Over the weekend, we learned that King Charles and the Prince of Wales planned to skip President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral, which was held in Washington yesterday. I think most people understood that Charles couldn’t or wouldn’t attend, but it’s still bizarre to me that Prince William skipped it without even offering a statement or reason why. Yes, it was his wife’s birthday, but that wasn’t even cited as an official reason why the “global statesman” skipped out on an event which saw dignitaries from around the world gather in DC. Instead, former prime minister Gordon Brown and Prince Edward were sent to the funeral. Edward sat next to outgoing Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. Now even old-guard royalists are wondering if William should have gone:
Prince William’s decision to swerve Jimmy Carter’s funeral means he has turned his back on a major “global stage,” a royal author told Newsweek. The Prince of Wales spent Thursday marking Princess Kate’s 43rd birthday, paying a heartfelt tribute to her “strength” in a post on X. Prince Edward—who is 14th in the line of succession—flew to America to pay the royal family’s respects to Carter in D.C., where he has been lying in state at the Capitol building.
Ingrid Seward, author of the bestselling book My Mother and I, about King Charles III and Queen Elizabeth II, told Newsweek: “Of course Americans would have preferred William but on the other hand I think Edward was 13 when Jimmy Carter was president. It’s possible that Edward did meet him. Yes America would prefer William but I think it was quite carefully considered and decided that Edward would be the right person to go.”
“Kate wouldn’t have let her birthday encroach on it,” Seward continued. “If William was meant to be going she would have said you’ve got to go.”
Carter visited Britain in 1977, the first year of his term as president, and attended a state banquet at Buckingham Palace as a guest of Queen Elizabeth II.
William certainly has more name recognition in America than his uncle Edward and attending the funeral would have given him an opportunity to build on his growing status a global statesman.
“It would have been a good opportunity for William to go,” Seward said. “He probably has missed a trick. You can’t get a bigger global stage than Jimmy Carter’s funeral today, especially with everything that’s happening in California.”
I will continue to point out that when Charles was PoW, he was constantly stepping in to represent his mother at these kinds of state events. Charles was known for it, and that’s why he (legitimately) has all of these international relationships to draw on at any given time. He was an internationalist Prince of Wales and he’s an internationalist king. Meanwhile, William is content to be king of the British tabloids and prince of Britain’s dying royalist class. There’s always been a sense, even now that William is well into his 40s, that William can’t be trusted to not make a horse’s ass out of himself internationally, and like William still needs significant “management.”
Photos courtesy of Getty, Cover Images.
