Accession anniversary

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the accession of His Majesty The King to the throne. It does not seem in some ways that long since we were watching the events around the death of the late Queen, his accession ceremonies and her funeral, yet in other ways the smooth transition from one reign to another, and the continuing rhythm of the royal and ceremonial year, has meant that the change in monarch has seemed - as it should - entirely natural. 

I perused online various newspaper articles about the anniversary and the first year of the King’s reign in the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail and that sense of sensible continuity  - with the exception of a silly piece by Amanda Platell in the Mail ( but then, what does one expect? ) - seemed to be the mood of them. People do indeed still mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II, and give thanks for her life, but all lives come to an end - it is their legacy we carry forward.

The naysayers looking for trouble and conflict have been proved wrong, as one knew they would be, and much has been achieved or set in motion for a hopefully stable and secure reign, but one that can also continue to respond to the life, expectations and hopes of this and the other Commonwealth realms.

TheKing and his family, his realms and his peoples enter what is now 2 Charles III with confidence in what has been demonstrably secured but hopefully without complacency about a future which is, for everyone, always unknowable. It is perhaps rather like the idea presented to his people by King George VI in his 1939 Christmas Broadcast about the Man who stood at the Gate of the Year.