SO FAR SO GOOD

King Charles has embraced his destiny in his first year as monarch, pleasing the public and proving his critics wrong

- NICI DE WET

THE first year in any job is hard – you must prove you’re up to the task and everyone’s watching to see if you mess things up.

But when your job is heading up the most prominent monarchy on the planet, things ramp up to the next level. Especially when you have to fill the shoes of a woman adored by the world.

Yet as the UK prepared to mark the first anniversary of the queen’s death, King Charles III seemed to be doing okay.

A recent poll showed two-thirds of people in the UK gave him the thumbs up and he’s settling well into the role.

“Charles seems very content and happy,” a close friend told The Times.

“His destiny has arrived and he has embraced it.

“His definition of a successful year is to make the nation and the Commonwealth proud – and himself.”

EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS  

Over the decades there was much speculation over the kind of king Charles would be. Naysayers labelled him weak, vain, interfering and ill-equipped for such an important role.

He was ridiculed for talking to plants, obsessing over architecture and wading into politics. Many also couldn’t forgive him for the breakdown of his marriage to Princess Diana, blaming him because of his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.

Diana herself was sceptical about Charles as monarch. ‘‘Being the Prince of Wales produces more freedom and being king would be a little bit more suffocating,” she said in her infamous 1995 Panorama interview. “And because I know the character I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him and I don’t know whether he could adapt to that.”