Though King Charles III introduced a number of new traditions for this year’s royal Christmas celebration, one thing remained the same: The family’s morning walk to Norfolk’s St. Mary Magdalene Church continued as it has for years, with Charles and Queen Camilla leading the charge.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla attend the Christmas Morning Service at St Mary Magdalene Church on December 25, 2025 in Sandringham, Norfolk.
Mark Cuthbert/Getty Images
Kate Middleton, Prince William, and children Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte, and Prince George also enjoyed the walk, which was observed on both sides by ardent fans, many bearing gifts. One such offering, a giant Lindor chocolate egg, thrilled the 7-year-old Louis, who snatched it from his father’s hands.
But this year, Princess Anne has dropped to second place, Teble writes, though she was out and about even more in 2025. But though the 75-year-old had 478 engagements, she was outpaced by her brother, 77-year-old King Charles. He carried out 535 official acts, netting him this crown in addition to that other one.
That uptick in activity can be viewed as a sign that his health is indeed improving, a theory blostered by an announcement the king made earlier this month. “Thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention, and adherence to doctors’ orders, my own schedule of cancer treatment can be reduced in the new year,” the king said in a prerecorded message that aired as part of Stand Up to Cancer’s 2025 broadcast on the UK network Channel 4. “This milestone is both a personal blessing and a testimony to the remarkable advances that have been made in cancer care in recent years.”
Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh and Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh attend The Coral Gold Cup at Newbury Racecourse on November 29, 2025.
Mark Cuthbert/Getty Images
Taking third place is Charles and Anne’s 61-year-old younger brother, Prince Edward, with 313 acts. His wife, 60-year-old Duchess Sophie, is ranked fourth with 235 events in 2025. At age 78, Queen Camilla is the oldest royal on the list—but is also one of its busiest, with a fifth-place ranking for 228 official acts.
For the last decade, Queen Camilla has established herself as the United Kingdom’s biggest book lover. From her Queen’s Reading Room foundation and festival to her role as patron of the Booker Prize, she has lavished praise on England’s authors, sparking up a few friendships with them along the way. Now she’s the star of a new literary thriller by Peter James called The Hawk Is Dead.
In a video on his Facebook account, James said that the novel is “set in London, largely in Buckingham Palace, where Queen Camilla is one of the key characters.” In another video, he added that King Charles III is also a character. The Hawk Is Dead, the 21st book in James’s long-running Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, centers on an assassination attempt on the royal train. Though the royals’ lives are spared, the queen has to spring into action to help evacuate the train after it crashes in a tunnel. Her fictional private secretary, Sir Peregrine Graves, is murdered, and it’s up to Grace to figure out if he was actually the intended target. The novel also includes a scene where the queen takes the detective on a private tour of Buckingham Palace.
In an interview with ITV, the British network that airs a TV series based on the Roy Grace novels, James said the idea for the novel was actually suggested by the queen herself. “She has been brilliantly helpful. I was given complete access to Buckingham Palace,” he said. “There’s a big chase scene in the book and I had a three-and-a-half-hour tour to get it right. I love the fact that she’s such a fan of books.”
The novelist added that initially he thought the queen was joking when she said she wanted to read a book set in the palace. “Then a senior member of the royal household told me Her Majesty was serious,” James said. “She would love to see Roy Grace in London, and perhaps Buckingham Palace might be a good location? Perhaps there might be a murder in the palace, or two? Might I come up with an idea he could run by her?”
The queen’s love for Grace first became public in April 2020, when she posted a quarantine “shelfie” of her workspace in Scotland that prominently featured several of James’s books. In 2024, James appeared on her podcast series, The Queen’s Reading Room. There, Camilla said that Roy Grace is her favorite fictional detective.
To mark Armistice Day on Tuesday, Prince William delivered a speech via video, encouraging young people to participate in remembrance commemorations and emphasizing the importance of wearing a poppy.
In his message for the Royal British Legion’s “Remembrance Assembly,” which was open to students between the ages of 9 to 14, the Prince of Wales said the day was “a reminder that Remembrance is for everyone.”
“When we remember, we connect with service in a personal way. We learn from the courage of others, and we carry their stories forward, so they are not forgotten. It’s not just about the past — it’s about shaping who we become in the future,” William, who served in the navy, the army and the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom, said. “Remembrance teaches us empathy, resilience, and responsibility. And when we wear a red poppy or take a moment of silence, we are saying, ‘Thank you. We have not forgotten, and we will not forget.’”
In the UK, the poppy symbolizes respect and remembrance for those who have died in active service. The tradition comes from the 1915 wartime poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae which describes red poppies growing between the graves of the fallen. The poppy is seen as both a symbol of bloodshed but also of hope and renewal.
For months, royal watchers have been fascinated by a tiny mystery: The small ring gleaming on Queen Camilla‘s left-hand pinky finger. It sits discreetly next to the precious Art Deco engagement ring given to her by husband King Charles III, and interested parties have found little information at hand about the jewelry and its history. It’s part of the Royal Collection, but further details are sparse. What, then, has made it so special to the queen?
Queen Camilla with the mystery ring on her little finger.
Tim Clayton/Getty Images
From photos, it appears that Queen Camilla began wearing the mystery ring in February 2025. It didn’t take long for royal enthusiasts to take notice. In pictures, not much could be seen of the piece, but it seemed to be made of gold, with several small circles in the design. It was noted that Charles, too, wears a ring on his own left pinky. His is a signet ring, and has been a constant for more than 50 years.
The Royal Collection described the piece as “a gold ring composed of seven circular plaques, each engraved with ancient symbols, plain gold shield in front.” Other pieces in the collection have more information, such as the piece’s provenance. When experts zoomed in on image of the ring, they identified some symbols related to the tradition of ancient Greece, including a boat, a lyre, an amphora, as well as Greek letters.
Captain James Boggis-Rolfe (Dismounted Equerry in Waiting to King Charles III) and Major Oliver Plunket (Equerry to Queen Camilla) attend day one of Royal Ascot 2023 at Ascot Racecourse on June 20, 2023 in Ascot, England.Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Following his gap year, Plunket enrolled on a Military Scholarship to Exeter University, where he read Arts, Politics, and Philosophy from 2013 to 2016. In 2017, he started at Sandhurst, where he followed in the footsteps of Prince William, Prince Harry, and the Duke of Edinburgh by completing the gruelling military training. His career with The Rifles has seen Plunket hold appointments including department manager and military operations manager, serving in Iraq, Canada, Liberia, and Italy during his tenure. Before his role with Queen Camilla, he worked with the United Nations on a number of projects.
As for his personal interests? Plunket is a big sportsman, finding time to surf, ski and play golf when he’s not supporting the royal family, as Tatler reports. Perhaps it’s time to start practicing your swing.
“I have lost a friend, an ally, a confidante and a mentor,” she concluded. “But I know she will live forever in the words she put on the page and on the screen.”
The then Duchess of Cornwall with Jilly Cooper and Prue Leith as they attend a reception to mark The National Literacy Trust’s 25th anniversary in 2018
Tristan Fewings/Getty Images
Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who revealed in 2023 that he was a great fan of Cooper’s books, took to social media with his own statement, writing: “Sad to hear of the passing of Dame Jilly Cooper, a storyteller whose wit and love or character brought joy to millions. My thoughts are with her family and fellow readers.”
The stars of Rivals, on which Cooper worked as an executive producer, have also offered their condolences to the author’s family, with Emily Atack, who will reprise her role as Sarah Stratton in the upcoming second season, writing a particularly heartfelt message on Instagram.
“Oh Jilly, I can’t believe I’m writing this. Almost 3 years ago you gave me Sarah Stratton, and my life changed forever. I’ll never forget the first time we met. Your warmth and kindness soared through me with that first hug, and then every hug since,” read the moving statement.
“To be taken into your world was the hugest honour and a once in a life time privilege. I cannot begin to explain how much we will miss you. Thank you for letting us into Jilly World, there really is no place like it. Sending all my love to Jilly’s wonderful family. Praying that you all feel somewhat comforted by knowing and seeing just how adored she was. What a woman, what a legacy. We love you Dame Jilly.”
The royal family has welcomed Donald Trump to Windsor Castle for his historic second state visit, with both the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, and Queen Camilla opting Wednesday to wear highly poignant brooches for the occasion.
Kate Middleton adorned her monochrome burgundy look with an heirloom brooch featuring Prince of Wales Feathers, in recognition of her title and position within the royal family. The brooch features a diamond-encrusted Prince of Wales Three Feathers emblem encircled with more diamonds, with emeralds and rubies dotted throughout, royal authority The Court Jeweller noted. The brooch has historically been worn by the woman married to the Prince of Wales. On this outing, the Princess chose not to wear the additional single emerald drop that can be added to the piece.
The Princess of Wales adorned her monochrome burgundy look with an heirloom brooch featuring the Prince of Wales Feathers.
WPA Pool/Getty Images
The Prince of Wales Feathers brooch has been worn a number of times by Queen Camilla, including to Cheltenham Ladies’ Day in 2012, despite Camilla never using the title of Princess of Wales on a formal basis. It was also sported by the late Princess Diana, although she preferred to wear it as a pendant on a necklace. It brought sparkle to her ensemble for an outing to the Royal Festival Hall in 1996, and on an outing to the Royal Opera House in 1982 that was recreated in The Crown. The late princess also wore the necklace on a state visit to Austria in 1986.
The brooch also has a fascinating royal history, notes The Royal Watcher. It was given to Queen Alexandra as a gift for her wedding to King Edward VII in March 1863.
Princess Diana on a state visit to Austria in 1986.
No U.S. president had ever gotten to see the Princess of Wales in a tiara twice—until Kate Middleton greeted Donald Trump at Wednesday’s Buckingham Palace banquet.
Six years after his first state trip to the United Kingdom, President Trump has made another visit to the royal family. This is one more state visit to the U.K. than any other American president has made—an “unprecedented” honor, in the words of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and hopefully a diplomatic relief amid the trade crisis over Trump’s tariffs. Trump calledKing Charles III “a wonderful man” in February, when Starmer handed him the king’s invitation for another state visit. Later, Trump reduced the tariffs he imposed on the U.K.
Queen Camilla, who recovered from the sinusitis that kept her away from Tuesday’s funeral for the Duchess of Kent, wore the Belgian Sapphire Tiara, one of the most spectacular from the royal collection, and an elegant blue dress. But let’s not kid ourselves. With apologies to Melania Trump—who wore a unique yellow dress with a purple sash—it was once again Kate Middleton who took the cake at a state banquet. She graced Buckingham Palace’s great dining room in the Lover’s Knot tiara, a favorite of Princess Diana, and a majestic white lace dress by British designer Phillipa Lepley with a hand-embroidered overdress.
“How beautiful,” Trump said to Princess of Wales at their first meeting this afternoon.
While King Charles will remain politically neutral, there are “a number of issues” he is eager to discuss with Trump, with whom he has a good working relationship, including Ukraine.
With the visit taking place in Windsor, Trump will not have the opportunity to address parliament, as President Emmanuel Macron did during his state visit this summer, with one source in the Cabinet Office saying there was “some relief about keeping Trump away from parliament.”
Trump will spend a day with Prime Minister Starmer, where several talking points will be on the table, including Ukraine, Gaza and US-UK trade deals. Starmer is reportedly keen to extend the trade deal made with the US earlier this year and the two leaders are also expected to sign a new US-UK technology partnership.
The timing of the recent firing of US ambassador Peter Mandelson poses problems for the prime minister, who sacked Mandelson after discovering that the nature of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was “far different” from what Starmer had believed it to be, with emails revealing Mandelson’s support for Epstein following the latter’s guilty plea on solicitation-of-prostitution charges. Starmer and Trump will take part in a joint press conference on Thursday, where the matter is likely to be raised.
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on September 16, 2025. Trump is heading to the UK for a state visit.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Getty Images
The Trumps are due to arrive in London on Tuesday on Air Force One. Upon landing, they will be greeted by Warren Stephens, US ambassador to the UK, and Viscount Hood, King Charles’s lord-in-waiting. They will be in the presidential motorcade in the bulletproof “Beast,” which has its own oxygen supply in case of a gas attack.
Their official engagements will begin on Wednesday morning when the Trumps are met by the Prince and Princess of Wales before being officially welcomed by King Charles and Queen Camilla. Afterward, the Trumps and the royals will travel through Windsor in a carriage procession escorted by the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment. However, the carriage will not pass through the crowds, as a large number of anti-Trump protesters are expected.
As he did during the last state visit, Trump will be invited to inspect the Guard of Honour followed by a march past. It was during the Guard of Honour when Trump accidentally walked in front of the late queen.
His schedule also includes lunch in the state dining room with members of the royal family. Trump will be invited to lay a wreath at Queen Elizabeth’s grave at St George’s Chapel, where he and the first lady will be given a brief tour.
The highlight of Trump’s state visit will be Wednesday night’s state banquet.
Buckingham Palace has yet to reveal the event’s guest list and menu. However, the banquet will be held in St George’s Hall, which has a table that can seat up to 160 people.
On Thursday, President Trump will leave Windsor for Chequers, the country residence of the British prime minister, where he will attend meetings with Prime Minister Starmer and join a business reception hosted by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Melania will stay at Windsor with Queen Camilla and Princess Kate for a number of engagements before joining the president on Thursday evening.
Prince William and Kate Middleton are set to play a major role in the impending US state visit to Britain, which will see Donald Trump and Melania stay at Windsor Castle from September 17 to 18—and include a joint engagement for the first lady and the Princess of Wales with the Scouts at Frogmore Gardens.
The Trumps are slated to arrive at Windsor Castle on the morning of the 17th, where they will be officially greeted by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The quartet will then meet King Charles and Queen Camilla, who will receive the Trumps for a Royal Salute, fired from the East Lawn of Windsor Castle at the same time as a salute from the Tower of London. Their Majesties, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the President and First Lady will then make a carriage procession through the Windsor estate towards the Castle, which was also the site for French president Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Britain this summer.
Both nations’ anthems will play as the Procession moves off. In a historical move, a Guard of Honour will be presented at the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle, featuring the State Colours of the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, and the Scots Guards. This will mark the first time that such an occasion will feature three State Colours—typically, just one would be showcased at the parade. The President and the King will then inspect the Guard of Honour, followed by a Rank and March past The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, the Household Cavalry and the Foot Guards.
The Trumps joined King Charles and Queen Camilla, then the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, for a dinner at Winfield House, the residence of the US Ambassador, where US President Trump stayed on his 2019 state visit
CHRIS JACKSON/Getty Images
Then, lunch will commence in the State Dining Room, with various members of the Royal family. The party will attend a special display of America-related items from the Royal Collection in the Green Drawing Room. In a solemn moment, later that afternoon Trump is set to privately pay homage to the late Queen Elizabeth—whom he has previously described as a “grand and beautiful lady”—by laying a wreath on her tomb at St George’s Chapel.
King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Trumps will then be joined by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Lady Starmer for a Beating Retreat ceremony on Windsor’s East Lawn, featuring a flypast by UK and US F-35 military jets and the Red Arrows. The visit will culminate in a state banquet at the Castle—and if the French state visit was anything to go by, it will be a dazzling display of tiaras and royal jewels for Middleton and Queen Camilla. Both the King and President Trump will deliver speeches at the beginning of the dinner.
Grant Harrold, the monarch’s former butler, shared excerpt from his book, The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service, to the British newspaper The Telegraph on the occasion of its publication. One of the passages contains a sweet memory of King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s big day. But it was above all the reactions of Princes William and Harry that struck the former butler.
“At the end of the festivities, Charles and Camilla were catching a flight to head straight to Birkhall [on the Balmoral estate],” he writes in the book. “We all went outside to wave them off and laughed as we saw William and Harry had decorated their car with ‘Just Married.’ As they drove off through the arches to cheers, the boys raced after the car.”
Charles and Camilla pose with their children, Prince Harry, Prince William, Laura and Tom Parker Bowles, in Windsor Castle’s white drawing room for group photo after their wedding at the Guildhall in April 2005.
Anwar Hussein Collection/Getty Images
There are, however, other versions of this anecdote, less poetic than the picture painted by Harrold.
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry tells a very different story. “There are published reports that Willy and I snuck out of the church and hung JUST MARRIED signs on their car. I don’t think so. I might’ve hung a sign: BE HAPPY. If I’d thought of it at the time,” he wrote. According to the book, the two brothers instead asked their father not to marry his beloved. “We support you, we said. We endorse Camilla, we said. Just please don’t marry her. Just be together, Pa.”
One thing’s for sure: a mystery remains, and only the principals involved know the truth.
Notes featuring the Queen’s portrait already made will still be put into circulation.
New notes will only be printed to replace worn banknotes and to meet any overall increase in demand for banknotes.
This is to reduce the environmental impact and save on costs.
On all current coins the Queen’s portrait faces the right, but Charles looks to the left because of a tradition that means the way the monarch faces must change with each new successor.
Rarest and most valuable Olympic Coins to look out for ahead of Paris 2024 worth upto £1,000 – exact details to spot
The most recent image of the Queen on coins is the fifth portrait, designed by Jody Clark.
It was issued in 2015 and shows a side profile of the Queen wearing a crown and drop earrings.
Meanwhile, on British notes, a similar image of the Queen has been in place since the 90s.
New coins and notes were made when the Queen’s father George VI, the former King of England, passed too.
When will coins and notes with the Queen’s face on end?
The current circulating designs will be discontinued and a new design that represents the new head of state will replace them.
But it won’t all happen straight away.
Any coins or notes you have on you now will still be legal tender for a while yet.
We don’t know exactly when each design will be removed from circulation.
There are around 27 billion coins currently circulating in the UK bearing the effigy of the Queen.
These will be replaced over time as they become damaged or worn, and to meet demand for additional coins.
When the Queen came to power though, coins with her father’s image stayed in circulation for almost 20 years after his death.
But they were removed when decimalisation was introduced in 1971.
Production of coins won’t abruptly stop either.
The Royal Mint manufactures between three million and four million coins a day, and it’s likely to continue with the production of the current portrait and design until the end of the year at least.
That means we won’t see any new styles crop up in change until 2024. The same goes for notes.
Notes went through a major style change when they changed from paper to plastic – and the slow process means some paper copies are still legal tender even now.
But bank notes are updated approximately every 15 years anyway, so it won’t be long before current designs disappear altogether.
What kind of value will current coins and notes hold?
As the currency with the Queen on will eventually cease to be produced altogether, they’ll be harder to come across.
That means collectors will be more desperate to snap up copies as they become rarer over time, with the new designs taking the lead in popularity and production.
Rarer coins and notes are often more valuable, and can sometimes sell for hundreds of pounds more than face value at auction – if the right bidder is interested.
What are the most rare and valuable coins?
Does it affect anyone outside the UK?
During her reign, the Queen was head of the Commonwealth, so that meant her portrait was used on plenty of other countries’ currency too.
The Queen appears on the Canadian $20 bill for example, as well as on the Australian dollar coin.
Now that Charles has taken over, these designs will also have to change just like coins and notes on our side of the pond.
According to The Coin Expert this will take longer than it will in this country though.
That’s because it is easier to enforce a new design in the country it originates from rather than elsewhere, where other rules may get in the way.
Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.
Queen Camilla has a good number of personal skills and charms. She reportedly enjoys gardening and swimming in the sea, and loves to read. But about that reading—the passion is there, but the ability to do individual character voices in Harry Potter? Not so much.
In a clip from the first episode of The Queen’s Reading Room Podcast released Monday, the monarch said that she enjoys reading the beloved seven-part book series to her grandchildren, “more than anything else,” but that when it comes to grunting out Hagrid’s lines declaring his passion for Blast-Ended Skrewts or Professor McGonagall’s morsels of Transfiguration wisdom, someone else in the house wears the crown.
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“I can’t mimic voices for love or money, I’m completely hopeless at it,” she said. “I was a really bad actor at school, and I’ve never been able to master the art of mimicry. But my husband [King Charles], he does it brilliantly. He can do all the voices.”
However, this latest tidbit is well out of spoiler territory (though we’d pay all the Galleons in Gringotts to hear Charles toss out his best “nitwit, oddment, blubber, tweak!”): Camilla revealed Charles’ voice acting skills in the 2018 documentary Prince, Son, and Heir: Charles at 70.
“He reads Harry Potter and he can do all the different voices,” she said, “and I think children really appreciate that.”
Camilla Shand married British Army officer Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973. She had already dated and broken up with Prince Charles, but they remained friends. So, it raised a few eyebrows when the couple asked Prince Charles to be the godfather of the first child, Thomas Henry Charles, born December 18, 1974. Their daughter, Laura Rose, completed the family when she was born on January 1, 1978.
“People blame their upbringing for everything, but my childhood—and my sister’s—was absolutely idyllic,” Tom said in an interview with The Telegraph. The couple raised their children on large, shabby-chic estates in the Wiltshire countryside. According to Queen Consort, they were very close to Camilla’s sister Annabel Elliot’s children, Ben,Alice, and Catherine. While Andrew was often away for work, Camilla was a lively, hands-on, easy-going mother. “Don’t worry, darling,” Tom once recalled her saying whenever he got in trouble.
According to Angela Levin, author of Camilla: From Outcast to Queen Consort, the children loved when Prince Charles, who they called “Sir,” would come to visit. “I’ve always adored my stepfather; he’s always been kind and good and a lovely man,” Tom has noted, per Camilla. “He is a man of warmth, intelligence and humanity.”
But occasionally the children were part of the dramas enfolding their parents’ lives, even if they didn’t know it. According to Penny Junor’s Queen Consort, Diana, already aware of Prince Charles and Camilla’s continuing relationship, firmly vetoed Tom serving as a page at their 1981 wedding. Prince Charles relented, and Tom instead attended the ceremony with his mother, according to Queen Consort, standing on his seat at times for a better view.
This innocence would be shattered in the early ’90s, when Prince Charles and Camilla’s affair became a worldwide scandal. “When it first started we thought it was entirely normal growing up to have five or six paparazzi hanging around—we would go up there with binoculars and say, ‘Oh, look, Mummy, there’s five today,’” Tom once recalled, according to Queen Consort. “They’re bullies…and they made you very angry. When you were 15 or 16 and you’re coming out of an airport and they were really winding you up, all I wanted to do was smack them in the face and beat the hell out of them. But you couldn’t do that.”
Thirteen months after King Charles began his reign, writer Hugo Vickers has one small complaint: his majesty’s oft-reported plan to see a more slimmed-down monarchy might be unrealistic. “I don’t know who’s going to do all the work!” Vickers said in a recent interview. “People either want celebrities or they want the royal family, and they’d have a much better deal out of the royal family. I can assure you celebrities are very demanding and not very reliable.”
For nearly half a century, the biographer and broadcaster has been a premier observer of Britain’s aristocracy as it adjusted its traditions and worldviews for the modern age. In the 1970s, he tracked down the reclusive Duchess of Marlborough in a psychiatric hospital and turned what he learned over two years of conversations into a biography, reissued in 2021 as The Sphinx: The Life of Gladys Deacon – Duchess of Marlborough. Ever since, he has documented the royals and their orbit in their highs and lows, even seeking Prince Philip’s personal recollections for a biography about his mother, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece. His relationships with courtiers and understanding of the royal family’s day-to-day life have given him a unique point of view on the challenges that King Charles has faced as he ascended to the throne.
Along with his books, Vickers has become a lecturer who interprets the history and symbolism of the monarchy for Americans, and it’s turned him into one of the institution’s most committed and visible defenders. This weekend, he will be a marquee speaker at the debut edition of the Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair. Founded by Eve and Edward Lemon of Fine Book Fairs, the event will fill midtown Manhattan’s St. Bartholomew’s Church with over 50 exhibitors and a slate of events aimed at getting a generation of young people excited about collecting. In conversation with writer and auctioneer Nicholas Nicholson, Vickers will discuss his views on the future of the monarchy and the legacy of the late queen.
In an interview before he traveled to New York, Vickers said he knows that promoting a hereditary monarchy might seem outdated, but he’s seen its benefits up close. “I know it’s unfashionable to promote anything being hereditary as opposed to on merit, but it does have its great advantages, because there’s a humility that goes with that. The queen was tremendously aware that she wasn’t there except by accident of birth,” he said, adding that he thinks King Charles has taken a similar approach. “I think it works very well. You wouldn’t invent it, necessarily, but it’s there.”
So far, he is giving Charles positive marks for his performance as king, emphasizing his energy and the success of his trip to Germany in March and France in September. “I think he’s doing a good job—and his two state visits abroad so far have been immensely successful,” Vickers said. “He is a real workaholic. He doesn’t really eat lunch. He has a big dinner in the evening, but he’s at his desk most of the time.”
Vickers notes that the job of monarch is time-consuming. “It’s a bit like being the CEO of a company. The trouble is, as you know, when you get to the top, you spend your time administering rather than doing what you necessarily want to do. You have to deal with so many problems,” he said. “He’s taken on a lot at this age. Suddenly the boxes are coming and he’s got to get through them, and he does it.”
But along with the busywork comes a lot of responsibility. Vickers cited one event as an example of the power a monarch must possess in order to do their job. Days after a tragic fire in Grenfell Tower killed 72 people in June 2017, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William traveled to visit the survivors. “When she went to [visit the victims], in a sense what she did was to bring with her all the other places that she’d been to where there’d been great tragedies, like Aberfan and Dunblane,” he said. “She wasn’t doing it for political purposes, she was comforting her people, her nation, if you like.”
Now that the coronation celebrations are over, King Charles III and Queen Camilla are enjoying a break at Sandringham, and the rest of the royals are getting ready for the future. Cohosts Katie Nicholl and Erin Vanderhoof take a look at what the king’s reign might hold from the perspective of global politics as well as family conflicts. Plus, they share listener reactions to the coronation.
For one event, the king welcomed the public to a little-known corner of Windsor Castle, where he was celebrated by pop stars Katy Perry and Lionel Richie, whom he also counts as friends, and emphasized his love for nature and skills as a pilot. Can Charles’s emerging image succeed in drawing a skeptical younger generation to embrace the monarchy?
Buckingham Palace released official portraits that show the newly crowned monarch with the senior royals who will support him throughout his reign, including the Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Anne, and Prince Edward. The photos were taken on May 6, after the coronation ceremony and before the informal family lunch. Prince Harry’s notable absence from the photos underscores that he is no longer a working royal, and had not even a moment to talk to his father—something that drew strong responses from DYNASTY fans, whether in empathy for Charles or outrage on behalf of Harry.
King Charles III coronation concert was a huge affair. Bollywood was represented by actress Sonam Kapoor. For the event, she wore a dress made by Emilia Wickstead and her fave Anamika Khanna. Sonam Kapoor introduced the choirs from the Commonwealth nations at the coronation ceremony. A number of other celebs like Katy Perry, Andrea Bocelli and others. Sonam Kapoor looked great in the dress. But social media is not completely impressed with her presence at the event. Many felt that there was no need to be there for the British Empire given the history of the institution that colonized so many nations the world over. Also Read – King Charles III coronation concert: Sonam Kapoor makes a statement in floral Emilia Wickstead and Anamika Khanna dress; says, ‘Historic moments call…’ [VIEW PICS]
Do not have an astute couture sense, but can safely say that Mrs. vaccine needs to calm down. Like what the heck was the outfit for coronation concert. Sonam Kapoor looked elegant.
— Anushri R Kejriwal (@anushrikejriwal) May 8, 2023
did sonam kapoor just say “OUR COMMONWEALTH IS A UNION”? someone take her mic away please
On the professional front, Sonam Kapoor has Sujoy Ghosh’s Blind up for release. She is also planning to make a comeback soon. The actress is in no hurry as she wants to give time to her son Vayu. She said she is putting no pressure on herself to lose weight.
In Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, he singles out his stepmother, Queen Camilla, for particular criticism, implying that she plotted to become queen. In a recent podcast appearance, Camilla’s son Tom Parker Bowles has disagreed with Harry’s characterization and emphasized that she married King Charles III for love.
“I don’t care what anyone says—this wasn’t any sort of end game,” Parker Bowles said on The News Agents, a podcast hosted by journalists Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel. “She married the person she loved and this is what happened.”
In Spare, Harry calls Camilla a “villain” and describes the aftermath of his and Prince William’s earliest meetings with her, the details of which eventually wound up in the press. “Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game,” Harry writes. “A campaign aimed at marriage, and eventually the crown, with Pa’s blessing we presumed.” In January, an insider told Vanity Fair that Camilla was “astounded” by Harry’s allegations.
Sopel and Maitlis also asked if it was strange to think of his mother as a queen. “Not really because she’s still our mother,” Parker Bowles said. “I say ‘our’ but not the royal ‘we’, speaking for my sister and me. She’s our mother.” Camilla had Tom and his sister, Laura Lopes, when she was married to her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles.
Parker Bowles also spoke about the upcoming coronation, which will include his son Freddy Parker Bowles as a page alongside Prince George. “I don’t think he knows quite how big it’s going to be, I don’t think he has a sense of the occasion,” he said of his son. “He’s a 13-year-old boy who loves football.”
He noted that his mother might be anxious but hasn’t complained about the task of the coronation. “I think anyone would be anxious on an occasion of this sort of importance in terms of the historical. And yes, I think I’d be terrified if I had to sort of walk out wearing ancient robes…” he said. “She’s 75, but you know, it’s tough to do it. But she’s never complained. You just do it. Get on with it.”
Parker Bowles is a food writer and cookbook author, so naturally he had a few opinions about the coronation menu, which will feature a spinach “coronation quiche” invented for the occasion by royal chef Mark Flanagan. “He’s a really, really good chef,” he said. “So, I wouldn’t dare start telling him what to do.”
On the other hand, he is not fond of coronation chicken, the dish that was designed for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. “What happened over the years is it became this awful, turgid, sad, sort of gloopy mess, yellow, horrid. I mean coronation chicken done badly is appalling,” he said. “And I think what started off as something quite nice and probably quite exotic for the ’50s has now become something really horrible.”
King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla are postponing their pre-coronation trip to France and waiting for a safer time to travel.
The royal couple has decided to reschedule their visit to the country, which was supposed to commence in Paris on Sunday, after several days of protests in the capital and Bordeaux area that have turned increasingly violent. French President Emmanuel Macron‘s office at the Élysée Palace first announced the news of the canceled trip via a statement early Friday morning and the BBC later reported that this decision followed discussions with the U.K. Government. Buckingham Palace also released a statement of its own regarding the decision, confirming the postponement due to the situation in France as well as the duo’s intent to visit Germany later this week. “The King and The Queen Consort’s State Visit to France has been postponed,” the palace said. “Their Majesties greatly look forward to the opportunity to visit France as soon as dates can be found.”
This trip was set to be the royal couple’s first overseas tour since their reign began. But after thousands of people took to the streets in France this week to protest President Macron’s decision to push through legislation raising the age of retirement from 62 to 64 without a vote from Parliament, Charles and Camilla’s arrival seemed increasingly unlikely. On Wednesday, palace officials said that they were monitoring developments closely and would be following the advice of the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office and their French counterparts.
The royal visit was set to be a grand one with an elegant state banquet held at the Chateau de Versailles just outside of Paris, and a visit to Bordeaux scheduled where the pair would be taken on a tour of an organic vineyard. This trip overseas was originally intended to “celebrate the U.K.’s relationship with France and Germany, marking our shared histories, culture and values,” a palace representative said earlier this month. While the first leg of that trip has been postponed, Charles and Camilla still have much to look forward to with their visit to Germany on March 29. The trip will begin with a stop in Berlin before moving on to Brandenburg and Hamburg. The pair are set to receive a ceremonial welcome from President Steinmeier and Frau Büdenbender at the Brandenburg Gate, marking the first time any visiting head of state has received such a welcome at that site. They will also be the guests of honor at a state banquet, and King Charles is expected to address the Bundestag, or federal legislature, during the trip as well.
