Charles Windsor has told his biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, that he intends to act like a king when he takes over from his mother as Britain’s hereditary head of state.
Mr. Dimbleby says that Windsor plans to be a “political” head of state. He describes what is planned as “a seismic shift” in the role of head of state, with “the potential to be politically and constitutionally explosive”.
It is not clear, however, why Mr. Windsor’s intentions should cause surprise. The British people have accepted that he is both the “prince” of Wales and “duke” of Cornwall. They give him an extraordinary annual handout that amounted to more than £16m last year. And he is entitled under Britain’s unwritten constitution to become head of state regardless of his ability or the wishes of the people. In such circumstances Mr. Windsor might be expected to believe that it is acceptable to behave with contempt for democratic principles.
Jonathan Dimbleby is the son of BBC commentator Richard Dimbleby. In an essay in <em>The Invention of Tradition</em> David Cannandine wrote that the senior Dimbleby’s commentaries on monarchical ceremonies were “lit up by profound devotion to the monarchy”. They presented “the ritual of monarchy as a festival of freedom”. Mr. Cannandine noted that Dimbleby’s biographer had written that by these commentaries Richard Dimbleby had done “more than any other individual to secure the position of the monarch in the affections of the British people”. It is too soon to measure the effect of his son’s efforts.