The new king will address both houses of parliament in London on Monday before embarking on a program of visits to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This will begin in Edinburgh, where the body of the late Queen Elizabeth II arrived on Sunday after a six-hour procession from her Scottish summer retreat of Balmoral, with large crowds witnessing along the route. Liz Truss, Britain’s new prime minister, will accompany King Charles to church services during his tour under the terms of long-planned official arrangements. The cortege passes St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, where the Queen’s body will lie in state on Monday and Tuesday © Getty Images But some constitutional experts warned her presence risked politicizing events designed to cement the King’s pointed promise to serve his subjects “wherever you live in the UK”. During the recent Conservative leadership election, Truss dismissed Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister who is pushing for another independence referendum, as an “attention campaigner”. After leading a procession to carry his mother’s coffin down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral on Monday, King Charles will meet Sturgeon and attend a meeting of the Scottish Parliament to offer condolences. Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party, which seized on Brexit to demand a second independence referendum, said a vote to leave the UK would not mean the end of the monarchy. Crowds lined the streets of Edinburgh for the Queen’s arrival © ADAM VAUGHAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock But pro-independence analysts questioned the wisdom of allowing Truss to add a political dimension to the King’s first UK tour. “It’s a strategic mistake for Charles III early on because rights are meant to be apolitical,” said Gerry Hassan, professor of social change at Glasgow Caledonian University and author of Scotland Rising: The Case for Independence, due to be published later. this month. Polls show the monarchy is less popular in Scotland than in England, although it still has majority support. Recently, support for an elected head of state has grown significantly among 18- to 24-year-olds. “The royal family has to reinvent itself all the time and I suspect the new King and his team will be very aware of some of these numbers,” said Mark Diffley of the Diffley Partnership, an Edinburgh-based polling firm. “They will need to work hard to stay relevant.” On Tuesday, while the Queen’s body will be flown to London, the King will visit Northern Ireland, where politics have also been roiled by the fallout from the 2016 Brexit vote that increased public support for a united Ireland. Many nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland greeted the news of the new monarch with indifference, but some residents reported cheers, applause and fireworks following the queen’s death. King Charles and Liz Truss meet on Friday. Her accompanying the new monarch on his upcoming UK tour has attracted some criticism © Yui Mok/AFP/Getty Images Sinn Fein, the nationalist party pushing for a united Ireland, did not attend the coronation of King Charles on Sunday at Hillsborough Castle near Belfast. Leader Mary Lou McDonald said this was “for those whose political allegiance is to the British Crown”. Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s first minister in Northern Ireland, signed a book of condolence for the Queen and appealed for respect. He will meet King Charles with other politicians at Hillsborough. On Friday, King Charles will visit Wales. Until his accession he was Prince of Wales, a title he bestowed on his son, William, soon after his mother’s death, to the chagrin of some Welsh nationalists. A petition that has gathered more than 15,000 signatures said the title was a “symbol of sovereignty” in Wales, which has had an English prince since 1282, when Edward I completed its conquest. Truss lashed out at Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales, during a Conservative leadership challenge, describing the principality’s most senior Labor politician as a “low-energy Jeremy Corbyn”. Daniel Wincott, professor of law and society at Cardiff University, said the King’s tour was necessary because of the growing impact of Scottish and Welsh political devolution on the UK’s constitutional balance since the Queen ascended the throne in 1952. “Wales had no capital in 1952,” he added. “Even after Cardiff became the capital, the 1969 ceremony for Charles as Prince of Wales was in Caernarfon, which shows how devolution has changed the political landscape.”
