Tag: king

Anointing screen to be used in King Charles coronation revealed

[ad_1]
The king and the queen consort will be anointed behind a specially created screen of fine embroidery, held by poles hewn from an ancient windblown Windsor oak and mounted with eagles cast in bronze and gilded in gold leaf, Buckingham Palace has announced.
The anointing screen has been blessed at a special service at the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, and will be used at what historically has been viewed as the most sacred moment of the coronation.
The anointing is traditionally regarded as a moment between the sovereign and God, and the screen is to be used to give sanctity to this moment. Traditionally, the moment is not photographed or televised.
At Elizabeth II’s coronation, an opulent canopy of rich gold fabric was held aloft over the monarch’s head.
Charles’s screen will allow greater privacy as the archbishop of Canterbury pours the chrism, or holy oil, which has been specially blessed in Jerusalem, from a golden ampulla into the 12th-century coronation spoon. The archbishop will then anoint the king by making a cross on the hands, breast and head, and perform the same on Camilla.
The tradition of anointing dates back to the Old Testament, which describes the anointing of Solomon by Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet, and was one of the medieval holy sacraments emphasising the spiritual status of the sovereign.
Commonwealth countries’ names stitched on to the screen. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA
The anointing screen, including its four oak wooden poles, is 2.6 metres tall and 2.2 metres wide. The wooden framework, designed and created by Nick Gutfreund of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, is made from a windblown tree from the Windsor estate originally planted in 1765. The poles have been limed and waxed, and at the top of each are mounted two eagles cast in bronze and gilded in gold leaf.
Detail of an eagle on top a pole of the screen. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA
The form of an eagle has longstanding associations with coronations. Eagles have appeared on previous coronation canopies, including that used by Elizabeth II in 1953. The ampulla used for anointing is eagle-shaped.

Embroidered by the Royal School of Needlework and by Digitek Embroidery, and donated by the City of London Corporation and participating livery companies, the screen is three-sided, with the open side to face the high altar in Westminster Abbey.
Designed by the iconographer Aidan Hart, the central design takes the form of a tree, which includes the names of the 56 Commonwealth nations, with the king’s cypher at the base, and is inspired by the stained-glass sanctuary window in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, designed for the late queen’s golden jubilee.
Two sides feature a simple cross in maroon gold, blue and red, inspired by the colours and patterning of the Cosmati pavement at Westminster Abbey where the anointing will take place. The cloth is made of wool from Australia and New Zealand, woven and finished in UK mills.
Hart said: “The inspiration of the Chapel Royal stained-glass window was personally requested by his majesty the king. Each and every element of the design has been specifically chosen to symbolise aspects of this historic coronation and the Commonwealth, from the birds that symbolise the joy and interaction among members of a community living in harmony, to the rejoicing angels and the dove that represents the Holy Spirit.”
Embroiders at work on part of the screen at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace in March. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA
The screen will be held by service personnel from regiments of the Household Division, replacing the knights that usually held the canopy. In bygone days, being selected to bear the canopy was seen as a sign of being in royal favour.
At Charles II’s coronation in 1661, there was an unseemly squabble between the barons of the Cinque Ports, charged with holding the silk canopy above the king’s head, and the king’s footmen. One of the job’s perks, according to the barons, was that they got to chop up the banner and each keep a piece. But they were challenged by the footmen, who also wanted the canopy, and a fight broke out, which the barons won.
On Friday, the Stone of Destiny, the ancient symbol of Scotland’s monarchy, left Edinburgh Castle for the first time since its return to Scotland in 1996 to embark on its journey to Westminster Abbey.
The 125kg stone was piped out during a ceremonial send-off, and will be placed beneath the coronation chair, which was specially built in the 14th century with the stone underneath. Getting it back in will be a challenge.
“It’s extremely tight. In fact it will not go in straight. It’s got bare millimetres to spare,” said Colin Muir, a senior stone conservator at Historic Environment Scotland, who has the task of helping to ensure it is installed.
Officials stand by the Stone of Destiny at Edinburgh Castle on Friday. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/AFP/Getty Images
Also known as the Stone of Scone, it was used for centuries in the coronations of monarchs and the inauguration of Scottish kings, but in 1296 after his invasion into Scotland during the wars of independence, England’s King Edward I removed the stone from Scotland. In about 1300 he had a chair built to hold the stone and installed it at Westminster Abbey.
For 700 years the stone was housed in the abbey, although in 1950 it was taken in a daring raid by four Scottish students, only to be found eventually at Arbroath Abbey.
It was officially returned to Scotland in 1996 and usually sits next to the crown jewels of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle’s Crown Room.
[ad_2]
#Anointing #screen #King #Charles #coronation #revealed
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 29, 2023
‘I’ll be reading a book’: Nottingham public indifferent to King Charles coronation

[ad_1]
Chris Booth spent much of Tuesday morning supervising the installation of a crown 4.2 metres wide on the stone columns at the front of Nottingham’s Council House.
The crown had been brought out of a council depot (where it is stored alongside a vast goose that appears annually for the Nottingham goose fair), repainted and had had its plastic pearls retrofitted with LED bulbs so they can be lit up at night.
For a while, the team of six men using scaffolding and a cherrypicker lift struggled to reattach the cross and orb to the top of the crown, but by 2pm it was in place and firmly secured with six ratchet straps. “It’s a very nervous time. A lot of stuff can go wrong,” said Booth, an operations manager with John E Wright & Co, a signage company.
In the Old Market Square in front of the building, a few people took out their phones to take pictures but most people walked by, indifferent to the council’s coronation preparations.
Polling suggests the Midlands is the area of Britain where people are least moved by the coronation. When asked in a recent YouGov survey “how much do you care about the forthcoming coronation of King Charles”, 41% of people in the Midlands said they cared “not very much”. In Scotland, 45% of those polled said they cared “not at all”, but attitudes in the Midlands revealed widespread ambivalence.
The city’s muted excitement levels are reflected in the number of applications for street closures so that coronation parties can be held. Nottingham city council has received applications for 10 street parties, about half the number of requests made before the queen’s jubilee last year.
Balloon seller Billy Davy in Nottingham city centre. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Billy Davy, who has been selling novelty balloons all over the country on and off for 30 years, sold about 200 during last year’s jubilee celebrations but does not expect to shift so many next week. “I’m not sure this one will be as good – I don’t think it’s as big an event,” he said.
Eddie Hall, busking with his guitar in the square as the crown was installed, said he had little interest in the coronation. “I might have a little glimpse of it but I’m not mad on them,” he said. “I don’t think people should have privilege from their birth – it’s what you do, not your birth, that should matter. I wouldn’t protest about it, but I don’t agree with it, it’s outdated.”

Busker Eddie Hall: ‘I don’t think people should have privilege from their birth.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Over the decades, the royal family have visited Nottingham dozens of times. The queen came here on at least 10 occasions. Princess Anne reopened the Theatre Royal after a refurbishment in 1978. On a rainy day in 1985, Charles visited with Diana, waved from the Council House balcony – just below where the fibreglass crown is now hanging – and had a seafood buffet lunch inside. He received a fire officer helmet from the Nottinghamshire fire brigade before returning to London in a plane he flew himself.
In 2009, Charles was in Nottingham again to unveil a plaque at the headquarters of Boots the chemist “to commemorate his visit during our 160th anniversary year”. These trips do not seem to have left an indelible impression, and most people struggle to say what precisely the royal family has done that has had a positive impact on the city.
Joanne Roe, who works for HMRC in customer insights, was walking through the flattened site of the former Broadmarsh shopping centre, a gloomy area of the city where many department stores have closed and a number of homeless people had gathered, some with sleeping bags slung over their shoulders. Black-and-white images of Nottingham from the queen’s 1953 coronation tour show a more vibrant, less desolate city centre. Roe was not sure that the coronation celebrations would act as much of a boost to the local economy. “Will the coronation bring money into the country? If it does, that money won’t come to Nottingham,” she said.
Joanne Roe: ‘I might have it on in the background.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
She was uncertain about when the coronation was due to take place. “Is it on Saturday? If I’m at home, I might have it on in the background. I’m slightly monarchist, but not massively. I don’t have any negative feelings towards them. They are not a meaningful part of my life,” she said.
The only royal visit that seems to have stuck in people’s minds was the trip made by Prince Harry and Meghan in 2017, their first official appearance after announcing their engagement. Sam Harrison, a visitor services supervisor at Nottingham Contemporary gallery, was working that morning. “People in the streets outside were electrified, craning their necks. It’s not surprising – they were superstars on a global level,” he said.
He was unsure whether the coronation would provoke similar levels of excitement. “My mum really wants to watch it. If I’m off work, I’ll ask her to come over and watch it with me. I am a republican, in principle, but I wouldn’t say the monarchy is a burning issue for me.”
Sam Harrison: ‘I wouldn’t say the monarchy is a burning issue for me.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Gauging opinions on the monarchy, as pollsters know, requires the question to be carefully worded. When asked if she supported the monarchy, Samiha Zahin, 20, a microbiology student at Leicester University, said yes. “I think it’s cool to have princes and princesses, but I wish William was going to be king, he’s younger,” she said.
Asked if the cost of the coronation was excessive and if the royal family represented value for money, she, like most people questioned, became more negative in her responses. “£100m? They should just spend £1,000 and have a nice small family gathering, and say: OK, now you are king,” she said.
Samiha Zahin, centre right, in front of the Council House. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
The council has organised a temporary reopening of Nottingham Castle over the coronation weekend and is selling 1,500 tickets at £1 each so that people can watch the event on a big screen. William Catherall, 78, a retired engineer, said he had no desire to attend.
“I watched the last coronation, I was about five, at a friend’s house. About 20 people, mainly ladies, were all jammed into this front room in front of a tiny television,” he said. “I won’t be watching this time. I was brought up to respect the royal family, but I have lost that respect – all the scandals, particularly Andrew. I’ll be reading a book in the garden, I won’t be glued to the television.”
At a politics class at Bilborough sixth-form college, on the western fringes of the city, student attitudes to the monarchy initially echoed this ambivalence. Of the 20 students there at the start of the class, no one wanted to describe themselves as a monarchist but only two identified themselves as firm republicans. Ten raised their hands to the suggestion that they felt neutral (the remaining seven did not want to commit even to indifference).
Student Axl Nicholls: ‘We’re paying a lot of money for a coronation.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
But as the conversation progressed (and a few more firmly anti-monarchy pupils turned up late), more students expressed firm opposition to the crown, in line with polling showing that support for the monarchy is lowest among 18- to 24-year-olds.
Axl Nicholls was troubled by the royal family’s ties to a history of colonising other countries, thinly hidden beneath the veneer of the Commonwealth. “I also think with the state of the economy, the fact that people are using food banks and workers are feeling they have to go on strike, we’re paying a lot of money for a coronation. In the last year we’ve had a jubilee celebration, a funeral and now a coronation. There’s a lot of bad media around the family, particularly Prince Andrew. I just feel like it’s not necessary – what’s the point of it?”
Oliver Brown: ‘He’s quite old to be becoming king now.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Another student, Oliver Brown, said: “I hate to say it, but the elephant in the room is that he’s quite old to be becoming king now. I can’t say he represents me; I struggle with his age.”
Three-quarters of the A-level students said they would not be watching the coronation, and not all of the four people who said they were going to coronation parties were motivated by patriotism. One student said she would be helping at a Salvation Army street party, which was “more of a celebration of community than the monarchy”.
Rachel Vernon was looking forward to attending a “Fuck the King” anti-monarchy party on the Friday before the coronation. “Some people are doing things with British flags, Vivienne Westwood-style; I’m going to go as the Tiger King, Joe Exotic,” she said.
[ad_2]
#Ill #reading #book #Nottingham #public #indifferent #King #Charles #coronation
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
A cake for a king, lightning strikes and a sculpture show: Friday’s best photos

[ad_1]
The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world
Continue reading…

[ad_2]
#cake #king #lightning #strikes #sculpture #show #Fridays #photos
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
Kenneth Branagh to direct and star in King Lear in London and New York

[ad_1]
Kenneth Branagh is to star as King Lear in a production that he will also direct in London and New York.
The play will run for 50 performances at Wyndham’s theatre in the West End from October and then transfer to the Shed’s Griffin theatre in the US in autumn 2024.
It is produced by the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company (KBTC) which presented a season of seven plays at the Garrick theatre in London from 2015-16 including John Osborne’s The Entertainer with Branagh in the lead role. In 2017, Branagh directed Tom Hiddleston as Hamlet in a limited-run production to raise funds for Rada. In 2021, KTBC’s planned production of The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan, starring and directed by Branagh, was cancelled due to Covid-related absences during rehearsals.
Branagh, who played Edgar opposite Richard Briers’ Lear in a 1990 touring production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, said in a 2019 interview that King Lear has a “sense of contained outrage by previously voiceless people” that remains pertinent in the modern political climate. The play, he added, explores a “tremendous lack of forgiveness … that is perhaps also something that our world is experiencing – a savage and judgmental and instant and violent division”.
It is the second star-powered, transatlantic Shakespearean production announced this week. Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma will perform in a new version of Macbeth, staged by director Simon Godwin in warehouses in Liverpool, Edinburgh, London and Washington DC.
The full cast for King Lear, presented by Fiery Angel and the Shed, is yet to be announced. Tickets for the London run – which previews from 21 October and has an official opening night on 31 October – will go on sale on 5 June.
[ad_2]
#Kenneth #Branagh #direct #star #King #Lear #London #York
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
As a billionaire king is crowned, he urges us to do some charity work. Welcome to Britain | Frances Ryan

[ad_1]
Don’t have plans for the coronation bank holiday? Fear not. The king invites you to join the Big Help Out, a national day of volunteering designed to mark the new reign. Or as the Telegraph breathlessly describes it, a “tribute to Charles’s many decades of public service”.
The Big Help Out will, according to the official website, “give everyone an opportunity to join in”. What acts of charity would Buckingham Palace like us to join in with, exactly? Squeezing out toothpaste for an elderly neighbour, perhaps. Or staffing a local art centre (do remember not to take the art home with you).
With the cost of living crisis leading to growing hardship across the country, especially in the poorest communities, there is said to be a national shortage of volunteers to meet the demand for them. Organisers were hoping the Big Help Out would inspire a new wave of volunteering, but some in the charity fear the event will be “damp squib”, due to lack of participants.
Is one really shocked? A man whose car collection alone is estimated to be worth more than £6m asking the rest of us to celebrate his kingship by helping out at the local food bank feels, shall we say, a little “let them eat quiche”.
Volunteering can be hugely rewarding, and many organisations are in desperate need of more help, but there may be better ways to promote the cause than an event that is literally about deference to hereditary privilege. People who are already working every hour just to put food on the table hardly need a billionaire to ask them to use their day off to do more.
As commentary on this country’s relationship with class goes, it could only be more crass if one of the volunteering jobs on offer was for families to scrub King Charles’s golden carriage with their electricity bills.
Charity, monarchy fans insist, is a longstanding personal interest of the royal family. In the runup to the coronation, the Princess of Wales made a “previously unannounced” visit to Windsor’s baby bank for deprived newborns (photographers were there entirely coincidentally, you understand). More than 850 community and charity representatives have been invited to the coronation to show the king’s deep respect for their work and 400 young volunteers will also watch from St Margaret’s church, Westminster Abbey.
Charles, complete with Aston Martin DB6 Volante, visits the car maker’s new factory in St Athan, Wales, on 21 February 2020. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images
No news as yet as to whether any representatives from HMRC have been invited. Royals always seem to prefer ad hoc charity work to taxation, much like the boss of Amazon or the Victorians. The £1bn Duchy of Cornwall estate – previously inherited by Charles and recently passed on to Prince William – is not liable for either corporation tax or capital gains tax.

But don’t worry, according to the duchy’s website, under Charles’s leadership, the estate’s annual multimillion-pound revenue was used to fund his “public, private and charitable activities”. Charles notably didn’t pay a single penny of inheritance tax on the fortune the late Queen left him last year (the jewellery alone was estimated to be worth at least £533m), though he has “volunteered” to pay income tax, as he also did on the duchy estate. “Volunteering” to pay tax always feels a little like a wanted criminal “volunteering” to hand himself over to the authorities. It doesn’t seem to be something you typically get a choice in.
For the little people, tax isn’t a hobby – it funds the key services we all rely on. Indeed, the “crisis in volunteering” that the Big Help Out hopes to fill has largely been created by years of government cuts, all while the richest have hoarded and increased their wealth. Over the last decade, local councils have faced £15bn in real-terms cuts with neighbourhood services such as parks, libraries and children’s centres “hollowed out” since 2010.
There is apparently no money for Sure Start centres but you’ll be relieved to hear ministers have found £8m to offer every public body a free portrait of King Charles. Oliver Dowden, the new deputy prime minister and patriot in chief, says the portraits would bring the nation together. So would working hospitals.
The coronation itself is estimated to be costing the public purse anywhere from £50m to £100m. Charles’s personal fortune is thought to be almost £2bn, but as anyone who has ever gotten a £60 ticket to St Pancras on expenses knows, a 1.3-mile coronation precession can very much be put down as a “work trip”.
In the coming days, there will be endless commentators ready to declare that the coronation makes them “proud to be British”, while anyone who criticises any aspect of it will be accused of “hating their country”. I have never quite understood the mindset that feels more pride in producing Prince Andrew than the welfare state. At the very least, we should surely be allowed to ask some questions. Can a modern nation call itself democratic if it retains an unelected head of state? Is a growing reliance on charity a point of celebration or shame? Does sanitising the existence of royalty normalise wider inequality? As a diamond-encrusted crown is placed on the king’s head, your packed local homeless shelter is desperate for help. Don’t you feel proud to be British?

[ad_2]
#billionaire #king #crowned #urges #charity #work #Britain #Frances #Ryan
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
Cinemas will show King Charles’s coronation. Is this their crowning glory, or a servile sop?

[ad_1]
For some, the cinema will be a sanctuary from the onslaught of the coronation. It will be a dark, warm, safe space to visit for anyone who wants to seal themselves away from the flag-waving inanity of the rest of the country next Saturday lunchtime. It sounds incredibly inviting. I haven’t ruled out doing it myself.
That said, anyone who plans to use their local cinema as a coronation escape hatch might want to check ahead a little bit first. If, for example, their plan was to visit the Showcase Cinema de Lux in the Bluewater shopping centre, then I am afraid they are doomed to be thwarted. This is because, according to a press release, the cinema will be showing the coronation free of charge.
More than that, in fact. The cinema has chosen to rename its bar area The King’s Gallery. The drinks it serves have been renamed things like Corgi Cosmo and Monarch Mojito. A new portrait of King Charles will be hung there, painted by the cinema’s vice president of global marketing. Showcase even hired a King Charles lookalike to sort of wander around for a photoshoot. “King Charles seemed extremely impressed with the refurbishment”, said the press release of a man they hired specifically to look extremely impressed with the refurbishment.
Now, the big question is whether this is a good idea or not. Should cinemas be showing the coronation? I have to admit, I’m a little on the fence about it. My first instinct was that it instantly devalues the concept of cinema. To go and see a film is to witness a vast, expensive vision of imagination that has been specifically designed to be seen in that precise environment. The image will have been calibrated for maximum spectacle. The sound will burst forth overwhelmingly. Cinemas are engineered to be full-body – sometimes even out-of-body – experiences.
It isn’t something you necessarily equate with live BBC television footage of a carriage slowly trundling past a branch of Pret. Indeed, had the film pioneers of a century ago realised that one day their defining contribution to global culture would be used to show Huw Edwards listlessly filling for time while thousands of elderly dignitaries edge their way into Westminster Abbey, there’s a good chance they might not have bothered with it.
That said, this is far too precious an attitude to take. Cinemas, as we all know, are in trouble. People are only too happy to avoid seeing new releases theatrically now, because they know that they’ll just turn up for free on Disney+ in a few weeks. When a film does even reasonably well these days, it’s an anomaly. The death of the theatrical experience is real, and cinemas need to change or die.
Viewed through this lens, showing the coronation seems like a no-brainer. People will turn up. Seats will be filled. They might cry, like you did during Titanic. They might laugh, like they did during Home Alone. They might drunkenly vomit, like one guy did at the end of The Dark Knight when I went to see it 15 years ago. The actual content of the coronation might be dull and staid, but the feeling it will engender inside the cinema has the potential to be absolutely joyous.
And who knows, simply being in a cinema might remind the coronation-watchers why they used to love cinemas. They might become flooded with nostalgia. They might clutch each other’s hands over the armrests like they did when they were teenagers. They might see a poster for a new release, and decide to take a chance on it, and fall in love and start going to the cinema regularly again. There is a chance – a small one, but a chance – that putting the coronation on in cinemas will save cinema as we know it.

So, on reflection, I think I am all for this turn of events. The coronation should be shown in cinemas. In fact it should only be shown in cinemas, because that way all the people who actually like that rubbish will all be in one place and I’ll be able to go about my day unimpeded.
[ad_2]
#Cinemas #show #King #Charless #coronation #crowning #glory #servile #sop
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 27, 2023
Direct ancestors of King Charles owned slave plantations, documents reveal

[ad_1]
Direct ancestors of King Charles III and the royal family bought and exploited enslaved people on tobacco plantations in Virginia, according to new research shared with the Guardian.
A document discovered in archives reveals that a direct ancestor of the king was involved in buying at least 200 enslaved people from the Royal African Company (RAC) in 1686.
Frances Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne Photograph: Creative Commons
The document instructs a ship’s captain to deliver the enslaved Africans to Edward Porteus, a tobacco plantation owner in Virginia, and two other men. Porteus’s son, Robert, inherited his father’s estate before moving his family to England, in 1720. Later a direct descendant, Frances Smith, married the aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon. Their granddaughter was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late queen mother.
The documents establishing these royal roots were found by the researcher Desirée Baptiste, while investigating links between the Church of England and enslavers in Virginia, for a play she has written.
The revelation follows the Guardian’s publication of a document earlier this month that linked the slave trader Edward Colston to the British monarchy. The latest discovery, which Baptiste made deep in the RAC archives, reveals a direct line up the Windsor family tree to the trafficking of enslaved Africans.
The RAC, which traded almost 180,000 enslaved people, was granted royal charters by successive English kings. In the newly published document, senior RAC officials, describing themselves as “your loving friends”, instructed the captain of a ship to deliver “negroes” to Edward Porteus.
Graphic

“You are with your first opportunity of wind and weather that God shall send after receipt hereof to sett sail out of the River of Thames on the Shipp of Speedwell and make the best of your way to James Island on the River of Gambia,” the instruction stated. It added: “ … our said Agent to put aboard the Shipp Two Hundred Negroes and as many more as he shall get ready and the ship can conveniently carry … and then proceed … to Potomac River in Maryland, and deliver them to Mr Edward Porteus, Mr Christopher Robinson and Mr Richard Gardiner.”
The will of Edward Porteus, another document examined by Baptiste, referred to “negroes”, whom he left to his son Robert. Edward Porteus also left to his wife, Margaret, “my negroe girl Cumbo”.
Virginia is a landmark state in the history of US slavery, because of an infamous landing of enslaved African people at Jamestown in 1619. Laws developed in the state to maintain slavery and crush uprisings included whipping, and dismembering people by cutting off a foot. A study of these laws states that: “A slave giving false evidence would … receive his 39 lashes and then have his ears nailed to the pillory for half an hour, after which they would be cut off.”
An uprising by enslaved people in 1663 in Gloucester County, where Porteus was based, was mercilessly put down, according to an account by the Colonial Willamsburg Foundation: “Several bloody heads dangled from local chimney tops as a gruesome warning to others.”
Earlier this month, in response to the Guardian’s reporting, Charles signalled for the first time his support for research into the links between the British monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said at the time that Charles took “profoundly seriously” the issue of slavery, which he has described as an “appalling atrocity”. Support for the research was part of Charles’s process of deepening his understanding of “slavery’s enduring impact”, the spokesperson said, which had “continued with vigour and determination” since his accession.
Race equality and reparations campaigners told the Guardian that while they mostly welcomed the support for research, they believed Charles must go further, and acknowledge the established history now.
A palace spokesperson said in response to questions about the Windsor family’s heritage in Virginia that they were unable to comment until after the coronation. A spokesperson explained that the media operation was under “intense pressure” dealing with global interest in the coronation.
Frances Bowes-Lyon. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London
However, last week the bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, issued an apology relating to the same Virginia family. A son of Robert Porteus by a second marriage, a lineage separate from the royal family, was Beilby Porteus, who was bishop of London for 22 years from 1787. In January, Fulham Palace Trust, which maintains the historic London bishops’ residence, published research on the Porteus plantations. It acknowledged that Bishop Porteus and a brother inherited their father’s large Virginia estate, and continued to profit from it as “absentee plantation owners and enslavers”.
Mullally marked the opening of a new Fulham Palace exhibition on transatlantic slavery and resistance by issuing an apology relating in part to Porteus. “I am profoundly sorry for the harm that was inflicted by my predecessors through their involvement with the transatlantic slave trade,” Mullally said in a statement. “It continues to be a source of great shame to us as a diocese.”

Quick Guide
What is Cost of the crown?
Show
Cost of the crown is an investigation into royal wealth and finances. The series, published ahead of the coronation of King Charles III, is seeking to overcome centuries of secrecy to better understand how the royal family is funded, the extent to which individual members have profited from their public roles, and the dubious origins of some of their wealth. The Guardian believes it is in the public interest to clarify what can legitimately be called private wealth, what belongs to the British people, and what, as so often is the case, straddles the two.
• Read more about the investigation
• Fund Guardian investigative journalism that uncovers the secrets of the powerful that we all need to know
Photograph: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group Editorial
Thank you for your feedback.

In the play that Baptiste developed from her historical research, the lead character calls on Charles to apologise for the monarchy’s institutional and family involvement in transatlantic slavery.
“The Royal African Company document shows the current king’s direct ancestor trafficking newly arrived Africans, and profiting from the confiscated lives of enslaved people, like the ‘Negroe girl Cumbo’ left in Edward’s will,” Baptiste said. “This means the royal links to slavery are more than just institutional, they are in their family heritage.”
Prof Trevor Burnard, the director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull, said: “Charles has given an encouraging response to further research, and this new information shows that further research should be done, showing how extensive the links are of the royal family, aristocracy and all parts of Britain, to slavery.”
Do you have information about this story? Email investigations@theguardian.com, or use Signal or WhatsApp to message (UK) +44 7584 640566 or (US) +1 646 886 8761.
A staged reading of Desirée Baptiste’s play, Incidents in the Life of an Anglican Slave, Written by Herself, will be performed at Lambeth Palace Library on 27 April.
[ad_2]
#Direct #ancestors #King #Charles #owned #slave #plantations #documents #reveal
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 27, 2023
‘Beware of negative people’: Yusuf Islam writes manifesto for King Charles III

[ad_1]
Yusuf Islam, the musician formerly known as Cat Stevens, has addressed King Charles III ahead of his coronation with a 10-point list entitled Manifesto for a Good King.
“Even if you are a King, you are still a servant of God”, the list begins, and goes on to include instructions to “feed the hungry”, “help the sick and homeless”, “beware of negative people in your circle” and “listen to constructive criticism”.
In an additional message, the 74-year-old singer-songwriter said: “One of the privileges of being an artist is to express what seems unimaginable, and then hang it up there for people to ponder; we can say things that others can’t. Sure, I know full well music can’t necessarily solve the world’s problems, but it can help to direct the narrative.”
He released a new single, the title track from upcoming album King of a Land, alongside the manifesto, and said that the major message of the track – to not “forget that there’s One above you, and be careful to look out for those who are below you” – applies to all of those in leadership positions.
The song is Islam’s first release since 2020’s Tea for the Tillerman 2, a reworking of his 1970 album, and his first brand new music since 2017.
He began releasing music in 1966, putting out 11 albums within the first 12 years of his career. After converting to Islam in 1977, and subsequently adopting the name Yusuf Islam, he ceased releasing music in 1979, auctioning all his guitars for charity and instead choosing to devote himself to running Islamic schools for children.
He returned to pop music in 2006 with An Other Cup, his first release under the name Yusuf, an alias he continued to perform under for his next two albums, 2009’s Roadsigner and 2014’s Tell ’Em I’m Gone.
Now known professionally as Yusuf/Cat Stevens, the artist has long used music as a tool to engage with current affairs and to open up conversations with leaders and political figures.

In 2016, he performed in a rare live concert by the Houses of Parliament to coincide with the release of his single He Was Alone, which draws attention to the plight of lone child refugees.
Speaking at the time, he said: “I have agencies saying to me: ‘We can get you so many millions [to do a tour],’ but I am not interested in that. I am more interested in the cause and in bridge-building.”
To honour 2021’s International Day of Peace, he recorded a new version of his 1971 hit Peace Train in collaboration with over 25 musicians from 12 countries, raising money for Playing for Change, an initiative that builds music and art schools for children.
Alongside his musical endeavours, he is also at the helm of the charity Peace Train, which provides food, safe water and playgrounds across the world.
Early last year, the organisation supplied widowed families in Sindh, Pakistan with livestock, tools and seeds; in October, he performed in Istanbul and Ankara to raise money for the charity.
King of a Land, his 17th studio album, is said to be more than a decade in the making; across its 12 songs, he invites the listener to imagine an alternative universe, “where happy endings can possibly happen”.
The full album will be released on 16 June.
skip past newsletter promotion
Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ Manifesto for a Good King in full
1. Even if you are a King, you are still a servant of God.
2. Remove hatred through education and spread peace.
3. Feed the hungry.
4. We are all humans that make mistakes, so be forgiving.
5. Help the sick and homeless.
6. Beware of negative people in your circle.
7. Everyone has a part to play, teach them to work together.
8. Be just and don’t show favouritism.
9. Listen to constructive criticism.
10. Be a guardian to all faiths, and the precious Earth we all share.
[ad_2]
#Beware #negative #people #Yusuf #Islam #writes #manifesto #King #Charles #III
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 26, 2023
The only Australian with a role in King Charles’ coronation is from Wangaratta – where most people don’t know him

[ad_1]
The only Australian to play an official role in the coronation of King Charles III lives in the small Victorian town of Wangaratta – but most in the town have never heard of him.
Simon Abney-Hastings, the 15th Earl of Loudon, is one of 13 people appointed to play a ceremonial role at the 6 May ceremony.
In a statement provided to some media outlets, his private secretary, Terence Guthridge, said Abney-Hastings was “delighted” to have been invited to be the bearer of the great golden spurs, a part of the ceremony dating back to the coronation of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), in 1189.
The mayor of the Rural City of Wangaratta, Dean Rees, learned of Abney-Hastings only recently, from media reports. Journalists from Melbourne have been scouting around the town trying to catch a glimpse of the royal, and his face was on the front page of the local independent newspaper, the Wangaratta Chronicle, on Friday.
“We certainly did not know that we had an earl – what is he, the 15th Earl of Loudon?” Rees told Guardian Australia. “He keeps a very low profile.”
Wangaratta, famously described as a ‘horrible town’ by Nick Cave Photograph: Stuart Walmsley/The Guardian
Wangaratta is not the easiest town in which to keep a low profile: it has just under 30,000 residents and only three supermarkets. Shoppers trying to navigate the grocery aisles at Woolworths on Saturday morning have to dodge around clusters of people who have stopped for a chat.
The north-east Victorian town had one of the highest growth rates in the state in 2021, due in part to mass regional migration during Melbourne’s extended Covid lockdowns. In the past decade it has undergone a rebranding from an industrial town, powered by employers such as Bruck Textiles, which collapsed in 2014, to a gateway to the Milawa and King Valley wine and food regions.
Rees said Abney-Hastings clearly valued his privacy “and we have got to respect his wishes”.

“He is a resident of Wangaratta and we are very proud to have him,” he said. “I hope he doesn’t have too many issues from the media as to his privacy.”
Abney-Hastings’ desire for privacy does not extend to Facebook, where he regularly updates his 991 followers about the Melbourne Highland Games and Celtic Festival, of of which he is a patron.
He also posted that he was “delighted and sincerely honoured to accept the invitation by the Crown to perform the Bearer of the Great Golden Spurs”.
The gold spurs feature a Tudor rose and a red velvet covered strap, and symbolise knighthood. The set currently in circulation was made in 1661 for Charles II. They were traditionally fastened to the sovereign’s feet but are now just held up to their ankles, then placed on the altar.
The 48-year-old is a direct descendent of George Plantagenet, the brother of Edward IV and Richard III, through his grandmother, Barbara Huddleston Abney-Hastings. Some historians have claimed that Edward was illegitimate and that George, as the eldest legitimate son, should have inherited. In 2004, a Channel 4 documentary entitled Britain’s Real Monarch asserted that Michael Abney-Hastings, the current earl’s father, was, as George Plantagenet’s eldest heir, the rightful king of England.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, visits a winery near his home town during last year’s Victorian election campaign. Photograph: Luis Ascui/AAP
In a statement to Nine Newspapers, Guthridge acknowledged the claim, saying that “as a direct descendant of George Plantagenet, Simon Abney-Hastings has a right to inherit the throne of England”. But he added that the earl was a loyal supporter of the late Queen and her eldest son and had no intention of asserting himself.
“Indeed, they exchange birthday or Christmas cards each year,” the statement said.
But a claim to the English throne is not enough to make him one of Wangaratta’s most famous residents. That honour, says Rees, is a three-way tie between Nick Cave, who was expelled from Wangaratta high school at the age of 13 and later described it as a “horrible town” that inspired his bleak artistic vision; the Olympic cyclist Dean Woods, who won gold in the team pursuit at Los Angeles in 1984 and whose name and achievements adorn signs welcoming visitors to the town; and the current Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews.
Rex Hartwig, a two-time Wimbledon doubles champion who retired to a property on the outskirts of town, and the bushranger Ned Kelly, who did not even live in Wangaratta but hid out in the Warby Ranges and was arrested in the nearby village of Glenrowan, also rank before Abney-Hastings in a list of Wangaratta royalty.
A ceremonial role in the coronation is not likely to bump him up the list, Rees said.
“He might get some photos over there with the king that might make it into the paper, and it will all slow down from there,” he said.
[ad_2]
#Australian #role #King #Charles #coronation #Wangaratta #people #dont
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 25, 2023
catch Kitchen King, 100 g

Price: [price_with_discount]
(as of [price_update_date] – Details)

[ad_1]
Missing that ‘flavour’ in what you eat regularly? Here’s a pro tip – use Catch Kitchen King Masala Powder to add a great flavour to your everyday food. This Spice Powder is a classic blend of different traditional ingredients coming together. Now you can cook mouth-watering dishes without having to worry about adding different spices in the right proportions. Catch Kitchen King Masala Powder has got you covered and is available in different packages: 8g, 50g, 100g. Catch Ka Koi Match Nahi. 100%. STORAGE INSTRUCTIONS: Keep in a cool & dry place.
Country of Origin: India
Original aroma
ADDS INSTANT FLAVOUR: Use Catch Kitchen King Masala Powder in your dishes and you are sorted! It is called Kitchen King for a reason; it takes your recipes to the next level.
PERFECT SPICE BLEND: It is a blend of all the major spices you use in your cooking and, it will do the magic even when used sparingly.
VERSATILE: This spice mix is versatile enough to be used in different dishes. Whether it is Gobhi Masala, Matar Paneer or Rasam – add a small amount of this magic spice for enhanced aroma and taste.
PACKED HYYGIENICALLY: Catch Spices are packed with state of the art technology ensuring minimum human contact during packaging so that you do not have to compromise on taste or quality.
ALSO TRY: You can try other spices from our range including Catch Chat Masala, Catch Sabzi Masala, Catch Shahi Paneer Masala, Catch Raita Masala, Catch Chhole Masala and more.

[ad_2]
#catch #Kitchen #King

April 13, 2023