Will Prince Charles force the ‘regency’ issue soon after the Platinum Jubbly?

This is not a joke cover, this was the actual cover of the Sun, the British tabloid. I suppose that the headlines and stories write themselves – it absolutely feels like yesterday was some kind of big moment, perhaps a watershed moment, for the monarchy. On Tuesday, Queen Elizabeth skipped the State Opening of Parliament and the Prince of Wales read her speech in her place. There were photos of Charles looking longingly at the Crown. And now we’re getting story after story about A) just how ill the Queen might be and B) the potential for a Charles Regency. Some highlights from this Royalist story in The Daily Beast:

The Queen probably won’t go to the Jubbly: Even Buckingham Palace is now conceding in briefings that the queen might not manage to make a live appearance at the Platinum Jubilee and that her presence (or otherwise) will just be a matter of how she feels on the day. She is scheduled to attend St Paul’s Cathedral’s service of Thanksgiving for her reign, which Harry and Meghan will likely attend. But the idea of her sitting through a lengthy church service in her own honor feels like a fantasy after Tuesday’s no-show.

London Bridge will fall soon: At the palace, there is an increasing sense of readiness for the moment when London Bridge finally falls (“London Bridge is down” is the code phrase that will be used by government and palace officials to signify that the queen has died when the dread day comes).

One new rumor: The most convincing rumors are the ones that suggest she has problems with her heart, and say that the reason she had to go into hospital for tests last year was because she had to have an MRI. These whole body scans are one of the few procedures that cannot be done in a home hospital of the type that has been established in Buckingham Palace for many years, and now rumored to exist in Windsor Castle, where the queen now lives. But of course an MRI can be used to diagnose a whole range of health problems, including back issues, which would fit neatly with the palace’s narrative that there is nothing more worrying ailing the queen than a little bother getting around from time to time.

One biographer genuinely believes we’re being told the truth about the Queen: Robert Hardman, author of Queen of Our Times, a definitive biography of Elizabeth produced with the help of Buckingham Palace, told The Daily Beast: “I think the issue genuinely is mobility, not something more medically troubling. But the point is that her absence at the State Opening of Parliament is not unprecedented, but the resolution to her absence—the use of the Regency Act—is. But this hasn’t been done on behalf of the sovereign, like the last time we had a regency, in 1811. This was the Sovereign laying down the rules. It’s another slow and gradual move in a transition that has seen Charles taking on more and more, which actually began nine years ago when he traveled to Sri Lanka to open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting there.”

The Queen doesn’t have to die on the throne: Clive Irving, the founding editor of The Sunday Times’ Insight investigative journalism team, and author of The Last Queen, told The Daily Beast: “It’s critical to grasp a point that gets easily overlooked because there is so little precedent to guide it: She does not have to die in the saddle, like Victoria, after a rapid decline. There is nothing in the protocols to say that. So the sane thing would be to have her abdicate. The use of the Regency Act is the first step towards abdication, which, I suspect, will happen once the Jubilee is over.”

Wheelchair use: The Daily Beast has previously revealed the the queen is using a wheelchair at home, something the palace has not been willing to confirm, and there is a sense that the queen does not want to become a “wheelchair monarch.” Some might say that only increases the pressure on her to step down.

There’s a real buzz about regency: Duncan Larcombe, former royal editor at The Sun, told The Daily Beast: “My understanding is that there is nothing catastrophically wrong, she just is 96, and I suspect, for all the palace’s denials, that Charles will actually be officially installed in some kind of regency capacity within a year. Tuesday changed everything. The queen really has no option if she is continually unable to perform her role as head of state. It’s one thing not being able to go to an engagement in Glasgow for a climate summit, but if she is now apparently incapable of doing standard, core jobs as head of state, then I think they will have to remove her, by consent of course.”

More from Larcombe: Larcombe said the palace was using the word “mobility” to avoid using the word “infirmity” which, you might trigger the Regency Act. “But in the end, if the CEO can’t ever go into the office, they can’t do any of the actual in-person work,” he told The Daily Beast. “In her case that’s the investitures, the trooping of the color, the garden parties and opening Parliament. There is no coming back from today and they all know it. The use of the Regency Act was very deliberate. I am sure at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House they are all very happy with how it went today. He didn’t fluff his lines, he was well received. It is all going to make the Jubilee hugely poignant, as I think by then it will have dawned on us all that this will be the last time we will ever see her. The countdown has begun.”

[From The Daily Beast]

This is also why Robert Lacey ran to People Magazine to claim that the Queen’s mental facilities are fine, it’s just her body falling apart. I have my doubts about that. That being said, I have my doubts that the Queen is dealing with some kind of major cardiovascular issue too – I totally believe the Palace would lie about her health, but I just feel like they couldn’t hide something that major. Health-wise, it must be a combination of things – grief, a bad back, bad mobility issues, her strength has left her, she likely had a few major falls, and I’m sure she’s nowhere near as sharp as she was even one year ago. Does all of that mean a Charles Regency? Eh. I do suspect that these conversations will shift and take on more urgency after the Jubbly (if she makes it).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.