First off, I’m an American, so I have no strong emotional feelings about any of this in general.
Ok, let’s say that when Queen Elizabeth finally passes away Prince Charles is crowned King Charles (the First I guess?), but after a year or two he decides that it’s just more of the same PR stuff he’s been doing all his life (only worse) and he’s sick of it and he just wants to retire from the public eye and turn the crown over to his son Prince William. Is ‘abdication’ his only option? Because it seems as though that term has a decidedly negative connotation. The current Queen’s uncle did it to marry his true love, a divorced, American commoner. Some undoubtedly said (and still say) that he chose his own personal wants & needs over his duty to his people & country. Is there a different official measure Charles could take, more akin to ‘retirement’ to make way for his much younger son rather than any perceived ‘rejection’ of his duties?
Would the same stigma still be attached to an ‘abdication’ today? Suppose Charles specifically says that he not only doesn’t want to maintain a king’s hectic lifestyle, but that he also feels it would be better for the country and the monarchy in general to ‘inject some youth’ into it by having a young King (and Queen) for the first time in, well, what must be quite a while.
Could he do any of this now? Remove himself from the line of succession? But if he did that, doesn’t that mean the line would then immediately shift to his younger brother (and *his *children)?
The problem with Edward (the VIII) abdicating was not the abdication, so much as his behaviour leading up to it. He wanted to marry a divorcee, an American (oh horrors!) and apparently was possibly the correspondent in her divorce, assuming she was faithful to him afterwards. Basically, he was indulging his twisted personal life over duty. That was the shock. (Fascist sympathies didn’t help matters).
In fact, there’s no reason why the Brits couldn’t adopt the Belgian/new Vatican model, and abdicate as they got too old to carry on. Nobody would hold it against Betty or Chuck.
The real question would be, as you say, what would people think? If like WIlliam, who had doubts earlier, Charles had said all along he didn’t want the job, maybe it would be different… but he’s essentially been acting the part for 60 years, if he changed his mind now - what would you think? But, it wouldn’t be a scandal. It all depends on motive.
Queen Elizabeth would probably be the most perturbed. Her father got stuck with a job he didn’t really want and wasn’t prepared for, but did out of a sense of duty. Some say that the stress killed him early… all because his older brother was too self-indulgent.
(As a side note, one item I read said that Wallace Simpson absolutely hated being the Duchess - but she’d sort of painted herself into a corner, she caught the guy with her loose ways. After that, she could not really dump a guy who’d given up being Emperor of the British Empire to marry her. She was, so to speak, royally screwed.)
What happens to the succession would depend on the terms of the abdication act passed by Parliament to implement King Charles’ desire to abdicate.
The precedent of King Edward VIII is that his abdication forfeited the rights of his possible issue with Mrs Simpson. If that precedent were followed in this hypothetical, Wills, George Alexander, and Harry would all lose out and Edward of York would be king.
But, in this hypothetical, I think it would be more likely that the abdication bill would treat it more as a retirement, and provide that on Charles’ abdication, the Crown would pass to Wills.
The difference would be that Edward’s abdication was considered a scandalous shirking of his duty, while Charles’ would be a retirement. As well the issue if issue in Edward’s case was entirely hypothetical. Here, Wills is anything but hypothetical - he’s quite popular, as is Kate, and Harry. I can’t see any reason why the Government would want to exclude them from the succession.
No she wasn’t. It would have made far less of a fuss if she had been, as everyone, including Edward, would have agreed that he would automatically lose the throne by marrying her. Marriage by a king to a Catholic would have been illegal, whereas marriage to a twice-divorced American was merely very, very awkward. That ambiguity was what allowed Edward to convince himself that it might just be possible for him to get away with marrying her without abdicating.
On the other hand, Edward’s previous mistress, Thelma, Viscountess Furness (twin sister of the elder Gloria Vanderbilt), was a Catholic. But then Edward never considered marrying her, not least because he knew that that would be impossible. That also made her socially acceptable, as she could only ever be the mistress he could never marry.
I don’t have any doubt he will want to be king. His parents are living to a ripe old age. Chances are he will also live to be in his 90s or older. If his mother dies in the next ten years, he still has a chance of being king for possibly 20 years. He has waited a long time. He’s not going to pass on the opportunity.
If Charles is smart, he will reign until William and Kate have had a family and their children are somewhat grown up (mid-teenagers), then abdicate in favour of William. That puts a popular royal on the throne while he is still fairly young, takes some of the pressure off George and his siblings, and allows Charles to continue as the somewhat outspoken and eccentric king-father for many further years - a role he plays as Prince of Wales rather well now.
[nitpick]Charles has said no such thing, it’s simply supposed that he will reign as George VII. The official view is that he doesn’t want to muse on possibilities which depend on his mother dying.
Firstly, it would be Andrew, not Edward, Earl of Wessex. Andrew is the elder brother.
What they actually did in such a scenario is a political question, not a legal question. They could follow the 1936 Act, which according to one reading would disqualify, William, George and Harry as well. On another reading (and one which I think is the actual intent) it would only extinguish the rights of a future child of the erstwhile King. In 1936, EVIIIR had no children and the removal of future heirs was to ensure that his children with Mrs Simpson were eliminated from the equation (he had none as it turned out).
These days, there is no fucking way they would go with “Air Miles Andy” anyhow. 12 years ago, possibly they might have been happy to do so, without Charles displaying any desire to abdicate and or surrender rights. This displays the ultimately political nature of the issue. In 1936, they briefly, and seriously thought of bypassing, Prince Albert with one of his younger brothers, Prince Henry or more likely the Duke of Kent, father of the present Duke, well known as the gentleman who present the Trophy at Wimbledon.
I could be wrong, but didn’t the UK do away with the male preference primogeniture? If so, then Charles has a sister older than Andrew who would take instead of him, no?
I’m not convinced that Charles wants to be King - the man’s already at an age when many people retire, and he’s quite happy with his overpriced biscuit business and other hobbies - but neither he nor his mother will abdicate; the wounds of the last abdication are still raw almost 80 years later and if nothing else they are slaves to their duty. Perhaps things will change and King William V (or whatever) will be ready to give up the throne voluntarily in forty years’ time but I wouldn’t put money on that either. I doubt we’ll see a British abdication at least until Boy George there decides he’s had enough some time around 2090.
