I'm hoping Charles goes mad with power. He's earned it, as much as earning things is possible in this context.
The Edward VII approach of mild hedonism seems more his style, as well as the track he's basically on already.
1: I watched a play about that in Shakespearean verse and featuring an appearance from the ghost of Diana, I think it ends up with Kate pushing Will to overthrow Charles? It was an interesting idea, but not that great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Charles_III_(play)
I watched the first season of The Crown so I feel like I know quite a lot about QEII, but I lost interest after that, so all I know about Charles is what I've read in the news over the years: he wanted to be a tampon for a while, and he sells jam at Waitrose.
I assume the jam is part of his tampon fantasy.
What's the over/under on Charles being the regnal name?
4: So Prince Charles was a tragic misfit like Hermey in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?
"Someday, Charles, you will grow up and be King". "
"But, mom, I don't want to be King! I want to be a tampon!"
6: They already announced it'll be Charles. I thought it was weird anyone thought he'd go with anything else.
6: Wait? Is that a thing? Could Charles decide he wants to rule as King Playtex?
6. Done. He's Charles III.
Poor old bat had to deal with both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss on her last full day on earth. Enough to kill anybody.
Is that a thing? Could Charles decide he wants to rule as
I read on the twitters that he could have chosen any of his given names: Charles Philip Arthur George, and that he liked George, but that was before princelet George was named.
Nearly all of his names are Weasley brothers.
Going with Arthur would have been spectacular but not really his style.
At home in Scotland, quickly and easily at the age of 96, surrounded by your family and your dogs. A good end.
6: after what happened to Charles I, I'm not sure that it would be auspicious.
12: I think I heard that before..but not the part about changing his mind aftr his grandson was born.
So Gorbachev and QEII lost in the semifinals, that leaves the final round a face off between Kissinger and Carter. Any bets on the final champion?
Charles II did fine. It's not like the name is cursed.
She was worth 10 of the rest of the lot put together. Ave atque vale.
There's also the King Charles who was made of glass, and the King Charles who is a little dog. The dog is not that cute.
19. Jiang Zemin is still in the running!
At least the ordering of Charleses lines is consistent north and south of the Tweed, so they can put CIIIR postboxes everywhere if they feel like it?
The top response on a Quora post about how soon EIIR symbols might be swapped says "The only Charles deserving lasting respect is Blessed Charles I, King and Martyr."
There's twitter commentary about how Black Twitter is having a field day with the queen's death. I don't think I understand the context
Is it lingering anti-monarchy sentiment from colonialism (but maybe that was more South Asia?)? Or is it recent anti-queen sentiment because the royal family has been shitty about Meghan Markle?
I hope he makes the "Charles in Charge" theme song the new national anthem.
Is it lingering anti-monarchy sentiment from colonialism (but maybe that was more South Asia?)?
This is the variety I'm seeing. No shortage of British colonialism in Africa or the Caribbean in addition to India.
26: Not sure. Markle content has been big on BT, to be sure. There's also more revival of monarchy-as-colonial-holdover discourse from the Anglo-Caribbean world, with Barbados removing her as head of state and other countries working on it, but that may be more my Twitter feed.
Maybe Windrush? I don't know what Queen Elizabeth has to do with that, though, except as a symbol of the UK in general.
I know Camilla will be queen consort, but does that make it appropriate to call her Queen Camilla? Or does it have to Camilla, Queen Consort?
Wikipedia says she's now styled "Her Majesty The Queen." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camilla,_Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom#Titles,_styles,_honours_and_arms
The scope of British colonialism is really wild. I was just reading yesterday about the geopolitical factors behind the colonization of Australia. A big part of it was having a secure base in the Pacific from which to attack the west coast of South America in the event that became necessary. (It wasn't at that exact moment, but the UK had just lost a big war against France and Spain and was very worried another one was about to break out.)
I liked my comment on this on the Check-In thread enough that I'll repeat it here:
In retrospect, this is a badly missed opportunity, since it was pretty clear when I woke up this morning that she wouldn't last out the day. There was nothing I did in my first 5 hours awake I couldn't do now, but there's one thing I cannot do now that I could have done then.
Alas.
Apparently a Canadian citizenship ceremony held just now swapped into the oath "His Majesty King Charles III, King of Canada" / "Sa majesté le roi Charles III, roi du Canada." So, pretty official!
Since Philip died earlier, what man are they going have burned with her on the funeral boat?
Reductress has a dark take on 37:
https://reductress.com/post/cute-queen-elizabeths-corgis-prepare-to-be-buried-alive-with-her/
Jeez, I don't have any kind of base for attacking the west coast of South America. Feeling very unprepared.
At least the ordering of Charleses lines is consistent north and south of the Tweed, so they can put CIIIR postboxes everywhere if they feel like it?
EIIR should get to keep credit for all the post boxes that went up during her reign. CIIIR can get his logo out there when he starts putting up some fresh shit. I mean, Richard M. Daley's name is presumably still on public infrastructure all over Chicago.
40: Maybe go for the east coast instead? This seems like a great time to invade the Falklands while they're distracted.
The settlement of the Falklands was part of the same strategic initiative, in fact, and for that very reason! Eighteenth-century Brits were really into the idea of mucking around in South America for some reason. The sponsored various failed independence movements as well.
Per law twitter, a court employee announced that Queen's Bench Court was open this morning, as he has done every day for (presumably) the past 70 years. At the end of the day today he announced that King's Bench Court had adjourned. It was said to be odd.
Also, all of the lawyers have to change their twitter handles, and get new business cards, because their suffix is now k.c., not q.c.
But at least the ships can remain HMS.
Camilla, Queen Consort
Camilla, Queen of the Consorts
49: Only a fraction of lawyers are KCs, right? Not even all barristers?
I wonder how much preplanning went into Wikipedia articles changing in the same way. QC now redirects, HMS has been renamed, etc., etc.
42 yes of course. There are still plenty of GVIR and VR postboxes around, they didn't go round chiselling off the royal cipher every time.
26 there are a few academics at minor institutions hoping to go viral with something outrageous. That's academia for you
Glad to see someone is committed upholding community standards: https://twitter.com/goddammitsarah/status/1567980471476436994/photo/1.
A more proper link. Still no edit button here, I see. When will we invest in this product.
Ok, I know very little about Prince King Charles, but AFAICT the main reasons people seem to hate him are:
(1) he's not as hot, athletic, or manly as his dad
(2) he's his parents' least favorite child
(3) he was bullied a lot as a kid and whined about it
(4) he cheated on his hot arranged-marriage wife with an uglier woman he was/is genuinely in love with
(5) he was into organic farming/environmentalism back when it was truly nerdy
(6) his slightly kinky sex conversations were leaked in a pretty egregious violation of privacy and the UK is prudish AF, plus see (4)
I assume he's a spoiled git, but is he out of the ordinary for British royalty/nobility in general? Is there any reason people specifically hate Charles that doesn't come across as fairly offensive by 21st century standards? I'm genuinely curious
Charles seems like an okay guy by the abysmal standards of British royalty, much like his mother and sons. He's really into architecture and city planning, but it's not clear how coherent or good his ideas are.
Now I want a nice smoked Gouda and some Jameson.
ummm v specific type of "environmentalist" you might want to look into that ...
I could really go for a tampon right now.
57: I'm betting that Andrew was the least favorite in the end.
it's not clear how coherent or good his ideas are
Let's not start holding that against people.
I shook hands with Charles when he was visiting Berkeley once. He asked me why I wasn't in class. Kinder, gentler protests back then.
Is Olivia Wilde powerful enough to have a monarch killed? Because she's the real winner here.
57 is about right. Charles was relentlessly mocked throughout the 1970s and 1980s by (eg) Private Eye for being into organic food and environmentalism more generally. And his ventures into architecture and town planning have committed the terrible crime of producing unimaginative buildings that normal people want to live in, rather than excitingly innovative structures like Grenfell Tower.
Eighteenth-century Brits were really into the idea of mucking around in South America for some reason. The sponsored various failed independence movements as well.
And, later, various successful independence movements as well.
The reason isn't that obscure, surely? Spain owned most of South America and extracted from it the immense wealth that kept its chaotic administration afloat. Spain was a major European power that threatened Britain from time to time. Splitting off the Spanish colonies would weaken Spain.
And also South America looked like a great investment opportunity if it could be opened up to non-Spanish finance - as, indeed, it turned out to be in the 19th century. Huge FDI into countries like Argentina and Chile, and a lot of it from Britain, made them exceptionally prosperous.
57: much more seriously, he has been in the habit of trying to pull rank on government ministers across a whole range of hobby-horse issues and getting involved in politics. if he keeps it up as king, this is going to cause problems regarding the constitution. he also keeps getting caught chasing dodgy donations for his various foundations, including a horse and £3 million (in plastic carrier bags of cash) from the Qataris in exchange for putting in a word so that someone could get a decoration:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/25/prince-charles-is-said-to-have-been-given-3m-in-qatari-cash
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7d271c74-4975-11ec-9b62-734d2c1aba52?shareToken=7946a09e63a5c3a8657abbeedb93e11f
(The Times link has been redirected to their extremely sombre mourning front page. HMMM.)
also this is pretty spicy. Lord Brownlow is the guy who fixed it for [someone] to pay for Johnson's wretched wallpaper: https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1543284306356862979
74 isn't really a reason Charles is unpopular because virtually no one has heard of it (and it is in compliance with the Clay Davis Rule anyway).
He was mean to the most loved person in all of human history. It's remarkable that he isn't more hated.
Yeah, 74 is the main reason I don't especially like/rate him.* The Queen, as has been revealed over the past 2 years or so, is also guilty of secretly intervening in laws before they get passed in order to specifically benefit the Crown and Crown Estates. Either we go full republic, or we rein that shit in and go Scando-monarchy.
* I think on most of the other stuff, I either don't care, or think he's been fairly hard done by.** There's a lot worse out there in terms of rich, upper class pricks doing damage, many of them either in parliament or elsewhere in his own family.
** although I don't care enough to give it a moments thought. He's a very rich indulged man.
78 surely you mean "David Attenborough".
Attlee on why he wasn't a republican:
https://twitter.com/jhallwood/status/1568149860628533248/photo/1
Didn't you need to say something like that if you wanted to be Prime Minister?
i mean if fanboying for van der post and repeatedly ringing the alarm re: "overpopulation" in the name of "environmentalism" works for you, we'll be disagreeing there. views shared by his father and his son, they don't hide them rather promote them.
He wrote that after he retired. The book it's from is reviewed here https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/attlee-s-great-contemporaries-1693067.html
Oo, I didn't know until I thought to research - I knew the deal with the Crown Estates in concept was the royals got a fixed amount of their income and the country kept the rest, but I see now that Cameron changed it to a percentage of the net income.
Also to 82, if expressing pro republican views stopped you being PM then Liz Truss wouldn't be where she is now.
Only socialists are suspect in this county.
I've been interested to see the extent of the sentiment for abolition as punishment for centuries of sin. Although I come out at a different point than Atlee, like him I tend to think of the question in forward-looking constitutional terms. I think y'all would do fine with a French or German system.
If the proceeds of abolition were going to be used to pay reparations to the people of Kenya, Uganda, India, Ireland, etc etc that would be one thing. But just ending it because you hold the modern British monarchy responsible for nearly anything in the past doesn't strike me as particularly compelling.
Obviously, I'm not a victim of British imperialism, so I guess I would think this.
New Statesman poll, Aug. 2021: 25% oppose monarchy in general, 34% support abolishing it after Queen dies
YouGov, Apr.-May 2022: 27% want to abolish the monarchy, 40% of 18-to-24-year-olds
I imagine no one else will be commissioning polls like this for a while - not before the funeral at least.
If 18-24s are 40%, one of the smaller demographics and presumably the highest, it's not going *anywhere*.
Well, not soon. Barring outside context problems.
And his ventures into architecture and town planning have committed the terrible crime of producing unimaginative buildings that normal people want to live in
This was my early view, but in keeping with 74, he's crossed the line from using his influence & wealth to promote ideas he favors to pushing legal boundaries to get the government to enact them.
I agree it's nothing to do with popular dislike of him, but it's turned me off.
To 88, I doubt many British people (or indeed Indians, Irish, Ugandans etc) are daft enough to think that the guilt for colonial atrocities resides entirely in the monarchy, and therefore abolition would leave the rest of the country squeaky clean, morally speaking. I think they also are bright enough to know that if you abolished the monarchy and used the money for "reparations" it would probably come to about 18p per head.
(QE2 had a higher approval rating in Ireland this year than any Irish politician, so I doubt abolition would be tremendously popular in Ireland. Irish Twitter is I'm sure different, because it is overwhelmingly not made up of actual Irish people.
I am now a monarchist after seeing this morning Charles's 2014 essay asserting as a principle "Streets must be reclaimed from the car." (Yes, I'm aware he didn't implement this principle in Pound Town.)
62, 83: Yeah, there's definitely more than a whiff of eugenics to the whole thing. Still far from the worst royal even on that account. (Again, abysmal standards. He's not actually a good person.)
The reason isn't that obscure, surely? Spain owned most of South America and extracted from it the immense wealth that kept its chaotic administration afloat. Spain was a major European power that threatened Britain from time to time. Splitting off the Spanish colonies would weaken Spain.
Yeah, I was flippant about it before but it makes perfectly good sense strategically and they kept at it for centuries until it worked.
One other relevant factor to all this which I sort of knew before but didn't appreciate the importance of: even as late as the 1780s, Spain claimed sovereignty over the entire Pacific Ocean based on Balboa's "discovery" of it in 1513 and the 1529 Treaty of Zaragoza with Portugal (which extended the 1494 Tordesillas line to the other side of the globe). They obviously didn't have the practical capacity to enforce this, but it was hard to get to from Europe without going past a gauntlet of Spanish and Portuguese territories so it didn't come up much until the 18th century. Even then, whenever another country sent an expedition to the Pacific Spain would lodge a formal diplomatic protest.
Putin will not be at the funeral. No fucking shit.
Abolition of the monarchy would probably be made more likely by a monarch exerting more rather than less power in politics.
Much better to have the cake provided to you by the state that lets you eat it than to claim to be the state let's everyone else eat cake.
Pity. We could have offered him tea.
Turnabout's fair play.
Exactly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
Dammit, was thinking of more recent misdeeds and forgot about that one. I shall see myself out to Standpipe's blog.
I never told anyone before now, but since others are speaking, I meet the queen in 1992 when I was studying abroad in England. She knighted me in secret. I'm Sir Hick, Baron of Holt. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone before 2025.