A senior royal aide has described the King as a secret weapon, sent by the government into political situations other people would rather not walk into. The remark came at the end of a nine-day tour of the Bahamas, Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda, a trip that included the Commonwealth summit and was dominated by the question of slavery. The King expressed personal sorrow. He did not apologise. He did not offer reparations. Both of those omissions were government policy.
The aide, who spoke without being named, said the King is able to reach the parts that politicians probably could not. He said a clear pattern is emerging: the government asking the King to head into politically charged, challenging situations. He also said the Palace has to tread a careful line between government policy and the King's role. The tour, in his account, was complex, challenging and exhausting, and it was a success. The King had shown statecraft by word and by deed. Refreshing relationships where the politics are difficult, the aide said, is what the King lives and breathes for. He relishes the tough parts of the job.
Sorrow was welcomed. An apology was not given
Leaders of the 56-nation Commonwealth broadly welcomed the sorrow. Many of them had wanted more. In the speech that opened the summit in St John's, the King called the slave trade a shameful chapter that filled him with horror, and a monstrous injustice. He did not say sorry on behalf of Britain. The communique that closed the meeting welcomes a time-bound dialogue. It does not date an apology. Gaston Browne, the Antiguan prime minister who hosted the King and Queen, wants that structured conversation, and he wants his country to move towards a republic.
Asked directly whether the King would apologise, the aide set out the chain of a constitutional monarchy. The King is guided by his government. The government, even after this week, has not switched to an apology or to reparations. Andy Burnham's comment, midway through the tour, that he was open to Britain apologising, intensified every conversation on the islands. The aide dismissed the idea that the Palace was blindsided. He said they were told in a timely manner.
What the Aide Actually Said the Tour Was
- Nine days: the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda, including CHOGM.
- No apology and no reparations, in line with government policy.
- Personal sorrow over the slave trade, welcomed by Commonwealth leaders as a step.
- The Palace says it was warned in good time about Burnham's shift on an apology.
- The communique locks in a time-bound dialogue. A date is still not set.
A frank sentence, and a limit
Palace aides do not usually call the monarch an instrument. That is why the sentence is the story on Friday, more than any new line in a speech. The tour is over. The ship has the harbour behind it. What remains is a description of the job: the government will keep asking the King to walk into rooms where the policy is unpopular and the person is not. The limit is the same one he observed in St John's. He can say the history fills him with sorrow. He cannot spend public money, and he cannot apologise for the state, unless ministers decide that he should.
Burnham opened a dialogue and refused direct reparations. The King stayed inside that line, and the aide has now said, more plainly than Palace language usually allows, that this is how the government intends to use him. The next test is not another speech in the Caribbean. It is whether the dialogue the communique welcomed ever acquires a date.