Annette Sharp: Why King Charles III is the right man to rule the Commonwealth

Once branded a crackpot for his open-minded attitudes towards conservation and sustainability, our new King is now one of the most enlightened men on the planet, writes Annette Sharp.

And so the sun has risen on the reign of King Charles III, a man who will inevitably rule and die under the Southern Cross as “Charles” or “Charlie” or “Chuck” or possibly “that Pommy bastard/git” in a land that has a deep affection for the monarchy but a far greater one for an irreverent nickname.

At 73 he may not, on the surface of it, be the youthful and vigorous king from central casting that the media and his increasingly young public had hoped for, yet in Charles the British monarchy may have found its best chance for survival in far-flung and restless Commonwealth outposts like this one as the world comes to terms with taking action on climate change.

While old he may be, as well as the butt of a thousand jokes and something of a hapless playboy, Charles remains the Queen’s pick for the job, and out of respect for her we must believe that while attending to her adoring public, her cherished corgis and horses, and partaking in the odd tipple, during a seven-decade-long apprenticeship she managed to prepare her eldest child for his important future role.

On Friday, as my 15-year-old daughter bemoaned the implications of the Queen’s death on her empowered Zoomer generation — “I will never again in my lifetime be ruled by a female monarch …” she lamented forlornly, and not for the first time, while heading out the door to school — this writer unexpectedly found herself selling the virtues of our new sovereign, a man who inconceivably once envied a used tampon.

Having been branded something of a crackpot by conservatives initially for his open-minded attitudes towards conservation and sustainability, Charles is now one of the most enlightened men on the planet.

The master and her apprentice — Queen Elizabeth with Prince Charles at the races in 1993.

His interest in the planet and humanity’s survival, is not just a passing thing, it’s a passion, a crusade and may yet be his great legacy.

Who knew his time might eventually come? I’m guessing the Queen.

Although less popular than both his mother and his son and heir William, or at least according to British pollsters, Charles is a compassionate plant and animal lover who is not only ecologically and socially aware but is proactively so.

From his mother and father Prince Philip he learned at an early age to walk among his countrymen and women as an (admittedly filthy rich) equal, and this he’s been doing since age eight when his parents decided their son would benefit socially from being schooled with other children rather than tutored privately at the palace.

His marriage to the insecure Diana was famously a disaster, but he did dutifully marry a woman who would bear him two sturdy and not terribly inbred sons before divorcing, an act which saw him exercise his right to the very institution invented by an English monarch 440 years earlier.

In hindsight, it could today be seen as research for his future role as head of the Anglican Church.

King Charles III and his Queen Consort Camilla greet the crowd at Buckingham Palace a day after Queen Elizabeth II died. Picture: AFP

Though the breakdown of his marriage and revelations he’d been philandering with his future consort, Camilla Parker-Bowles, cost him dearly in the public’s eyes, it did bring greater public clarity on his tender relationship with his two sons William and Harry, something the media up until then had largely ignored while casting former preschool teacher Diana as the idealised mother and saint.

Following Diana’s death in 1997, it was Charles who lobbied an unmoved Queen to give Diana a public funeral, recognising the love the British public had for her when they had little, at the time, for him.

It was an empathetic act that benefited not only the British public but also his young sons and Diana’s surviving family.

Having endured every possible insult the media could throw at him — concerning his prominent ears, his penchant for talking to trees, his passion for the hippie practice of hedge-laying, his green activism, his somewhat at odds “romantic” love for fox hunts, and his off-colour joke about driving a “wine and cheese” guzzling Aston Martin — Charles is well blooded in public criticism.

Like his grandfather, George VI, who was beloved during his reign despite his stutter, Charles might be fairly described as a good and gentle person, his mother’s son, and the right man to transition the Commonwealth forward in these environmentally challenged times.

Certainly he’s better equipped than his still emerging son.

And if that doesn’t bring you some peace of mind, we should at least be grateful he’s not Andrew.

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