This Saturday, for the first time in 70 years, a new sovereign will be crowned in Westminster Abbey as King of the United Kingdom and 14 other realms of the Commonwealth.
His Majesty King Charles III was the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, assuming the role at age 3 when his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, ascended to the throne in 1952. The British people look back with pride over her historic 70-year reign and a life defined by service to her people, duty to her country and dedication to charity at its heart.
Now, as we prepare to crown Her Late Majesty’s successor, the values and ideals that defined his mother’s life have also painted a portrait of those we can expect from Charles III as King. He has long dedicated himself to supporting the modern, diverse and multifaith United Kingdom that exists today, with a determination to use his position to help build a better world.
Throughout his life, the King has leveraged his unique profile to offer tireless and passionate support in response to global challenges, particularly those that affect young people. He established The Prince’s Trust in 1976 to help provide education, skills training and job opportunities for disadvantaged young people. Over the last 40 years, the Trust is estimated to have returned more than 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) in value to society and has supported more than a million young participants in 23 countries, including right here in Chicago thanks to a new partnership with the nonprofit City Year.
The King’s belief in empowering young people also extends to his other great passion: protecting the environment and tackling the climate crisis. He understands the efforts and the impact of environmental and youth activism well, having delivered his first environmental address on the dangers of oil and plastic pollution at just 21 years old. The King has carried on conservation and climate advocacy ever since, and he has been widely recognized as one of the climate action pioneers who “got the whole thing going,” in the words of President Joe Biden.
“Find practical ways of overcoming differences,” the King told world leaders in 2021, at the COP26 climate summit hosted by the U.K. in Glasgow, “so we can all get down to work together to rescue this precious planet and save the threatened future of our young people.”
These passions will carry into his reign as King, though His Majesty will be more limited in his personal advocacy given the constraints on reigning British monarchs. He now speaks as the embodiment of the U.K.’s constitutional system, a role in which the King must remain largely impartial.
Our governments, however, remain fully committed to tackling global challenges together. The U.S. and U.K. still represent the two closest military allies, the two most integrated economies and the two most influential cultures in the world. The special relationship we enjoy transcends any president, prime minister or even any monarch.
But this Monarch understands what makes the U.S.-U.K. bond truly special. King Charles visited the United States some 20 times as the Prince of Wales, including two visits to Chicago in 1977 and later in 1986.
The enthusiastic greeting that welcomed him during his first visit was described by The New York Times as “fit for a King,” which included being named an honorary citizen of Chicago. He later said in 1986 that the honor gave him a “great interest in what happens in this great city.” However, in keeping with royal traditions of impartiality, he has remained tight-lipped ever since about whether his baseball allegiances lie with the White Sox or the Cubs.
The King has also seen firsthand what a force for good the U.S. and U.K. can be in a changing the world, having praised the bravery of the Ukrainian people in resisting unlawful Russian aggression while our forces work side by side with our allies to support their right to freedom. And he has recognized the pain of economic disruption caused by war and the COVID-19 pandemic as both countries have worked together to stabilize supply chains and spur reinvestment to support all our workers, including more than 1 million Brits and 1 million Americans who work for each other’s companies every day.
The United States and the United Kingdom are “the closest of allies,” U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said early in his administration. “In turbulent times, the U.K.’s global alliances are our greatest source of strength and security.”
That has been the case for more than a century now, stretching across the tenures of more than a dozen U.S. presidents and U.K. prime ministers and the reigns of a half-dozen British monarchs. As we prepare to welcome His Majesty King Charles III to that long list, we know it will continue to be the case for many years yet to come.
So if Chicago would forgive me one post-1776 transgression in the pages of an American newspaper, let me close with this: God Save The King!
Alan Gogbashian is His Majesty’s Consul General to Chicago.
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