While King Charles and his heir Prince William have been making moves on the global stage this past week, the Princess of Wales has been busy with a series of solo engagements as she defines herself as the next Queen.
This week saw Catherine make a visit to a center for children with additional needs, where the princess showed off her playful side with the youngsters while chatting to their parents. Earlier in the week, she toured a heritage textile mill where luxury fabrics are manufactured for clients including Gucci.
On paper, these events may seem straightforward, and yet pictures from the engagements made all the evening bulletins and many of the newspapers the next day.
Kate has shown herself to be a key player among the senior royals -- one who can more than hold her own. Since becoming Princess of Wales, she has broadened out the types of engagements she wants to do and thrown herself in, to the delight of the royal photographers.
As much as the fashion journalists would love Kate to don designer wear, she's more focused on highlighting her work. These efforts are broadly associated with the causes she has backed for the past decade. Her deep understanding of these causes has clearly helped her gain confidence, while her enthusiasm for connecting with the public at these events is helping her cut through.
"You can really see she cares, and she wants to make a change," said one mother who met the princess at an engagement this week, the PA Media news agency reported. |
But connecting with the public doesn't only happen at official engagements. Sometimes it can be where you least expect it. In case you missed it amid the royal tours of late, a video went viral in recent weeks after a group of cyclists bumped into King Charles during a ride through the Balmoral estate in Scotland (Watch the moment here).
Scottish mountain biker Andrew McAvoy posted footage of his royal encounter, during which the group asked the monarch if he was on his summer vacation and Charles discussed his love of walking, even though the "midges were horrendous."
All in all, it was a somewhat run-of-the-mill conversation before the unassuming sovereign, dressed plainly in a jacket and flat cap, warned the cyclists not to "fall off" and went on his way.
Speaking to camera, McAvoy appeared a little stunned by the regal encounter, describing the moment as "pretty cool."
He added: "What a nice man, lovely man, had time for us... I'm annoyed because I didn't want to care, but that was quite cool."
Later in the video, the cyclist recounted the ride and meeting the King. "I'm not a royalist. I don't really care about the royal family, but it was really cool to meet him... it actually made my day," he mused. |
This simple encounter was an example of something we've seen time and again. While the public know a lot about Charles' official work and the causes he cares about, they know very little about him personally.
In one-on-one exchanges, away from his aides, the King has a natural ability to find an authentic connection with the people he meets, often winning over the public with his genuine interest in what they have to say. No doubt royal fans will be keen to see more of this as the Carolean era gets underway. |
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South Korea's president will visit the United Kingdom for a state visit in November. Exact dates have yet to be announced, but Buckingham Palace said Yoon Suk Yeol had accepted an invitation from the King and will be accompanied on the trip by his wife, Kim Keon Hee.
Charles and Camilla will host the visiting leader, but it won't be the first time the King and the president have met. Yoon traveled to London for Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, attending a reception the evening before the ceremony. |
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A group of anti-monarchy campaigners recently staged what organizers called the first-ever protest inside Buckingham Palace. "The group of local activists from different parts of the UK visited the palace as tourists, before standing in the Grand Hall," Britain's largest anti-monarchist group, Republic, said in a statement. The group released a photo in which protesters were seen standing inside the royal residence wearing T-shirts that spelled out "Not My King." Find out more about the demonstration here.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, in Ankara, Turkey on Wednesday. |
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"Their contribution has been beyond measure in so many areas of our national life, but perhaps more so than in the selfless duty they have given to our health service across the decades."
– King Charles III
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The monarch thanked members of the Windrush generation of immigrants from the Caribbean to Britain for their incredible contribution to the National Health Service (NHS) during the past 75 years. "It was those first volunteers who left their homes and families to cross the world that made the creation of the NHS possible," Charles said in a message read out at the Who Cares Wins health awards in London this week. "It is the commitment of all who followed in their footsteps that has helped sustain it for 75 years."
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