King Charles ‘hamstrung and out of ideas’ almost one year into his reign

We’re fast approaching the 12-month mark since Charles took over, and it’s already clear he’s got off to a seriously dicey start.

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365 days (nearly), at least $421 million, the sovereign’s official piper bringing a nation to tears, the sovereign’s official piper again or an untold legion of extra Tanqueray bottles turning up the Clarence House recycling bins.

How to truly measure the seismic change of reign we have just gone through, as we approach the 12-month mark since Her late Majesty departed this earthly plane to share betting tips with Einstein and Ada Lovelace?

It is now one year since Queen Elizabeth’s son and lifelong palace intern became King Charles III, since the Jung-reading watercolourist became the 40th sovereign anointed inside Westminster Abbey.

But now that the bunting has long been packed away and the tins of commemorative shortbread emptied, the question is, just what sort of job is the King doing?

The prognosis? A “D” for a bit of a dud, or for being a bit of disappointment.

Sure, 59 per cent of Brits think he is doing a bang-up job of sitting on the throne and not sliding off. Also, he and wife Queen Camilla have gotten a much warmer and more enthusiastic reception than expected from the schoolchildren and suburban small business owners who are the bread and butter of royal away days.

Charles automatically ascended to the throne when Queen Elizabeth died on September 8, 2022. Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

However, the jovial, crowd-charming bonhomie we have seen from His Majesty belies the failures that he is keeping tucked away at home, like a bunch of badly hidden Mrs Rochesters up in the attic who’ve somehow gotten their hands on the matches.

It’s hard to know where to start here: the fact that Buckingham Palace is still bogged down in more family melodrama than a Coronation Street wedding? The lingering shadow of a civil sexual abuse case? A strangely shuttered corruption inquiry into cash for honours? A restive, antsy Commonwealth making louder news about republicanism? An ageing, increasingly decrepit-looking royal workforce? Or the fact that Charles has reportedly realised that he is only going to be a throne-warmer for son Prince William?

So let’s begin with the most obvious, attention-hogging problemos, the Spares, a twosome who have caused more headaches for the House of Windsor than the advent of the talkies and the rise of national socialism.

Top spot here would have to go to Prince Andrew, Duke of York and titled piece of flotsam who four years on from the death of his pal, sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is currently enjoying a top-notch getaway at the royal family’s private Scottish estate, Balmoral.

Never before has a monarch’s son – and now brother – been accused of sexually abusing a teenager (an allegation he has strenuously denied) and never before has a senior member of the British monarchy paid out what some reports have suggested was up to $23 million to settle said claims.

The one-year anniversary of his reign is just around the corner. Picture: Cameron Smith/Pool/AFP

Things have changes dramatically in the 12 months since Queen Elizabeth II died. Picture: Jonathan Brady/Pool/AFP

While Andrew has never been charged with any crime – nor has there ever been any suggestion he might be – his refusal to talk to the FBI, his pompous, bloated TV interview showing not a jot of sympathy for the untold number of women abused by his chum but plenty for himself, and the fact he popped over to New York to see ol’ Epstein after the financier had found himself on the sex offenders register is thoroughly damning stuff.

However, no one should consider l’affair Andrew a done deal and that Buckingham Palace should be breathing any big smoked salmon sandwich fume-wafting big sighs of relief.

This tawdry, seedy chapter is far from over yet. In fact, this week a royal source told the Sunday Times that for His Majesty, “it feels like more stuff is going to come out on Epstein and there are still unexploded bombs there”.

Meanwhile, to this day, Andrew continues to enjoy pootling around his cavernous estate Royal Lodge with nothing to do all day but re-watch old golf Masters Tournaments on VHS and forlornly wonder what the weather is currently like in the Costa del Sol. (Interesting, is it not, that he has not left UK soil since Epstein’s death?)

So far, the Duke of York has somehow managed to outmanoeuvre Charles’ attempts to turf him out of Royal Lodge, thus leaving a man accused of sexual assault living in one of the royal family’s primo bits of real estate.

Added to which, not only has His Majesty reportedly given up on trying to force his brother to move into the now-empty Frogmore Cottage, but according to the Express, significantly, Andrew this week became the first family member to join Charles at Balmoral.

Prince Andrew, Duke of York is still causing headaches for the King. Picture: Toby Melville – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Letting a person thoroughly and nearly university despised by the entire UK back into the heart of la famille Windsor? He might still be family, but what in the hell is the King thinking?

Next, we get to Frogmore’s former tenants and perpetual thorns in One’s side, Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Yes, all indications might be that they have given up on their campaign to hold the Palace’s feet to the fire, their eagerness to flap royal dirty laundry about the place over as they attempt to move into making rom-coms.

But, like Andrew, Harry and Meghan are definitely Unfinished Business.

The King’s strategy would appear to be to do everything, or at least nearly everything, in his power to distance the royal family from the separatist agitators from Montecito, having this year evicted them from Frogmore, left Harry in the third row at His Majesty’s coronation and finally having their HRH honorifics stripped from The Firm’s official website.

Meanwhile, Charles remains at sea over how to contain the Sussexes once and for all.

There have been claims that the Duchess of Sussex might write a memoir of her own and there remains a whopping question mark over whether they will be able to support themselves given that their only successful commercial outings, so far, have been those which target the Crown Inc.

Again, the King seems hamstrung and out of ideas about how to sort this mess out.

Next on the list, a spot of corruption.

In 2021, the Times broke a series of devastating stories about the then-Prince of Wales’ charities, alleging that his longtime aide Michael Fawcett had solicited cash to support the royal’s charities in return for an honour for a Saudi businessman.

The Sussexes remain a thorn in One’s side. Picture: Andrew Milligan – WPA Pool/Getty Images

This week, the Metropolitan Police very quietly dropped the case, leading critics to have a minor apoplectic fit.

As former cabinet minister Norman Baker told the Daily Beast: “There is a message here; that if you’re an important person, and you have got friends in the right places, then you can get away with things”.

To be clear, the King has never been accused of any impropriety – but dear god, this is all a bad look.

Flagging? In need of a minor breather and restorative cup of oolong? Imagine how His Majesty must be feeling, because we have not even touched the bigger existential questions that Charles has shown zero willingness to engage with.

For example, the painfully obvious fact that they are running out of working members of the royal family.

Of the 11 Windsors left toiling away on behalf of the crown, only four are under the age of 70, with no new faces set to officially join their ranks for about 15 years, if Prince George takes up the royal working mantle about the same time as his father did. (And as it is, William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales only became full-time working members of The Firm in 2017).

With the loss in less than four years of five working members of the royal family (the late Queen, Prince Philip, Harry and Meghan and human doughnut hole Andrew), Charles has been left with only an ageing workforce of HRHs.

Precisely no one was surprised when it was revealed late last year that the remaining number were now taking on about 30 per cent fewer official engagements as pre-pandemic.

If the King has even any skerrick of an idea about what to do on this front, it’s as closely a guarded secret as Camilla’s TikTok account.

Here I’ll throw in the fact that the King and Queen, along with the Prince and Princess of Wales, have yet to visit a single Commonwealth country since they were all elevated. Short of dispatching Andrew out here to “charm” us, they are certainly doing everything they can to really help republicanism flourish. Top notch Palace work.

Charles seems to be a ‘bit of a placeholder, who will keep the crown ticking over until it’s William’s turn’. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Last on our list is something that must be a huge disappointment for a prince who spent decades dreaming up his ideal vision of Britain, a nation where cars run on yoghurt, all yoga is free and the Tate Modern is somehow relocated holus bolus to the Isle of Wight. (Look, aside from the latter, I’m here for it).

The Sunday Times recently quoted “a source who knows Charles and the palace machinery well” as saying that “Charles realises that the main changemaker will be William, who will have more licence to do it [as monarch]”.

According to this source, “Charles has decided to be the ‘steady-as-we-go’ monarch, providing the stability and continuity the country needs now”.

In other words, a bit of a placeholder, who will keep the crown ticking over until it’s William’s turn. For myself, and yoghurt makers everywhere, it’s a disappointing result.

(Personally, I’ve been a longtime fan of Charles’ activist, outspoken pushes and find his watered-down acquiescence to the limits of the crown a bit disheartening).

Brilliant historian Tom Holland, reflecting on the late Queen, complimented her reign by saying that she had “done nothing but very well”.

Sadly, for those of us who had such high hopes for this Carolean age, so far, Charles is doing everything, but very disappointingly.

Still, who of us has ever really nailed a job when our training wheels have barely come off?

Maybe this time next year, the King will be getting solid A pluses – or maybe Andrew will be the new Australian Governor-General.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.