The Future of the British Monarchy 2: Sep 2022 -

In the future if and When Charles celebrates his silver jubilee do we think it will be a autumn jubilee

travelguy said:

In the future if and When Charles celebrates his silver jubilee do we think it will be a autumn jubilee

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My instinct would be to worry about the timing of the silver jubilee celebrations of the recently crowned King Charles closer to the time!

travelguy said:

In the future if and When Charles celebrates his silver jubilee do we think it will be a autumn jubilee

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If he makes it he'll be 98!

I doubt it would be held in the autumn, I certainly don't think it would be held on Charles accession day (if indeed he gets to mark a silver jubilee). The late Queen always celebrated her jubilee on the day / around the time of her coronation ceremony not accession day which was nearly always marked privately even in many of her jubilee years.

The problem is that is isn't done to celebrate it before the event and so it either would have to be September or the following year.

It would be awful to celebrate it in say June and Charles then not actually live to September.

Remember how everyone was talking about Philip's 100th and then he died just two months before he would have turned 100.

Charles would be 98 when he reaches a Silver Jubilee, if he makes it that far and so a fast deterioration can happen at any time.

The newest YouGov poll in the US polling (some) senior BRF royals. It is also linked to a question relating to King Charles’s latest portrait.


Harry’s polling is up in the US from the last time a YouGov poll was taken.

Who's carried that out?! Camilla is the Queen, not the Queen Consort. She is not "nee Parker Bowles", she is "formerly Parker Bowles, nee Shand". Catherine is the Princess of Wales, not "Catherine, Princess of Wales". Meghan is the Duchess of Sussex, not "Meghan, Duchess of Sussex". They could at least get the names right !

Alison H said:

Who's carried that out?! Camilla is the Queen, not the Queen Consort. She is not "nee Parker Bowles", she is "formerly Parker Bowles, nee Shand". Catherine is the Princess of Wales, not "Catherine, Princess of Wales". Meghan is the Duchess of Sussex, not "Meghan, Duchess of Sussex". They could at least get the names right !

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That's a silly thing to quibble about considering it's a US-based poll. It isn't like they referred to Catherine as the Princess of Scotland or something wildly inaccurate like that. There's no ambiguity in who is being referred to.

Curryong said:

The newest YouGov poll in the US polling (some) senior BRF royals. It is also linked to a question relating to King Charles’s latest portrait.

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/King_Charles_Portrait_poll_results.pdf

Harry’s polling is up in the US from the last time a YouGov poll was taken.

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Why are they polling people in the USA as opposed to the UK?
Is this for expats?

Sister Morphine said:

That's a silly thing to quibble about considering it's a US-based poll. It isn't like they referred to Catherine as the Princess of Scotland or something wildly inaccurate like that. There's no ambiguity in who is being referred to.

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If you are conducting surveys you should be accurate in your information, it demonstrates your reliability.

Sister Morphine said:

That's a silly thing to quibble about considering it's a US-based poll. It isn't like they referred to Catherine as the Princess of Scotland or something wildly inaccurate like that. There's no ambiguity in who is being referred to.

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Actually one of William's titles is 'Prince and Great Steward of Scotland' so referring to Catherine as Princess of Scotland would not be 'wildly inaccurate' as it is one of her titles.

The Daily Express (not always a reliable source) is reporting Prince William will likely discourage Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis from becoming working royals. If that is indeed true, it will be a major change from previous reigns and signal a much more radical "slimming down" under William than under his father. Do you think this report is credible?

There are at least 10, maybe 15 years to decide on the role Charlotte and Louis should take up. Nobody knows what the health status of other members of the BRF will be at that point. And William will have plenty of other monarchies to look at how they handle a slimmed-down monarchy.

Personally: I doubt that they will not have to play a role. There are too many charities, and the country is too big.

Mbruno said:

The Daily Express (not always a reliable source) is reporting Prince William will likely discourage Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis from becoming working royals. If that is indeed true, it will be a major change from previous reigns and signal a much more radical "slimming down" under William than under his father. Do you think this report is credible?

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Prince Louis perhaps.
But Princess Charlotte? Not for one second.
Three reasons:
1) As BJB points out, plenty of jobs and functions they can do, even if the BRF slim down on tasks and reform the way they do things.
2) Always a good idea to keep an experienced spare around, just in case.
3) Glamour. Charlotte will be of immense interest, even if she is not an active royal, simply because she's a girl. A girl means dresses, hair, jewellery, shoes etc. Absolutely everything about her is and will increasingly be interesting.
Life isn't fair, but female royals, due to the representative nature of royalty, are simply more interesting than males. That's not going to change in any century soon.
- And a bonus reason: Judging from what we know about her character and personality, she seems to be very aware of what it means to be a royal, including how to behave and she appears to be pretty comfortable in the public glare. All traits that are good to have for any royal.

Muhler said:

Prince Louis perhaps.
But Princess Charlotte? Not for one second.
Three reasons:
1) As BJB points out, plenty of jobs and functions they can do, even if the BRF slim down on tasks and reform the way they do things.
2) Always a good idea to keep an experienced spare around, just in case.
3) Glamour. Charlotte will be of immense interest, even if she is not an active royal, simply because she's a girl. A girl means dresses, hair, jewellery, shoes etc. Absolutely everything about her is and will increasingly be interesting.
Life isn't fair, but female royals, due to the representative nature of royalty, are simply more interesting than males. That's not going to change in any century soon.
- And a bonus reason: Judging from what we know about her character and personality, she seems to be very aware of what it means to be a royal, including how to behave and she appears to be pretty comfortable in the public glare. All traits that are good to have for any royal.

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Your last paragraph is so accurate, if you saw the short video released by KP on the day of Trooping The Colour, Catherine and the children were waiting for the carriage, and as it arrived and they stepped out you actually saw Charlotte change her stance and posture,

Charlotte will shine with her own light truly... for some time at least.

Till someday George's wife for 90% will steal a main limelight from her.

I think that it’s very likely that William will encourage all 3 children to work as royals
We know what happened when suddenly the king and Catherine became sick: a shortage of royals.
I also believe that Charles will follow the present trend and abdicate at some point on behalf of William.

sunflowers said:

I think that it’s very likely that William will encourage all 3 children to work as royals
We know what happened when suddenly the king and Catherine became sick: a shortage of royals.
I also believe that Charles will follow the present trend and abdicate at some point on behalf of William.

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Uhh, considering the BRF's history concerning abdications, that isn't going to happen.

Well, some British monarchs were forced to give up the throne
Hopefully it will not happen in future.

If you're referring to Edward VIII, he wasn't forced to abdicate. He was given a choice -- the throne or Wallis Simpson. He made his choice.

Since the Act of Union created Great Britain, there hasn't been one British monarch aside from the erstwhile Duke of Windsor to abdicate the throne. George I -> George II -> George III -> George IV -> William IV -> Victoria -> Edward VII -> George V -> Edward VIII (abdicated) -> George VI -> Elizabeth II -> Charles III.

I suppose, if you wanted to be super-duper pedantic, you could argue that Mary, Queen of Scots abdicated in favor of her infant son James, but she wasn't a British monarch. Unless there's someone from history I'm missing.

Yes, I meant Edward viii. I would think that he was forced into abdicating. I was also thinking about the unfortunate King Charles i, who was executed in the 17th century; that was extreme and horrible way to be forced out of the throne.

Mbruno said:

The Daily Express (not always a reliable source) is reporting Prince William will likely discourage Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis from becoming working royals. If that is indeed true, it will be a major change from previous reigns and signal a much more radical "slimming down" under William than under his father. Do you think this report is credible?

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The Express is not reporting anything about discouraging Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis from becoming working royals. As its article acknowledges, it is reporting on Richard Eden's report in the Daily Mail in which Mr. Eden relates "a conversation I had later with a friend of Catherine's husband, Prince William". The friend did not claim that Charlotte and Louis will be discouraged from being working royals, only that "it remains to be seen".

Quoting from Richard Eden's report:



In light of the British royal family's lengthy record of allowing or even encouraging anonymous "friends" and "sources" to convey their thoughts to the press, I don't particularly doubt that a conversation occurred. Whether the "friend"'s statements are accurate or not is another matter.

But the friend is correct regarding the other European monarchies being "smaller" than Britain's. In the other nine hereditary monarchies in Europe, the royals other than the monarchs (including future or abdicated monarchs) and their spouses have either been reduced to carrying out duties for the monarchy only on a part-time basis or excluded from official representation altogether.

Sister Morphine said:

Uhh, considering the BRF's history concerning abdications, that isn't going to happen.

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Sister Morphine said:

Since the Act of Union created Great Britain, there hasn't been one British monarch aside from the erstwhile Duke of Windsor to abdicate the throne.

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The Japanese imperial family had not experienced any abdications in centuries, but that did not stop the Emperor Emeritus from becoming determined to abdicate. (For the avoidance of doubt, I make no comment about Charles III. The point is merely that most British monarchs reigning until death does not mean that every single future British monarch will consider abdication to be inconceivable.)

I agree with the trend of slimming the monarchy down, it seems to occur everywhere in Europe. By the time, William becomes a monarch, his children will be adults. If he, like his father, excludes other family members from working for the monarchy, then it would be only him and Catherine and of course, George. It could be not enough for all charities, organizations etc. Without Anne, dubbed the hardest working royal, it could be enough ,at least part time work , for younger children.

Charles has already dropped around 200 charities this year alone. These were ones held by the late Queen and Duke of Edinburgh for the most part. There is no need for all these charities to have a royal patron and as the working royals becomes smaller many more charities will lose their royal patronage.

The British public will have to get used to fewer royals with patronages and as that will happen naturally - just as the number of working royals has dropped (in 2016 for instance there were 15 royals doing royal duties and now there are 10 with no real difference to what is being done.)

Even the number of engagements being done by the working royals is going down in number on an individual basis so fewer working royals doing fewer engagements for the most part and the show continues.

Tatiana Maria said:

The Japanese imperial family had not experienced any abdications in centuries, but that did not stop the Emperor Emeritus from becoming determined to abdicate. (For the avoidance of doubt, I make no comment about Charles III. The point is merely that most British monarchs reigning until death does not mean that every single future British monarch will consider abdication to be inconceivable.)

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Exactly, and also queen Margrethe's abdication came unexpected to many. And both Luxembourg and Belgium had somewhat 'forced' abdications in the 20th century but this did not make it inconceivable for later monarchs to abdicate for other reasons.

My guess would be that it is more likely that in the UK William will be the one to introduce abdication because of age/to make place for the next generation rather than Charles.

If it is true that Prince William wants to slim down the working Royals even further in his reign, i don't think it's a good idea. The European monarchies are all monarchs of much, much smaller countries/populations. I certainly don't think we should go back to the day of every single Kent or Gloucester descendant on the balcony, but I don't think it's a bad idea at all for the current Monarch's family to support him/her in this job (except for Prince Andrew natch, who has put his foot in his mouth once to often to say the least). I would imagine, judging by the happy photos of the 'regular people' at those events where their Royal patron turns up, that that sort of support (not having a Royal patron) would be sorely missed. It's these kind of people, IMHO, who support the Royal family, quietly, none of the 'not our King' crowd who do nothing constructive but yell. The backbone of the Royal supporters are the silent majority. Start cutting down patronages, cutting down this, slimming back that, and just to appease the 'not our King' crowd? Better to keep the supporters happy than the naysayers.

At the moment, with the Princess of Wales, the Princess Royal out of action, and the King (who seems to be doing magnificently, long may it continue) not back to full time, and also counting out (sorry, but I have to do it), Princess Alexandra and the Duke of Kent, well that leaves just 6 working Royals (and of those only 4 are regularly photographed going about their work). I can't see how it could possibly hurt if some of the younger ones could pitch in - temporarily even – just to help out for those on 'sick leave'.

Princess Anne, in the not too distant past, said publicly that she didn't think slimming down was a good idea. And I hate to say it too, but part of the Royal appeal are the younger generations, what they wear and what they do; I loved seeing them all as a united family at Ascot and I missed seeing the younger children interacting with each other on the balcony. SO yes by all means let's not go back to the time when the Queen invited everyone and their dog on the balcony, but also let's not go forward to just the Monarch, his spouse and the Prince & Princess of Wales and their children only. The strength of the Monarchy is that they are a 'family firm'.

If anything, the recent time with the King at reduced capacity, and both the Princess of Wales and the Princess Royal on sick leave, it shows the value of having a pair of extra hands available…

Without the Edinburgh’s and the Gloucester’s on hand - Queen Camilla and Prince William would be pretty much alone by now…. Not totally unlike how the situation is in Norway from time to time with only Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon available…

That’s why i hope they don’t downsize too much…. I get that they can’t have lots or relatives from outside of the monarch’s own descendants being paid for in all eternity, but at the same time, a part of what motivates people to support a monarchy is that the royals are visible and feels relatable…

And the British Royals have an age gap between the Edinburgh’s and the Wales’s that is not without its own risks, in case of illness’/injuries/controversial members etc

The reality is - they only need a wider group of royals if they want to keep up the same number of engagements and activities as the RF use to do back when they had more royals - say in the 90s /00s.

The sovereign is the only member of the RF with any constitutional role. Whilst I personally think what the wider RF like Anne, Ed & Sophie do is important, it is not a constitutional requirement.