Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in a centenary ritual ceremony at Caernarfon Castle in Wales, was watched on television by millions of people around the world in 1969. The event came to life thanks to the successful series The crownwhich shows the Queen placing a crown on the head of Charles, aged 20, kneeling on a granite dais.
There probably won’t be an equivalent for William, named Prince of Wales last week by his father Charles, who became King Charles III after Elizabeth II’s death. Almost 25,000 people have signed a petition to remove the title which they say is “an insult to Wales and a symbol of historical oppression”.
“Many people reject this title of Prince of Wales because they think it should go to a Welshman,” Maria Sarnacki, now mayor of Caernarfon, told AFP.
“Opinion will be very divided”
At half-staff due to national mourning, the Welsh flag with its dragon and the British Union Jack fly together over the castle. Caernarfon’s history does not make this place a royalist stronghold. “Opinion will be very divided” on William’s proclamation as Prince of Wales,” said Geraint Thomas, 49, who runs a photo gallery.
The city boasts of having the highest proportion of Welsh-speaking people in the country. A language that Charles tried to learn during a term at Aberystwyth University, 80 kilometers south of Caernarfon.
“Provocation”
The castle, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, houses within its walls the bloody history of England and Wales. The title of Prince of Wales originally went to Welsh princes, but the last, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, was assassinated in 1282 by King Edward I of England. Then his head rose to the top of the Tower of London.
To tame Wales, Edward embarked on a frenzy of castle building including Caernarfon, where his heir, the future Edward II, was born in 1284. He then bestowed the title of Prince of Wales on his son in 1301, and the English rulers continued this title. tradition with his heirs. “It’s historically a provocative title,” explains Geraint Thomas, whose gallery exhibits two red flags from the Welsh independence movement.
In choosing Caernarfon for Charles’s investiture in 1969, the Queen herself had made a controversial decision. Demonstrations were held around the castle and nationalists attempted to plant a bomb on the railway tracks which Charles brought to the ceremony.
“independent country
Since then, Wales has gained more political freedom from London and distanced itself from the royal family, which seems more attached to Scotland.
“I think we should have a Welsh prince,” judge Rhiannon Evans, 23, who works in a bar in Caernarfon. “And be an independent country.”
King Charles is due to visit Cardiff on Friday, after visiting Edinburgh and Belfast on a tour that showed he is committed to bringing Britain together. But he has been criticized for appointing William Prince of Wales without consulting the Welsh people, starting with his prime minister.
Although the Welsh say they “respect” William and his wife Kate, who lived on Anglesey, a Welsh island, he “[leur] it was imposed by the new king,” said Selwyn Jones, who works in a local bookstore, and for him, organizing the investiture in Caernarfon “would be even more unhealthy than in 1969”.
Source: BFM TV
