[imagesource:  Jane Barlow – WPA Pool / Getty Images]

They say the pen is mightier than the sword.

In King Charles’ case, he’s already been on the losing side of an exchange with a pen twice since his ascendancy to the throne.

I don’t know how much of the media coverage in the wake of his mother’s death he’s been able to read. Soon, though, the new monarch will have to face up to the reality that he is nowhere near as popular as Queen Elizabeth II.

The criticism of Charles and the entire royal institution has come from many angles and The New York Times joined the fray with a damning piece published yesterday.

Headlined ‘King Charles Inherits Untold Riches, and Passes Off His Own Empire’, it criticises the new king for being out of touch with a public where many are reliant on food banks and facing a very real cost of living crisis.

It hasn’t helped that around 100 members of staff at the King’s former household have received written notice of redundancies. That news was received during the service of thanksgiving for the late Queen at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh.

Staff, who had been working around the clock to ensure things ran smoothly, were said to have been “visibly shaken”.

The Duchy of Cornwall, as Charles’ estate is known, has grown exponentially over the years. At present, the conglomerate’s holdings are valued at roughly $1,4 billion, which is significantly more than the $949 million in the late queen’s private portfolio.

Last year, Charles drew an official royal salary of $1,1 million. He made $28 million in profit from the Duchy of Cornwall estate.

Altogether, the royal family has an estimated $28 billion fortune and a general population struggling to stay afloat:

The growth in the royal family’s coffers and King Charles’s personal wealth over the past decade came at a time when Britain faced deep austerity budget cuts. Poverty levels soared, and the use of food banks almost doubled.

His lifestyle of palaces and polo has long fueled accusations that he is out of touch with ordinary people. And he has at times been the unwitting symbol of that disconnect — such as when his limo was mobbed by students protesting rising tuition in 2010 [above] or when he perched atop a golden throne in his royal finery this year to pledge help for struggling families.

The average British citizen can expect to pay in the region of 40% inheritance tax. King Charles won’t pay a cent, and neither will William when he eventually inherits what is coming to him.

The Duchy of Cornwall also does not pay corporate taxes like most businesses in Britain are obliged to.

There was also the 2017 Paradise Papers scandal which showed that Charles had moved millions offshore through his estate, and the shopping bags stuffed with cash he allegedly took from former Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani.

Even though that money was for his charity, it still raised the ire of many in a classic ‘one rule for us, one rule for them’ sort of way.

The discontent has heightened in recent days after protesters were removed and detained for questioning his ascent to the throne.

One of the protesters, barrister Paul Powlesland, appeared on television yesterday to elaborate:

“What I’ve seen over the last week… a really obvious attempt to use the memory and respect for the Queen to very quickly bolster Prince Charles credibility as the new monarch, and I think thats actually quite cynical in some ways”@paulpowlesland on #GMB this morning. pic.twitter.com/JnfFJu26Zn

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) September 13, 2022

The late Princess Diana was labelled the ‘Queen of Hearts’. Charles will never reach those levels of adoration, especially with British republicans – those who want to abolish the monarchy – sensing an opportunity to pounce.

Here’s The Washington Post:

“All the polling shows the majority of English people still want to retain the monarchy,” said Brian Feeney, a political commentator in Northern Ireland, where Charles and his second wife, Camilla, breezed through on Tuesday.

“To what extent that loyalty is to the queen, and whether it will be maintained by Charles, is the question.”

In 2012, a poll showed that close to 75% of Britons were in favour of “continuing the monarchy”.

However, that had dropped to a figure in the low 60s earlier this year and Charles’ popularity sat at just 54% in the same poll.

In a YouGov survey carried out this week, 63% of Britons said Charles would be a “good king”. That’s a huge uptick from 32% in May.

Yet 1 in 3 — or 35 percent — also say they’d like to see him retire before his death to make way for his more popular son William, compared with 25 percent who had said his mother should step down early. Fewer than half say he will do a “good job at being a unifying figure” for all parts of Britain.

When the dust settles on the Queen’s various memorials, and figures around the costs thereof start being made public, Charles may face a backlash. That’s especially true as the UK heads into winter and households struggle to pay their heating bills.

Then again, Queen Elizabeth II once tried to use the state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace and that was soon forgotten.

[sources:nytimes&washpost]