Serious faces, dark costumes, walls steeped in history and an enigmatic protocol. Saturday September 10, Charles III was proclaimed king at the medieval Saint-James palace, in the heart of London, before continuing the audiences with the Prime Minister, Liz Truss, and the leaders of the political parties. The next day was devoted to another marathon day. In place to accompany his mother’s coffin to Balmoral Castle in Edinburgh (Scotland), the new British monarch locked himself in Buckingham Palace to devote himself to Commonwealth affairs. In the 1844 salon, the most solemn room of the huge palace, reserved for distinguished guests, followed one another the secretary general of the organization, Patricia Scotland, originally from Dominica, a Caribbean island emancipated from the Empire. British in 1978. Then the high commissioners – sort of ambassadors within the Commonwealth – of the fourteen countries (besides the United Kingdom out of fifty-six in total) which still recognize the king as their head of state.
The significance of these few hours freed up in a timed schedule has not escaped experts and diplomats: the Commonwealth of Nations, this “family of nations” as Elizabeth II liked to call it, who was the head of it, needs attention. The organization – a direct but many times transformed legacy of the British Empire – wonders about its future. What cement will hold together these States where 2.5 billion human beings live after the disappearance of the queen who had, all her life, worked for their unity? By becoming a republic in November 2021, Barbados reinvigorated anti-monarchist movements, particularly in the Caribbean, but also in Australia and Canada. And there are many behind the scenes who question the usefulness of this structure and its purpose.
For Charles, head in turn of this “family of nations”, the task looks delicate. Not that his function – especially ceremonial – is hereditary (any leader of a member country could, in theory, replace him), but because he was chosen after his mother expressed the “sincere wish” that he succeeds him, at a meeting of the organization, in 2018. The Commonwealth was central in the eyes of Elizabeth II. She devoted a huge amount of time to it, attending almost all the summits, making more than two hundred official trips to member countries – including sixteen to Australia (independent since 1901), six to Jamaica (independent since 1962), three to India (independent since 1947) and twenty-two in Canada, for which she had developed a special affection and whom she nicknamed “my other country”. Proof of this attachment are mountiesmembers of the Canadian Mounted Police, who will have the honor of leading the Queen’s coffin as it leaves Westminster Abbey, after the funeral, Monday September 19
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