Pipe Major Paul Burns plays the bagpipes on the morning of September 6, 2022, the Queen’s last day of royal duties. The pipes signal the official start to her day and are a tradition dating back to the reign of Queen Victoria.

The Queen passed away on September 8, 2022, at 3:10 pm. Members of the royal family paid their respects privately at Balmoral, her Scottish castle. Major Burns played for the guests before dinner, the first time he played in the absence of the Queen.

The Queen’s coffin was transported from Balmoral to her final resting place in Windsor. Princess Anne, the Queen’s daughter, escorted it for the first part of the journey. Charles and Camilla received it at RAF Northolt before it was handed over to the public, with the Queen lying in state at Westminster Hall until her funeral. Hundreds of thousands from all over the world came to pay their respects.

On the day of the funeral, the coffin was moved to Westminster Abbey. The Queen chose this place because it was the site of her wedding, and later, her coronation. Around 4.1 billion people tuned in to watch the first state funeral since 1965, and guests included representatives from 168 countries, including monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers. The ceremony concluded with Major Burns’s rendering of “Sleep, Dearie, Sleep” on the pipes.

Major Burns would also pipe at the Queen’s “final act,” the committal service that would officially end her reign. Before his final duty to the Queen, he learned from Charles that the Queen had ensured Major Burns would continue in his role into Charles’s reign as well. The Queen was finally laid to rest in St. George’s Chapel beside her parents, sister, and her “strength and stay” (31), Philip.

After the Queen’s death, images of Charles shaking people’s hands during his first walkabout as king emerged. The images painted him as affable and accessible as opposed to removed and dignified, as his mother was. This is an image Charles’s team has been orchestrating for years, knowing that it is needed for the monarchy to survive.

However, just 12 weeks later, Camilla hosted a high-profile event for the cause of Violence Against Women and Girls. One of the attendees, Ngozi Fulani—a British citizen of African and Caribbean descent and the CEO of Sistah Space—had a less-than-pleasant experience. She tweeted the next day about how one of the royal staff repeatedly touched her hair and asked her where she was really from. The incident made world news and brought up questions of racism within the institution, especially since the Firm was still dealing with the fallout of Harry and Meghan’s revelations in the Oprah Winfrey interview a little more than a year prior. Lady Susan Hussey, the offender in question, was removed from her role.

William immediately distanced himself from Lady Hussey, his godmother. Charles’s team viewed this as a knee-jerk response, but it established that William was not afraid to carve out his own path, something that brought tension into the father-son relationship.

However, increasing scrutiny surrounding William and Kate began before the Queen’s death. Their eight-day Caribbean cruise through the Commonwealth countries in January 2022 was poorly received. Protests broke out in Belize, and their refusal to acknowledge or address the grievances of colonization throughout the trip only added fuel to the fire. The missteps added up and included a poorly thought-out staged photo that showed William and Kate holding the hands of Black boys and girls through a cage-like fence. Additionally, the Jamaican prime minister, Andrew Holness, told William and Kate that Jamaica was ready to move on from the Queen as the head of the state.

Another source of tension is Charles’s ineptitude in handling family drama, especially in the case of his younger son and daughter-in-law. Despite being advised by many, including the Queen, to talk things through with Harry and Meghan and move forward, Charles has maintained a stubborn silence. The issues they have raised about the Firm, which include unconscious bias and institutional cruelty, still loom large.

A number of these situations show that the institution is still “an anachronistic, intolerant organization steeped in bigotry and privilege” (54). By disappearing into her role of service and winning worldwide popularity, the Queen was able to keep these criticisms at bay. She firmly adopted the historical stance of “never complain, never explain” (55), remaining an enigma and removed from any family drama all her life. Without her presence, the rest of her family is not as successful, as displayed by these internal tussles. This also demonstrates that the institution is unwilling to change.

The biggest indication of this is the conclusion to the Fulani and Lady Hussey incident. The Palace invited Fulani 17 days after the event for a face-to-face conversation with Lady Hussey, and a photograph of the two women together was released after. Contrary to the Palace’s report that the meeting went well, Fulani later revealed that she received no direct apology from the institution. After weeks of online harassment and trolling, Fulani was forced to step down from her role as the head of the charity, due to safety concerns. Meanwhile, Lady Hussey returned to the royal fold and reestablished herself within Charles and Camilla’s inner circle.

Shortly after the Queen’s death, the newly anointed King made the news for two separate incidents that showcased his grouchiness. While signing the proclamation for his new position as king, Charles got irritated with a tray of pens and almost pushed them off his desk in frustration. A couple of days later, when signing the visitor book of a castle he was visiting to receive condolences for the Queen’s death, he was once again frustrated by a leaky pen. Exclaiming aloud, “Oh God, I hate this pen!” (59), he departed the scene, leaving Camilla to handle the situation. The latter incident went viral, bringing into question Charles’s readiness to handle the Crown.

Charles now realizes he has more freedom as the heir than he does as the monarch. In late October of 2022, the short-lived prime minister, Liz Truss, requested that Charles refrain from attending COP27, the annual international climate conference organized by the UN. Even though Charles has been an advocate for environmentalism for most of his life, he discovered that, as monarch, he can no longer attend an event so politically charged.

During Charles’s coronation, the king discovered additional limitations of his new role. All his life, Charles has talked about a slimmed-down monarchy as his vision for his reign. At the time that he finally ascended the throne, Britain was reeling from the effects of numerous crises, including the post-pandemic situation, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and strikes in the NHS. In keeping with the country’s economic woes and his vision, Charles initially proposed a scaled-down coronation. This would signal that he was in touch with and cared about the public and that he was not afraid to do things his way. However, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his government took the opposite stance, believing that full-scale celebrations at the king’s coronation would both distract from the crisis at home as well as carry out some image repair for Britain. Charles had no option but to acquiesce.

Charles’s initial days as king were marked by a series of struggles, starting with Harry and Meghan’s docuseries airing in December, and continuing with the release of Harry’s memoir, Spare, in early 2023. Shortly after the release of Spare, the Sussexes were instructed to vacate Frogmore Cottage, their Crown Estate property in Windsor, as they were no longer working royals. Harry and Meghan later discovered that Charles had offered the space to his brother, Andrew, also no longer a working royal who had been stripped of his titles in disgrace. Charles’s blind spot for his brother is yet another problem, and he has had much more difficulty banishing Andrew from the family than his own son.