In Robert Hardman’s biography, Charles III is like a vintage Rolls-Royce being serviced for a Formula One grand prix

No amount of royal protocol can disguise it: Charles has inherited the throne in an era when the monarchy is at risk of being outpaced by modern life. But a new biography of his first year in the job is well oiled with discretion and approaches the future with caution, writes Robert McCrum

King Charles III is crowned during his coronation on 6 May last year (PA)

For 70-something frustrating years, he was Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor, our longest monarch-in-waiting. About a year ago, according to the “inside story” of this “new court”, His Royal Highness faced a choice. He could have put the curse of I (the Martyr) and II (the Merry Monarch) behind him, ducked the role of III, and become “King George VII”, after his grandfather. But when his staff, following “regnal” custom, asked the big question, they got the expected answer. He’d be no better, he’d be just the same: Charles. In the immortal words of the American baseball legend Yogi Berra, it was “deja vu all over again.”

A trove of royal trivia, this souvenir volume celebrates the first year of this “new reign”. Intentionally or not, titbits about the Gold Stick, the Anointing Screen, or the Sword of Offering promote a picture of the Monty Python world surrounding a thousand-year British institution. Some readers indeed might be tempted to wonder: if George not Charles, then why not Eric, Nigel, Fred, (or even Brian)?

Such speculations are alien to the mind of Robert Hardman. A Clarence House fixture and a Daily Mail journalist, having specialised in this esoteric subject for “more than 25 years”, Hardman is unsurprisingly convinced that he’s the man for the job. This is “not an authorized portrait”, he tells us, but “an authoritative one”. Well, up to a point, your royal highness.

There’s not much in Hardman’s picture of a king “determined to maximise ‘the time God grants me’” that’s going to frighten the horses. The “Henry V Test” does not refer to III’s secret plan to invade France, but inter-office etiquette surrounding the protocols governing any transfer of the crown (III was squeamish about a “Regency”). This seamless, devout narrative is well-oiled with discretion, with a handful of scoops making front pages, largely regarding the family’s hostility towards Harry and Meghan. This came from the top: her late Majesty is said to have been enraged, (“as angry as I’ve ever seen her”) at the Sussexes claim that she had given “her blessing” to their appropriation of “Lilibet”, her childhood name. This further fuels a long-running row: in 2021, the Sussexes described BBC claims that they had not consulted the Queen about the naming as “defamatory and false”. Hardman also reveals that the sole funeral rehearsal for the late Queen was a “comedy of errors”, with a Gentleman at Arms nearly crushed, as well as poignant details about her final hours (“She wouldn’t have been aware of anything. No pain,” wrote her private secretary, Sir Edward Young, in a memo).

But if you thrill to the news that Jack Russells have supplanted corgis, or that III is fanatical about fresh air, rarely eats lunch, has never watched The Crown, owns a racy collection of ties, is a slave to obligation, prefers to write his own speeches, and adores planting trees, then this is holy writ. Besides – hold the front page! – there’s more. Hardman, like many in “the new court”, is smitten with our new Queen. If you want to hear that Camilla loves the Rolling Stones, winks at bishops, is an avid reader of new novels, and known to her grandchildren as “Ga-ga”, Charles III must be bedside reading.

Hardman comes from the “keep calm and carry on” school of journalism. His House of Windsor 2.0 describes an organisation running on empty, but still banging an old drum: devotion to “the Firm”, while remaining constitutionally risk-averse. Once Hardman has celebrated the late Queen’s exit as possibly the greatest funeral “of all time”, he trumpets an “assured start to a new reign”.

Obsessive media management, combined with the Windsors’ instinct for silence, inevitably derives from “the Boss” (the new queen’s crafty nod to her husband). Behind the smiles and flummery, III inherits an awkward situation that protocol cannot disguise. Never mind the long shadow of his much-loved mother, he’s a quite vain, insecure man of uneven temper, acceding to a throne forged among horses and halberds in the age of Harry & St George, who must somehow conjure ancient magic for his reign in the age of AI, TikTok, Covid, and Twitter/X. It’s an unenviable predicament. So, how’s he doing?

The cover of ‘Charles III: New King. New Court.The Inside Story’ by Robert Hardman (Macmillan)

The closer to Operation Golden Orb (the coronation), the more Charles III reads like the tale of a vintage Rolls-Royce being serviced for a Formula One grand prix. At the wheel, amid a miracle of leather, brass, and fossil-fuel, we find a tetchy Mr Toad, an old fellow in tweed, trying to do six impossible things before breakfast (his favourite meal). In short, to reconcile the unfashionable mystery and grandeur of kingship with his bone-deep longing for an ordinary life. III’s favourite line from his beloved Shakespeare, lamenting his loss of normality, (not quoted by Hardman),comes from Henry V (IV. i. 218): “What infinite hearts-ease. Must kings neglect that private men enjoy?”

Hardman does his best to celebrate the hearts-ease (the numbing routine, the dogs, horses and trees, and many gorgeous palaces) but he’s a journalist as much as a courtier. He must grapple with Megxit and Spare, the anguish and disappointment of III’s failings as a father. In this version, the Californian cyclone becomes mere “headwinds”. Following his mother’s example, III’s officials mobilise platoons of euphemism to dismiss controversy with paranoia-cum-disdain. Buried in Charles III, there are several notable jabs at Prince Harry’s bitter rage, over which Hardman hardly lingers. A scion of the Daily Mail, he must know rather more than he’s letting on.

In the credit margin, with sighs of relief, the House of Windsor comes out ahead. It’s all gone much better than anticipated

For devout royalists, a disproportionate chunk of Charles III is given to an overlong account of the 2022 coronation. Inhibited by discretion, stage fright, and good taste, Hardman cannot regale us with the back story, though he does drop some hints of backstage snafus. Instead, he deviates into cagey comparisons with the crownings of 1937 (George VI) and 1953 ( QE II).

So here we are, at the end of Year One. In the credit margin, with sighs of relief, the House of Windsor comes out ahead. It’s all gone much better than anticipated. Pen-gate was a “rich source of amusement”, soon forgotten. “Headwinds” still surround the Duke of York. As well as some shifts in our eco-sphere, with which III is all too familiar, there’s some ominous climate-change in European royalty. Denmark, Spain and Holland offer examples of wobbly thrones, with foreign royals stepping back, down, or even out. On Prince William, Hardman is cautious, reporting that the Prince of Wales “appreciates his father’s dedication” and has “his own issues with the Sussexes”. Besides – huzza! – III is “a huge fan of the new Princess of Wales”. Nevertheless, in the index, like the Sherlock Holmes dog that does not bark, there’s one word for which you’ll search in vain: Abdication.

Charles III: New King. New Court.The Inside Story (Macmillan, £22, pp. 454)