King Charles III Takes the Throne

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

On May 6th, King Charles will become the oldest person to ascend the throne of the United Kingdom. He is a bit of an odd duck to be the king, Rebecca Mead thinks. Charles has “long made clear that he considers his birthright a burden,” she writes. In fact, many things are a burden: during the ceremonies following the death of Queen Elizabeth, the new king “got into not one but two altercations with malfunctioning pens. . . . As his biographer Catherine Mayer puts it, ‘The world is against him—even inanimate objects are against him. That is absolutely central to his personality.’ ” Mead—a subject of the king, as well as a staff writer—talks with David Remnick about Charles III’s coronation, the problem of Harry and Meghan, and the future of the British monarchy itself.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.6	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is Rebecca Mead, and this is London.
0:17.7	After Queen Elizabeth II died, at the age of 96, King Charles III delivered a televised speech, his first public address as monarch.
0:26.9	I speak to you today with feelings of profound sorrow.
0:31.6	His eyes were roomy and his complexion florid.
0:34.9	His hair, thoroughly silver, was brushed as carefully as it had been in
0:39.1	1953 when, as a fidgety four-year-old he had endured his mother's almost three-hour-long
0:45.4	coronation service in Westminster Abbey. Queen Elizabeth was a life well-lived, a promise with destiny
0:53.7	kept. That promise of lifelong service, I renew to all today.
1:02.4	Rebecca, has coronation mania begun on the streets of London?
1:07.2	I don't really think it has. I mean, not as far as I've seen now.
1:11.1	I just deeply disappoint.
1:13.8	I've been invited to one party.
1:16.0	Okay, that's a start.
1:17.8	I can't tell quite whether it's a serious party or a joke party.
1:32.3	Charles has long made it clear that he considers his birthright a burden. Nobody knows what utter hell it is to be the Prince of Wales, he has reportedly complained.
1:37.3	Although he is literally the most entitled man in the land, a royal can feel like an anachronism,
1:43.3	and he apparently feels a
1:45.3	kinship with certain other Britons who are marginalized. Paddy Harvison, the prince's former
1:50.7	communication secretary, says that Charles has a particular fondness for the sheep farmers of
1:55.7	remote Cumbria, because they are about the most forgotten community you can find.
2:01.9	Tom Parker Bowles, Charles' godson and later his stepson,
	...

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