Insight

What can we expect from King Charles' address to the nation and as a monarch?

King Charles III has become the head of state during a particularly challenging period. Credit: PA

King Charles is very good with words. He's very good at capturing the mood of the nation as we saw after the death of his father.

They will have had drafts of this speech written for many years, and it's one they would have been refining for the last 24 hours. They know how important it is.

There's a schism in our national life now with the passing of the Queen. Very few people have known anyone else other than her as monarch and it's so important that he gets this right. He's got to tread this dual path now between becoming our new King, which we haven't had since 1952 and mourning the loss of his mother, and leading the nation in its own mourning for the loss of the Queen.

That's phenomenally difficult. And this all comes at a time that's particularly difficult for the country given the energy crisis and the appointment of a new Prime Minister.

King Charles' reign is going to be a very different one to the one of his mother. He is taking over as head of state aged 73 when his mother did aged 25 for a start.

King Charles III, left, with the Queen Credit: PA

We also we talk a lot about how much we've known in the past about Kings Charles' views on issues from climate change to architecture to supporting young people.

We didn't know anything about the Queen when she took the throne, we know so much about King Charles.

He himself has acknowledged in the last few years the different role he's got from being the longest serving Prince of Wales we've ever had to a new monarch.

So we will see a difference in him, no more campaigning as it were. Even at the Jubilee recently it was Prince William who did the more political speech about the environment and Charles did the more statesmanlike address.


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We know what he was like as Prince of Wales but we simply don't know what type of King he'll be, but he will acknowledge it is a different role to the one he had before.

In the next year he's got to show he's doing the job differently to the one before so the campaigning Prince of Wales can be no more, that chapter has closed and he will be King.

He has got to show that he has the admiration and respect of the nation and that will be earned, I don't think that will happen naturally and instantly.