxit, attention-seeking grift.
But, decades before them, Princess Diana did much of the same. For example, their Oprah interview had nothing on Diana’s BBC interview. The BBC aired it on November 20, 1995. What we remember most is Diana lamenting that there were always three people in her marriage.
The third person she was referring to was Camilla, of course. Then, less than two years later, there were two. Diana died in August 1997. Charles and Camilla took their affair public in 1999. They began shacking up together in 2003. And they got married in 2005.
The consummation of Queen Camilla
Charles lived his whole life as the boy who would be king. But, with all due respect to him, this Coronation is far more about Camilla, the woman who would be queen.
Diana knew it would be thus and conceded as much. She lamented that Charles treated her, not Camilla, like a third wheel. And that he did so even on their honeymoon. Charles spent more time consorting with Camilla than canoodling with her.
But she did her royal duty by giving England an heir and a spare. After that, “The Firm” had no more use for her.
So it was only a matter of time before Charles and Camilla had their way. They would divorce their respective spouses and marry each other in due course. And Camilla was all too happy to let Diana know and help her see that.
But imagine the emotional distress they inflicted on her. They “trapped” Diana in their royal crucible when she was still a naïve and chaste 19 year old. Camilla played with her like a Cat playing with a mouse.
Yet once she escaped, Diana spoke with begrudging respect of Camilla’s loyalty to Charles. She also spoke with begrudging admiration of Camilla’s determination to be queen. And that was truly remarkable.
King Charles and consort-cum-queen Camilla
I do not believe Charles and Camilla had anything to do with Diana’s death. Her death was not necessary for them to consummate their royal intrigue.
After all, the monarchy had survived beheadings, affairs, an abdication, and that Diana interview. So it could easily survive a divorce. And it’s not like he would have to abdicate like Edward VIII. Because Charles was not king yet.
In fact, they had just cause to believe the public would go along with, or even enjoy, their plot twists. Exhibit A was how they orchestrated Camilla’s title.
First, Buckingham Palace announced she would be Princess Consort. Then it announced she would be Queen Consort. Now it has announced she will be Queen. Period.
From the outset, though, even I could see that not consort but queen she would be. Buckingham Palace was merely pretending to show deference to Diana. That was obvious. I just called them out on it.
But the palace felt it had to play that charade because Diana was so beloved. Yet it speaks volumes that those who loved her most now embrace Camilla as queen.
They say this is “because she makes Charles happy.” So they blithely overlook that she helped plot his marriage to and divorce from Diana. And that she wears the pants in their marriage. She’s “a masculine soul inhabiting a female body.”
The point is that all is forgiven, and Diana is forgotten. She must be rolling over in her grave. Not because of the way Camilla outplayed her, mind you. But because of the way the palace betrayed her.
The reign of King Charles
No doubt Charles and Camilla will bask in regal splendor on Saturday. And they might even enjoy their reign for a year or two. But karma has a way of meting out poetic justice.
A portent of this is the number of countries lying in wait to abolish him as their head of state. The sun has practically set on the British empire. Hell, Charles will be lucky if he’s still king of Scotland at the end of their reign.
Yet even more foreboding are public opinion polls. Because they show only 32% of young Britons support the monarchy, while 38% think it should be abolished.
This is why analogizing intrigue and fate between Charles and Camilla and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is so apt. The only wonder is that the former did not hasten Queen Elizabeth to her grave to consummate this day years ago.
Enjoy the spectacle.