RICHARD KAY: I fear King Charles’ well-meaning gesture could be an act of folly

In four weeks, Britain will be in a festive mood. The first coronation of a monarch in 70 years will be a moment of splendor and pomp.

It is a chance for the country to come together in a spirit of affection for an institution that has weathered all sorts of domestic upheavals and emerged with largely untainted popularity.

But yesterday an unexpected spoke was thrown into this wheel of joyous merriment – ​​bizarrely placed there by the royals themselves.

The news that Buckingham Palace is collaborating with an independent inquiry into the historical relationship between the monarchy and the slave trade seems innocent enough at first glance. After all, the Royal Archives is packed with artifacts and documents that any researcher would sink his teeth into.

According to the palace, King Charles takes the issue of historic slavery “very seriously.” Of course he does: he is a serious man who probably has a sharper and better understanding of the past than any monarch in history.

So he’s agreed to open those Windsor Castle archives and those of the Royal Collection – and it’s likely that they will contain some painful secrets.

Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with honest science. But we live in politically charged times.

For years it has been fashionable for governments and politicians to apologize for crimes committed in the past.

However, the royal family has remained impervious to this modern affliction. Not anymore: now the king has climbed aboard the self-flagellation.

Therefore, this gesture represents an important moment in our history and has implications beyond mere virtue. It could also turn out to be an act of folly: one that not only leads to demands for outrageous reparations, but is also the biggest boost to the cause of Republicanism in decades.

We all agree that slavery was an abhorrent evil and that shameful crimes were sometimes committed under the banner of the British Empire. But 200 years ago, we also led the world in abolishing the slave trade – and the monarchy was at the center of its condemnation from the very beginning.

In his first official speech in 1840, the year of his marriage to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert denounced slavery as the “blackest stain” on civilization.

And in the past year, both King Charles and Prince William have issued public statements expressing their “deep sorrow” at the “terrible atrocity” of slavery that – echoing the 19th-century Prince Consort – “has forever changed our history.” stained’.

For years it has been fashionable for governments and politicians to apologize for crimes committed in the past

However, such raw honesty does not reassure the critics – for whom no apology is ever enough. So what has brought about this change, with the monarchy now apparently succumbing to the same historic guilt that has plagued so many of our other great institutions?

It can certainly be no coincidence that the announcement of the palace followed a revelation in yesterday’s newspaper The Guardian – long a hotbed of Republicans – which published a never-before-seen document detailing the slave trader Edward Colston, whose statue in Bristol had been standing for three years. was notoriously demolished ago, is associated with an ancestor of Karel. It showed, all the way back to 1689, Colton’s transfer of shares in the Royal African Company slave trade to King William III.

After the transaction, King William became governor of the company and made even more wealth from it. The royal charter gave the company a protected monopoly on the trade in enslaved people from West Africa.

It had been founded in 1660 by the Duke of York – later James II – with the involvement of his brother King Charles II. And it was a productive and lucrative business.

According to the Slave Voyages database, which compiles information from historical research, the Royal African Company has transported 186,827 enslaved people, including nearly 24,000 children, to America over the 60 years of its operation. More than 38,000 people died during the voyages.

A few months after getting the shares, King William received funding to build Kensington Palace, where he lived with Queen Mary and which is today home to his namesake Prince William and the Princess of Wales.

Those who know King Charles insist we should not be surprised at this intervention, as he has said he wants to deepen his own understanding of the impact of slavery and acknowledge the mistakes of the past. What worries supporters of the monarchy, however, is that values ​​that are repulsive to us today were not always seen as such – and that the royal family could fall victim to the pernicious culture of guilt that has left so many of our institutions in trouble. has brought. It is difficult to estimate how much of the wealth of today’s royal family is due to slavery, although the profits from the trade are known to have financed the treasury as well as industries, public buildings, railways and roads.

The great danger of this honorable but flawed undertaking is undoubtedly the potential danger to the monarchy’s reputation.

Anything short of explaining strong historical ties between royalty and slavery will be brushed off as whitewashing. And any confirmed link will doom the monarchy forever.

After all, whatever conclusions this academic study uncovers upon publication in 2026, it is inevitable that restitution or ‘reparations’ will be sought immediately. And no matter what number is put on it, it will never be enough.

How soon will it be before there are shouts that the burden should fall on British taxpayers?

This gesture represents an important moment in our history and has implications beyond mere virtue

Many of the sovereign states we recognize today simply did not exist in the 17th and 18th centuries, when slavery and British conquest were at their height.

Here, then, we come to realize the philosophical absurdity of the present generation apologizing for the actions of its ancestors.

Or maybe we should find reparations ourselves.

From Italy, for example, before the conquest of this country by the Roman Empire. Or from Norway, Denmark and Germany before the invasions of the Vikings, Saxons and Angles.

And what about France? The Norman Conquest irrevocably changed England, its culture and traditions. Shouldn’t there be compensation for that? And if so, won’t the French seek reparations for the years we occupied Calais and Bordeaux?

One thing that may have been overlooked in all the excitement of royalty and slavery is that of the Guardian and its own historical ties to this evil trade.

Last month, the owners, the Scott Trust, apologized for the founders’ role in transatlantic slavery and announced a decade-long program of what it called “restorative justice.”

They are not the only ones trying to atone for the past. Former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan traveled to Grenada to make amends for the deeds of her ancestors who owned 1,000 slaves on the Caribbean island. She also donated £100,000 in reparations.

Yet yesterday’s decision by the palace worries those who fear it is not only intellectually incoherent, but potentially seriously damaging to the royal family’s long-term well-being.

It would be a great shame if this overshadowed the excitement of the coronation and the new reign.