King Charles III: A Modern Monarch

the country commonwealth and realms have a new monarch god save the king everyone is now looking to him a man known so well as the prince of wales to lead them through the grief to a brighter future [Applause] he is a new king but also an old man [Applause] [Music] questions will be asked about whether he is the right person to deliver the change needed for the monarchy to survive succession is a perilous time for the crown the king must rally support not just for his leadership but for the institution he is leading can he do it the answer lies in his past [Music] elizabeth was on the throne for a lifetime most people had never known another monarch people loved her quite rightly she was hard not to like britain 70 odd years on is a very very different country in a way the royal family and the queen have prevented progress being made because we've been under the illusion that britain is still what it was in 1952 and it isn't the new king takes the throne at a more challenging time than the queen people are more questioning of authority and resentful of privilege he must become the ultimate symbol of national unity while also modernising the monarchy so it better reflects today's society there's no way in which simply by doing what his mother did will charles be a success he has to be different from his mother everybody thinks that they know him well from documentaries or from the crown but in fact you need to go back to the beginning to the very very different world that he was born into to get the secret of what charles is all about [Music] it has been announced officially from buckingham palace during the past hour that her royal highness the princess elizabeth duchess of edinburgh was safely delivered of a prince at 9 14 pm today ever since 1948 it's been known that one day he would be king but no monarch in british history has waited so long the world is so different now from the world that he was born into that actually he's something of an enigma well look charles is a human being like anybody else and he's subject to his upbringing his environment like everybody else is and it was a rather peculiar upbringing [Music] philip and elizabeth were away quite a lot during his childhood but i think that he was probably really quite happy until he went away to school he goes to team as a boarding school age nine which is the same boarding school his father has been to i think phillip loved the austere prep school in bart show that but i think it was still a rather austere prep school when charles a much more sensitive person went there in the late 1950s charles by all accounts was a delicate sort of boy and put into the kind of ghastly regime at gordon's town in northern scotland which was not at all suited to him and overall we get an impression of a young boy not totally at ease with himself not enjoying a particularly affectionate relationship with his parents i think it wasn't universally happy things are different when he goes to trinity college cambridge lord butler master of trinity greets the prince will major in archaeology and anthropology the heir to the throne looks like his mother and walks like his father he did go to university and there found his feet found a more artistic sense of himself which he clearly really sort of flourished and reveled in [Music] and here i am showing just how adaptable the sports commentator can be if you were not in this public position you'd like to be an actor am i right well i've often thought about it yes i do believe i've got a bite i have a bite i didn't know really whether i could have been i suppose i might take it this is most exciting most exciting days it is great fun i love doing it but whether i could do it professionally or not is another matter i think i got quite a large one here it's very very large indeed [Music] i mean in another life he might have been an actor but that was never an option because as the eldest uh son he was always destined to inherit the throne i intend to create my son charles prince of wales today when he's grown up i will present him to you at canal charles is named prince of wales at nine years old but not crowned until he's 20. university college aberystwyth where to the relief of the nation prince charles was given a warm and very friendly welcome in preparation for the big event he's plucked from his cambridge comfort zone and sent off to aberystwyth university to learn where under the welsh tuition of mr edward millward prince charles hopes to master the intricacies and pronunciations of welsh it's a political move aimed at ingratiating the young prince to the skeptical welsh arriving at the wheel of his own car the prince had come to move into his first floor room his next-door neighbor is a welsh nationalist jokingly the prince remark i hope he won't stomp on the wall in the late 1960s there was a resurgence of welsh nationalism and saying we're too dominated by england the welsh language should be spoken more the stint in wales may have been a pr exercise but it paid off in an unexpected way it showed people this privileged prince had real empathy there was quite a lot of strong anti-english nationalist feeling is it something that you've come to understand since you've been in wales i think it is yes you see i think they feel so strongly about whales as a nation and what might happen to it if they don't try and preserve the language and the culture which is very unique and special to wales and if something is unique and special i see it's well worth preserving [Music] [Applause] [Music] the prince of wales is invested at carnarvon castle in 1969. it's from this point that he takes on official responsibilities and starts carving out a role for himself it's a process of invention he will do again as king a modern prince in a medieval castle kneeling before the queen who was fulfilling a promise and giving wales a worthy prince for its own in a manner set down centuries ago there's a degree of searching for his own identity and trying to escape from the pre-ordained formats i charles prince of wales to become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship and it means that where he is now he's he's come to that through a process of striving what happens after after trinity and finishing with archaeology and anthropology a certain time in the services would be a very good idea i think it gives one a very useful experience for useful experience of responsibility and discipline i think is that the most important thing is the actual trust that's put in you to deal with other people and the feeling that they can perhaps put their trust in you as well historically the relationship between military and the monarchy has always been really close i mean monarchs used to literally lead their armies into battle i don't think that that's going to be a fundamental sort of part of charles's identity as a monarch i think it's much more likely to be the sort of softer qualities that will perhaps come to the fore growing up during the formality and decorum of the 1950s and 60s charles seemed old-fashioned a boy that does what he's told for somebody with such a senior role there's remarkably little ability to choose your own destiny until perhaps he's in his late 20s and 30s the job description for a prince of wales is pretty non-existent and there's never been a prince of wales who was waiting in that role for such a long time he's had to sort of find his passions find his authority and find his purpose he's a king with a lifetime's experience of being a prince can he turn that to his advantage [Music] university degree complete stint in the navy over charles finally breaks free from the shackles of his strict upbringing and has some fun [Music] now in his late twenties the palace and press suggest the fun stops and pressure the prince to settle down charles was clearly as heir to the throne charged with finding a young bride without a past who would provide him with an heir and although you know it was in the 1980s or the late 1970s actually that particular responsibility of an air is age-old [Music] she saw it as a love match as marrying her prince what was your instant impression both of you what are you talking about ladies and gentlemen i remember thinking what a very jolly and amusing and attractive 16 year old she was and i mean great fun and fancy and full of life and everything and um i didn't know what you thought of me pretty amazing he saw it as about doing his duty and i suppose in love of course whatever in love means your own interpretation obviously it means two very happy people once again congratulations well from us congratulations you know so many people over the years have thought i think that he went into that marriage just so that he could have the sun in the air and but he never loved her never intended to for the further marriage to work was always in love with camilla i don't buy that at all i think he went into that marriage with all the best intentions but it didn't work they were not completely compatible diana overshadowed him they became rivals the public were always much more interested in the private life of the prince of wales and not his public life and as she approached our camera on the first floor the worst moment seemed to be negotiating the stairs with her long skirt that accomplished she smiled broadly his public life really was pretty pretty boring in a way for the media princess diana chose a cream light wool coat dress tonight the princess revealed the dress she'd chosen for the gala evening at la scala the problem for the princess was whether her handbag or a hand could best keep her bolero style hat in place the attention was all on diana and not on charles so this actually presented problems within the marriage the crowds were gathered in the forecourt before dawn to see the princess for the first time there was a misalignment of expectation and their patience was rewarded as she rode in an open car in a slow motorcade and charles also i mean if we reflect back on the kind of upbringing he had he was not very demonstrative he found he had never experienced warm loving relationships from his parents diana you know had an instinctive need to be loved in many ways the odds were stacked against them and that of course is before the third party in the marriage is factored in it is announced from buckingham palace that with regret the prince and princess of wales have decided to separate the result of the marriage failing was another huge nail in charles's popularity coffin the public blamed him for the breakdown of that marriage i was there during a very difficult time of his last marriage it was extraordinarily painful period for them both and everybody around them and for the children he's a very very resilient person and when you're going through something as difficult as that you know many of us have but none of us have gone through the process of having your private life picked apart in the public domain you know day by day in such excruciating detail the netflix series the crown i think did huge damage to charles and his reputation because it painted a very black picture of him observing how a younger generation who literally weren't alive when diana was alive how are viscerally against charles on account of his relationship diana having watched the crown it wasn't factual it was loosely based on facts but it was not factual it was not accurate and it i thought was very unfair to him the story ultimately is about three in a marriage diana being pursued this tragic heroine by the paparazzi and dying a tragic death as a woman in her prime about to find happiness in her personal life leaving two boys and that's the narrative that charles now has to take forward william and harry are just children when their mother dies her absence leads to a much closer relationship with their father something the royal family is keen to promote seeing the three together charles looks like a natural hands-on dad he's done an amazing job and without telling us what we should be doing or the direction that we should go in he's just let us learn from from from the nature of the job and learn from him learn from mummy [Music] there are so many things i admire about my father his work ethic his passions all that sort of side of things are absolutely crucial um to to how he's been such successful prince of wales and an amazing father [Music] i think it's just really difficult in a family when there's so much pressure charles has tried very hard to be a good father to those boys us and and the relationship with william seems to be very much in sync with harry it's a work in progress what have we done wrong growing up in the spotlight himself charles tries to prepare his sons for the same he knows what it's like to have a life exposed to public scrutiny we know a lot about him um we know rather more than he would like us to know about him his private life was very much there for for you know for the vultures to pick at in the 1980s and 90s but he's come through that people are familiar with him with his pluses and minuses and he won't be seen as a breath of fresh air happy birthday but familiarity might not be a problem for the king's popularity yes he makes mistakes just like everyone else that openness was missing with the queen it could be his key to becoming a modern monarch what the monarchy is meant to do is perhaps you know reflect the nation back onto itself where'd you find these terrible things how am i feeling i'm not sure it's rather like indigestion many happy returns are not quite the same things you get older does he now as king command that just extra kind of magic and mystique that draws people around the world to him charles is right for his period in history it would be quite wrong to put somebody who was as mysterious as the queen on the throne today his success will ultimately depend on what the public want from their monarch magic or realism [Music] some people have accused you of meddling really you don't say he might have been shy growing up but charles did find his voice as prince of wales giving personal opinions on controversial subjects now he's king will he go quiet and should he will he be a meddling king i think he will have some pretty robust conversations with his prime ministers but i always wonder what medley is i mean i always thought it was motivating you see i don't see it as meddling i see it it's caring not a meddling prince but a caring king if it's meddling to worry about the inner cities as i did 40 years ago what was happening or not happening there the conditions in which people were living if that's meddling i'm very proud of it he understands the importance of our constitution unwritten though it be and recognises why the monarchy has been successful all these years why his mother was so successful i think he will hold his tongue i do realize that it is a separate exercise being sovereign it's of course uh you know i understand entirely how that should operate surely a head of state should have a view should speak out and so i think there's a real challenge now that is a mute head of state somebody whose opinions we know not of is that really an asset and charles is going to have to decide whether to lean into that silent role of a constitutional monarch or take a risk and speak out a bit more if the king does speak out he'll tread carefully remembering the criticism over his black spider memos [Music] charles when he was prince of wales behaved in a way that i think was quite inappropriate by writing to government ministers in what's called black spider letters [Music] which he was arguing for particular government policies the memos petitioned ministers on a range of subjects close to charles's heart from the iraq war to the badger cull yes he would write letters and raise things and occasionally i read that i founded a problem but i never did because it was always perfectly decently expressed and it was private between the two of us except when someone else would talk about it did you think he had the role to give ministers instructions absolutely not did he feel that it was totally within his rights to express a view and to share some thoughts and to pass something onto ministers rather than just what they were receiving from civil servants yes and i would say i would say why not but it was almost always and i can't think of a an exception to this sensible and interesting and based on his experiences with people i remember vividly myself the ministers were actually very interested to hear from the prince of wales there's a growing sense that actually if you have a position of head of state should you not have opinions on certain things being the prince of wales through all those years i mean it's incredibly difficult to find the right modus operandi for yourself and you know i think he he did it really and that's that's why i think we can be confident about him as as a king in writing the black spider memos charles is accused of crossing a line into political territory but not all his passions are as controversial the charity he set up to improve the lives of young people though originally opposed by government ministers is now universally considered a success the prince's trust started when the then prince of wales left the navy in 1976 and he was given seven and a half thousand pounds severance pay he put that into finding a trust and it began small the prince's trust was there to try and reach the parts of society that others were not reaching what i hope we've been able to do is to help some people's dreams to come true lots of people told him it wouldn't work with only a little persuasion he tried his hand as a dj mixing and scratching before an audience of young homeless people in south london the princess trust is a genuine project and it's transformed i would say millions of people's lives dig that crazy rhythm i don't think he's been big enough i told him too i don't think he's been bold enough what it's done which is not insignificant is to empower young people i want to say empowering young people but also transforming institutions he's bristling with ideas about harnessing talent and about maximizing the potential of young people he loved getting kids into the theater and watching shakespeare from her from a young age when i was a teenager trying to figure out what i was going to do with my life acting the theater storytelling was an aspiration but there was no real path for me the prince's trust came along as a means of helping me fund going to join the national youth music theatre being part of that production led to me going to drama school and and led to the career i have now his view is that if you give opportunity if you give a sense of purpose a sense of belonging it's a win-win we all flourish it's not as though i'm taking the cake from you the cakes just got bigger i think without the prince's trust coming along i just don't know that a i would have pursued it i don't also think that i would have been given that encouragement that comes from someone somewhere going we think you are worthy of support i think what motivates the king is a real desire to make life better for people would you notice improvements in the area and to make society better to make community better the prince's trust achieved that but it's not the biggest cause charles has united people behind he spent his adult life pushing an issue people didn't care about up the agenda it's now the issue the world cares about [Music] over the next 60 years if we go on as we are doing something like a third of all the forms of life at present living on this planet may be extinct one of the unusual things about being prince of wales never mind king is the extent to which you don't apply for that job you're there and it's not a thing that you can plan for or you find yourself in it it struck me that from a very early age when he found himself there he decided he was going to use that position for the very best possible good for the wild that he could it was neither popular nor mainstream but charles was resolute about protecting the environment it became the purpose he'd been searching for as prince of wales straight afterwards the prince displayed his concern for his tree [Music] early on he settled on these ecological subjects as being the things that really were the ones that needed the most attention i think on the environment he felt so passionately about it he felt that he couldn't be silenced he was talking about climate change before climate change was remotely fashionable there's no doubt that on the environment charles has authenticity and he does have credibility as a as an international leader you know literally the only establishment figure in the 70s 80s and 90s who was consistently championing all of this but i think also he was on a trajectory where increasingly people were beginning to understand and believe that actually what he was saying was right the key is that there is much greater opportunity in doing these things in a better greener more sustainable way all the things that have been rubbished for so long from his point of view it was more that he understood that we were a part of nature that you could not separate man out from nature and he thinks that our undoing was basically that separation [Music] he was pulling together people from major corporations from different parts of the global uh system to come together to think about you know what can we actually do because up until the point he was doing that work it was either a group of scientists or a group of campaigners or a group of somebody else trying to do some kind of a solution he realized that until you put all these together that's when you get the breakthroughs [Music] he was involved not just opening cop but also in a lot of the meetings before and after it around the side i mean he sort of set up almost a court there and he you know there was a lot of soft power that he was using and utilizing as support for the environment grew so did charles's ability to speak on it without criticism as king the environment is going to be absolutely critically important for a lot of what he does and i think that the thing is is that in a way it's become easier for him because partly because he's helped make it mainstream and now it is mainstream it's not so politically controversial the green monarch is that something that he you know he might decide to be he's gonna have to really live that out and it's no good just speaking out about it if he's then flying around the world on jets and so on [Music] there's going to be immediately questions about how sustainable is it to live the life of a british monarch [Music] what about the wealth what about the policies what about the travel how the king adapts his own life and land will be significant the monarchy is there to set an example and show it too is prepared to make sacrifices but you know that's in a way i think his best chance of being seen as relevant rather than a relic of a bygone age if he does embrace the green monarch it could place the royal family front and center in tackling one of the biggest issues of the day transforming the future monarchy into something that is not just relevant but critical [Music] [Applause] [Music] the queen's platinum jubilee marked her 70-year reign the celebrations presented the perfect opportunity to showcase the future of the monarchy charles trained by the queen completing his king's apprenticeship william trained by charles starting his your majesty mommy [Applause] you've been with us in our difficult times and you bring us together to celebrate moments of pride joy and happiness charles led tributes to his mother but he also stood in for her showing the british public he was already performing the role of sovereign there has for a long time been a de facto regency with charles doing many of the duties so i think that we're used to charles really as as the co-head of state the transition has now ended and the king rules alone head of an unsettled state he comes to the throne at a time when we've had disunity in our country we've gone through the contentiousness of brexit when there have been wars in europe when people have questioned the role of the crown in some of the countries where the you know where there are realms what's the new role of the commonwealth where multi-racial britain has got to work [Applause] a head of state there by virtue of birth a white privileged family ruling over a multicultural multi-ethnic society how is that sustainable in in the modern world so how does a white man with the with with the greatest of entitlements become the figurehead for a multicultural society with empathy with compassion with a good ear the parade will now march past in quick time and pay final compliments to the monarchy he used that advice in barbados when the commonwealth nation replaced the queen as head of state from this day and forever declare barbados a parliamentary republic [Applause] i was so deeply touched that you should have invited me to return to barbados when we both go to barbados as it becomes a republic from the darkest days of our past and he talks about the the atrocities under the enslavement of my descendants and the appalling atrocity of slavery which forever stains our history and we have to acknowledge it own it but start to put things right what the the prince then and that the king now will try and do is to take the nation into the 21st century have these uncomfortable conversations because it's what a leader should do [Music] it wouldn't be obvious that the commonwealth would still be existing in the mid 21st century and that's a testament to the queen [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one thing that charles will have to do is really work at that to ensure that that continues [Music] i think the commonwealth will keep together but countries in the caribbean and africa will want to become more we want to become republics and i think you have to accept that people want to break the yolk of the colonial power it's likely to be an inevitable process for most of those countries that retain uh links to the british crown particularly in the caribbean i don't think that will be seen as particularly a judgment on charles and i don't think it would necessarily mean that you know britain is then going to be ultimately uh set to get rid of the monarchy but actually if it doesn't fundamentally address as much as it can uh its place in the 21st century then it looks like a relic of the past and it's a white relic of the past and that's really problematic it is the challenge of keeping the monarchy relevant the charles will face again and again both abroad and at home that majority of the public i think they're very happy with the molecule prepared to have a monarchy but what they don't want is a monarchy we've got they don't want all the hangers on who are they all the royal family is being slimmed down so the public's gaze is focused on the sovereign the air and their partners his plan is to slim down the monarchy because the one bug bear that the media pick up on year after year is the cost charles is acutely aware of you know every year that becomes a bit of an embarrassment during the 1990s in the sort of latest iteration of the royal family it became a real liability as the marriages of the queen's children fell apart even in the latter part of the queen's reign with you know prince harry deciding he wants to step away from royal duties and prince andrew you have a sense that the royal family can become more trouble than they're worth it's a shame that megan and harry chose not to to stay here they were never going to be the senior figures which might have actually been one of the problems it is difficult this thing of being the second child of a monarch it makes much more sense which is i think charles's vision to have him and camilla and then william and kate as the core of the monarchy camilla as queen consort will play a key and visible role supporting the king it's an extraordinary transformation from the unpopular third person in charles and diana's marriage to a well-respected royal [Music] until she married the prince of wales she was hidden from view so nobody knew her nobody even heard her speak when she then married the prince of wales she was out and about people met her they realized that actually she wasn't this gustly woman this rottweiler she was actually very nice she has become sort of one of the more interesting members of the royal family taking up interesting causes domestic violence the importance of childhood reading the importance of live theater during the pandemic and sort of the need to speak up for the creative industries it's just doing so much for so many young people and old people as a silver spot myself i assume she's done a tremendously important role visible and out there when necessary low-key and supportive making people laugh in our own inimitable way in small groups [Music] she seems very open very relaxed [Music] and that might be sort of actually the model that the monarchy will take in the future the new king and queen will certainly be more informal figureheads but they will have to judge the public mood before deciding how much further they go in modernising the monarchy there is no doubt that the death of the queen marks the end of a long chapter in monarchical history and the the last of a certain type of monarch the country's changing the world is changing the way the monarchy interacts and and places itself as an institution perhaps needs to change maybe it's his role in delivering that change so then it's in a good shape for william to take over some time ahead he has to show leadership and it's going to be rocky because there are forces out there that would like him to maintain the status quo and he wants a society that's comfortable with his past and and confident about his future uh i hope he can pull it off yes a new king but also an old man and that in many ways is going to be the challenge now for the new king to command the affection or anything like the affection that his mother had and of course the sustained support of the people what we've had in this country for 1200 years is a monarchy i think charles will be very able monarch but i think it only survives if he has a relationship with us and we feel we have a relationship with him [Music] and i think he's incredibly well preserved and he's been as it were rehearsing for decades now in this time of national grief he's going to help bring us together and i say god save the king [Music] you

Channel: Sky News

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Keywords: NATIONAL MOURNING, THE QUEEN, SKY NEWS, OXFORDSHIRE, QUEEN DEATH, balmoral, balmoral the queen, buckingham palace, king charles, prince charles, queen, queen dead, queen death announced, queen elizabeth, queen elizabeth ii, queen elizabeth dead, queen elizabeth death announcement, queen elizabeth dies, queen health, queen is dead, royal family, sky, the queen, the queen announcement, uk, watch sky news live, sky news, elizabeth, prince of wales, theresa maythereesa

Id: WpFuTCZ05p4

Length: 42min 0sec (2520 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 12 2022