King Charles III

He will be a very different monarch to his mother. He should use that to his and the nation's advantage, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins.

Charles is not young and is not the Queen. The British monarchy is a curiosity of history. Where the new monarch could unquestionably make a mark is in reforming the image of monarchy. There may need to be an heir to the throne, but an extended family need not enjoy – or more often endure – a publicity and lifestyle unknown to most royal families elsewhere in Europe. This may matter only in the margins of the constitution, in the dealings that a king has of constitutional necessity with his prime minister and with the machinery of parliament. He may be no more than conversing with the most powerful person in the land, but that in itself is a position of influence. The danger is the near certainty of leakage. The monarch holds a weekly audience with the prime minister in conditions of absolute confidentiality. In the event, he was well enough to recommend Lord Home as his successor, but this did not save the Queen from seeming to approve a secretive and oligarchic transfer of power. A different crisis arose when Boris Johnson in 2019 tried to involve the monarch in an [illegal proroguing of parliament](https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/sep/24/boris-johnsons-suspension-of-parliament-unlawful-supreme-court-rules-prorogue), to be overturned not by the monarch but by the supreme court. He knows that the nation has regarded the Queen as the apotheosis of constitutional monarchy. His entire life has been spent in the shadow of her performance, and he has been tutored at every turn in the role of the occupant of the throne.