So, what should King Charles III do about it? ’As little as possible,’ says Robert Lacey, talking to David Parsley of iNews.
‘Liz Truss called King Charles to resign just half an hour before her Downing Street statement’.
King Charles was at Buckingham Palace on Thursday preparing to welcome a president, a high commissioner, and an ambassador when he got the lunchtime call from Liz Truss.
At just before 1pm, the Prime Minister informed the King that she was resigning after just 44 days in office.
The King then got on with his work, meeting with Togo’s President, Faure Gnassingbe, Pakistan’s High Commissioner, Moazzam Khan, and Ukrainian Ambassador to London, Vadym Prystaiko.
On Wednesday evening, Ms. Truss had travelled to Buckingham Palace for her final audience with the King, while Tories were scuffling in the voting lobby of the House of Commons. One expert believes that the King would have been aware of the PM’s precarious position.
“The King will obviously be concerned for the sake of the country,” said royal historian Robert Lacey, who is also the historical consultant on Netflix series The Crown.
“We all saw the King meet the Prime Minister and heard him say ‘Dear, oh dear’,” added Mr. Lacey. “So, we can only imagine what he is thinking now.”
Mr. Lacey believes that now Ms Truss has resigned, the King will continue with tradition and remain completely neutral in the latest Conservative Party leadership election over the next seven days.
Mr. Lacey said: “I expect His Majesty will now take a step back, wait for the process to complete and greet the victorious candidate at Buckingham Palace and invite him or her to form a government in the normal way.
This is especially a moment when the King – when any constitutional monarch – stands back and allows the politicians to get on with it. This is the last moment that the King would dream of intervening.”
The office of British prime minister is not established by any statute or constitutional document, but exists only by long-established convention, whereby the reigning monarch appoints as prime minister the person most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons.
This individual is typically the leader of the political party or coalition of parties that holds the largest number of seats in that chamber.
Before the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the sovereign often wielded the powers of the Crown in a partisan fashion. Parliament has since gradually forced monarchs to assume a neutral political position.
Although many of the sovereign’s prerogative powers are still legally intact, constitutional conventions have removed the monarch from day-to-day governance, with ministers exercising the royal prerogatives, leaving the monarch in practice with three constitutional rights: to be kept informed, to advise and to warn . . .
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