When the King marks his first state visit as monarch in Berlin today the setting will not be the the bland residence of the German head of state at Bellevue. Instead, the accommodation will be at the bustling Adlon hotel, with the walkabout and “meeting with citizens” staged at the Brandenburg Gate, symbol of power and defeat and the backdrop to the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
This is Charles’s 40th visit to Germany but one that messages a change of era as his coronation beckons. It has come together as the scar tissue of Brexit gives way to the hopes of the Windsor Framework on Northern Ireland heralding a push for warmer relations in the face of more serious threats to Europe via Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than a flounce by the UK out of the EU.
Charles is also putting his stamp on the job, visiting green energy projects and watching joint military exercises (the heart does go out to Camilla in such circumstances).
There will be meetings with his “cherished cousins” including the Hesse family and other carefully selected relatives, whose kin were not too closely associated with the Nazis to be acceptable in a country which sidelined many aristocratic families after their tolerance of Adolf Hitler.
These are the dues Charles pays to his parents’ generation. But the King is in the midst of a sweeping modernisation, intended to remake the royal family as “leaner,” for which read “smaller, cheaper and less accident-prone”. As the Standard revealed last week, Charles is keen to reduce the number of royals with a financial dependence on the Crown estates and purse (a measure which reflects a strained relationship with his brother Andrew, in the wake of his entanglement with serial abuser Jeffrey Epstein.)
More broadly, an “efficiency drive” is under way and a slashing of the headcount in administrative jobs is afoot. The late Queen’s long reign, age and loyalty to family and staff led to a bloated system of patronage, which Charles has long hankered to end. One of those in the family affected told me in January that Charles “wants fewer of us and more of us to earn a living outside the family finances”.
It is also a hard turn to pull off without causing an angry backlash. The more extended members of the Windsor clan are cast out of dependency, the less reason they have to follow the old codes of putting up and shutting up. As if to prove the point, this week sees the estranged Duke of Sussex back in London to watch the first stages of one of the two legal suits he is fighting against two newspaper groups. A plank of his case is that “the Institution” (Harry now refers to the Palace as if it were Strangeways) did secretive deals with the media behind his back.
Attacks by the Sussexes attract retribution in kind — they been asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage, gifted to them as a residence by the Queen, having fallen firmly out of favour after their “j’accuse” Netflix series and other broadsides. Prince Andrew, indulged by the late Queen, is still arguing over the terms of his lease at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, with no sign of Charles relenting on ending his brother’s days as a working royal and questions over how he can finance remaining there unless heavily subsidised.
Good behaviour is rewarded. Prince Edward, the “quiet royal”, has been given the Duke of Edinburgh’s title and will continue his father’s association with the eponymus awards scheme. It is a pattern that follows the royal houses of Denmark and Sweden in pruning back the royals fold. But there is often blood on the Aubusson carpets in the process. The veteran Danish monarch Margrethe’s decision to strip her grandchildren of their titles caused a public family rift. Swedish royals now only pass titles down through the lineage of the direct heir to the throne.
This thinning of the royal thickets makes sound sense and shores up support for a more cost-efffective and less elaborate monarchy.
It also leaves fewer working royals to open sports centres and offer sympathy after tragedies and makes those in prominent positions reliant on feeding social media to show us that they are around and engaged. Such will be the model of the monarchy under Charles — a leaner “Firm” is the new order, though not necessarily a more harmonious one.
Anne McElvoy is executive editor of Politico
