Elizabeth II, the longest-lived monarch, has prepared her succession. His heir, who was first in line to the throne of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth states, is his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, now Charles III. In recent years, Elizabeth II had comforted him by delegating more and more missions to him, in particular last May, the Speech from the Throne to Parliament, one of the most important functions of the British monarchy.
Charles III will have spent his life waiting
Prince Charles therefore became King Charles III, the very second Queen Elizabeth II breathed her last. The proclamation was recorded Saturday at 11 a.m., a simple constitutional formality.
At 73, Charles III will therefore have spent his life preparing to reign. He now holds two records: after 70 years, seven months and two days of waiting, he is the heir who will have waited the longest to accede to the throne. And he also goes down in history by becoming the oldest British monarch to be crowned.
Like his mother, who had shaken up tradition, we remember, by keeping her birth name on the day of his accession to the throne, Charles did not opt for one of his three other baptismal names, Artur, Philip or George, as sovereign of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth nations.
A choice that can be described as courageous since his two predecessors, Charles I in 1625 and Charles II in 1651, did not really mark the British monarchy. As announced by Elizabeth II during her platinum jubilee last February, her wife Camilla Parker-Bowles is now queen consort alongside Charles III.