Here are some photos of King Charles and Queen Camilla on Sunday in Sydney, Australia. They went to a Sunday service at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, having announced a day earlier that people should come out to greet the king and queen. Hundreds of people did so – legitimately, hundreds of Australians came out to shake Charles’s hand or wish him well. There were protesters, but they were kept a distance away from the church. The protesters chanted “Not my king” and “Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.” There were videos circulating where protestors were talking about how the British monarch does not represent Australia, etc. There were also large banners reading “Empire built on genocide” and “decolonize.” The Guardian mentioned something interesting about the hundreds of royal fans – the Australian Monarchist League “had pledged to hand out thousands” of supportive, pro-monarchy flags and placards. As in, they expected thousands of people to show up outside of the church. Only a couple of hundred showed up.
While the British media tried to put the best spin on all of this, the Telegraph even had to admit that: “When the couple first arrived they met some of the younger members of the congregation at the church door as a group of protesters could be heard shouting “not my King” but were drowned out by shouts of ‘hip hip hooray.’” Yes, god help us all if Charles has to hear faint “not my king” chants in a country his family brutally colonized. That wasn’t all – after the the church visit, Charles headed off to a lunch in his honor. The Guardian’s headline: “King Charles makes relaxed start to Australian tour but spends less than 10 minutes at lunch in his honour.”
King Charles III did not linger long at the luncheon put on in his honour, at the second scheduled event of his short Australian visit. And his gift to the gathering was a reminder of the fleeting passage of time.
There was a menu fit for a king, and very Sydney: chargrilled asparagus and olive dust; marinated octopus and squid ink wafer; barramundi and duck confit.
But the sovereign was gone before the first course. He addressed the gathering at NSW’s Parliament House, he offered an hourglass as a present, told lawmakers the “sands of time” would encourage “brevity”, and left within 10 minutes of his arrival in the hall, not to be seen again in public until Monday.
Some people said that the palace officials were basically like… Charles is tired, we’re trying to limit his schedule. But it was a lunch? It was his only other event on Sunday, after the church service. I get it, he’s really tired. But to not even stay ten full minutes at a lunch in your honor when you just had a rest day on Saturday?
Look at how Charles & Cam greeted their well-wishers:
See how Consort Queen Camilla greets people without looking. King Charles doesn’t even bother to say hi! They despise the people who showed up to see them. #RoyalVisitAustralia pic.twitter.com/hlaberYoXR
— Ange Andrews (@andrews_ange) October 20, 2024
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.