writing scathing letters to the Times and periodically delivering blistering speeches regarding modern architecture,
…
tomndebb, that’s a very good point. Then again, he does that now, and people are used to his ways. I just can’t see any huge scandals from Charles sticking his foot in his mouth. I think he knows how far to push things.
[pedant]“Statesmanship” is a gender-neutral term, if by gender you mean the sex of the statesman in question. The suffix “-man” does not denote anything about abdominal anatomy, although for some people, there is an unfortunate cascade of sexist connotations. In any case, “statesmanship” as a craft is an abstract noun, & rarely needs to be subdivided into masculine & feminine subclasses, although if the queen governed by sexual manipulation, “stateswomanship” would be a useful term. Much as a king who governed by dint of masculinity might be termed a “statesstud.” 
Elizabeth I was a great statesman, & necessarily, in her time, a crafty stateswoman. But Elizabeth II has relied on a more restrained statesmanship that needs no sexual classification. In fact, “figureheadship” seems more accurate to me. But hey, I’m a Yank, what do I know?[/pedant]
First, I think you mean “like James II was.” Charles II died in his bed, still a king.
Second, my recollection is that the commission is a personal commission from the monarch. So Elizabeth has granted a commission to certain lords to give assent. But once she’s dead, her commission lapses, and no-one has the power to assent to a bill in the name of King Charles III until he grants a new commission. Assuming he did have a hand in it, why on earth would he grant a new commission? He’d just keep the power of royal assent in his own control, to prevent exactly the scenario you suggest.
When the soveriegn appoints a commision the Lord Chancellor must affix the Royal Seal to the documents. Presence of the seal is considered proof that they’re valid. During one of George III’s “illnesses” he became unable to perform even the most basic functions of government. A regency bill was passed and the Lord Chancellor affixed the seal to letters patent even though the king did issue them. The act was never put into practice as the king recovered. The point is if parliament wants to strip a monarch of power it will find away.
If y’all could just get her and Castro hooked up now.
Charles will probably be an excellent king. Especially since everyone expects so little from him. I mean really, how bad can he screw up. It’s not like the king really does anything anyway.
He kinda reminds me of Gerald Ford. Don’t you think?
Going back to the discussion of people automatically becoming Queen:
In (AFAIK) all the European systems of hereditary nobility and royalty, the wife of a man who holds a title in his own right holds an equivalent courtesy title. She does not hold any substantive office. So the wife of a king is automatically titled queen, just as the wife of a duke is titled a duchess; but she does not hold any legal power, the title being merely a courtesy.
This does not apply to the husbands of women who hold titles in their own right. If the Duke of Wherever dies and leaves a daughter but no sons, she inherits the dukedom and becomes the Duchess of Wherever; but her husband does not become the duke.
Accordingly, Her Majesty the Queen is Queen in her own right (“Queen regnant,”) by virtue of her having inherited the throne as the eldest daughter of George VI, who had no sons. When as Princess Elizabeth she married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten (who had had his own Greek royal titles at birth, but gave those up prior to his wedding), he remained Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.
Or he would have, except that George VI specially granted him a brace of titles of his own the day before his wedding, including Duke of Edinburgh. (At that point, as the wife of the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Elizabeth became HRH the Duchess of Edinburgh, and remained so until her accession.) Indeed, he did not become Prince Philip (except in error) until the Queen specifically granted that title to her husband after her accession to the throne. (He is not Prince Consort, a title only Prince Albert held.)
There are two cases in which the husband of a queen regnant held the title of king in Britain, both of them anomalous. The first is the case of Mary I, whose husband Philip (who for the last two years of their marriage was also King Philip II of Spain) was under the terms of their marriage treaty titled King of England during Mary’s lifetime, though his actual power was quite limited.
The second is the case of Mary II, whose husband William III was made co-sovereign with her by act of Parliament. In this case, though, he actually was King and remained King for many years after Mary’s death.
Back to Camilla. As things stand now, she will legally speaking be queen consort as soon as Charles inherits the throne. However, for a lot of reasons this seems to be objectionable, so they have basically made up the title of “Princess Consort” for her. Likewise, she is currently automatically entitled to be called Princess of Wales as wife of the Prince of Wales, but instead she is going by Duchess of Cornwall (Duke of Cornwall is one of Charles’s other titles) or, in Scotland, Duchess of Rothesay (ditto). It’s basically a matter of improvisation, of simply choosing not to use titles to which she is entitled.
(In a similar circumstance, the infant daughter of the Earl and Countess of Wessex is automatically entitled to the courtesy title HRH Princess Louise of Wessex; however, in an attempt to keep her out of the public eye, her parents have chosen to simply use the title Lady Louise Windsor.)
The main reason that Charles is considered unfit to be both King and Head of the Church of England is that he committed adultery before, during and after his marriage.
The fact that he has numerous servants who, for example, spread toothpaste on his toothbrush for him does not mean he does not understand how his subjects live. Oh, wait - it does!
Although the Queen is dignified, there’s no evidence that she has any intelligence or qualifications apart from hosting jolly nice parties. She certainly married a stupid unpleasant man.
Still the Royals do bring in tourists…
I’m still not sure about this business of Camilla automatically becoming Queen Consort. It seems to me she won’t be anything at all until King Charles bestows a title upon her. She could be Queen Consort or she could be Princess Consort. Is there a reliable (i.e, not Wiki) cite that definitively answers this point?
Charles is a wimp who is on record as wanting to be a horse-faced woman’s bloody tampon. It doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that, folks. Of all the things I’d like to be, a tampon isn’t in the top 1 billion. Loyals can point to Charles’ military record, but he never saw a moment of frontline action and never failed to milk his uniform for maximum effect. Countless personal accounts depict him as arrogant, rude, vindictive, petulant, sometimes cruel and decidedly dim. For the last 20 odd years, he’s fashioned himself as an expert on architecture, culture and declining values, never mind he hasn’t the education or credibility to speak authoritatively on any of these topics, thus reducing him to a Pythonesque caricature. We live in a rough-and-tumble world chalk full of thugs. A politically emasculated figurehead king is bad enough. A king who thinks himself a tampon invites more than satire. He invites disrespect and contempt on an entire nation.
That said, Camilla is probably hot as hell in bed–for a senior citizen. 
Not to defend Prince Big Ears or anything, but according the transcript of the embarrassing phone call in question he said that with his luck he would come back as Camilla’s tampon. Not exactly the way people usually phrase something they aspire to. It’s still a sign of an… unusual imagination, but it was a self-deprecating joke, not a wish.
As to the original question of why Elizabeth II doesn’t retire to some place with better weather than London and let her son take over the family business… King Haakon VII of Norway was often asked, when he was old and ailing and had handed over almost all his duties to his son as Crown Prince Regent, if he’d ever considered retirement. He is reported to have once replied, “There are only two kinds of kings: current, and deceased.”
Actually in Spain a man who marries a titled woman (say Duchess of Franco) gets the male form of her title as a courtesy (Duke of Franco). Spain has also had king-consorts as recently as the 19th century (also the last time there was a queen-regnant). The same applies to Portugese titles (though a man must sire offspring before he’s made king-consort).
I wish I could remember who it was who said, “One day, the world will have only five kings: Spades, Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts, and England.”
Though I’m not particularly advocating adultery, if that renders him unfit to be monarch, just how many kings or queens would England, the Empire and the Commonwealth have had?
Kings used to do all sorts of things that would be frowned upon today. Fortunately we have a more civilised society today.
Charles knew perfectly well that he was expected to behave properly.
Ye croppies ye knew that your sentence was come . . .
What, like nearly every other king of England or the UK? I mean, come on, for a while there it was practically part of the job.
Actually, from what we’ve heard from various prime ministers and other dignitaries, she’s extremely effective at supporting the elected government in a variety of ways both in front of and behind the scenes - helping things along with diplomacy and such - always with full respect of the constitutional framework of her office.
Ah yes, thank you for reminding me. The last King-Consort of Spain was Francisco de Asís de Borbón, Isabel II’s husband. I don’t know if this would still be the case for the consort of a modern-day Queen regnant of Spain, as the Constitution makes reference to “la reina consorte o el consorte de la reina” (the Queen Consort or the consort of the Queen").
Hell, I thought it was a requirement. 
BTW who were the last three kings and when did they rule. It seems to me that the British have been subject to Queens through much of her recent past. Are they bumping off their old man or what?
I’m not an English history buff obviously, but didn’t Vicky and Liz dominate the past couple of centuries.
Well it’ll be several decades before that somes up again. Actually I’ve always wondered since Sweden is so big on gender equality what will Victoria’s husband be called? Could he actually become King X?
There were four kings between Victoria (d. 1901) and Elizabeth II (r. 1952-present).
But yes, in general, you’re right. The last 169 years have seen queens reign for ~117 of them.