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The signs can be small. And subtle. And not formally or publicly acknowledged.
But those who watch King Charles closely see an increase over the last little while in signals and royal symbolism in support of Canada as it faces repeated taunts from U.S. President Donald Trump about becoming the 51st state.
The latest signal came this past week as Charles met new Prime Minister Mark Carney at Buckingham Palace.
“There is no way [King Charles] choosing a red tie was accidental. Not to have chosen a red tie would have been a snub,” said Judith Rowbotham, a social and cultural scholar and visiting research professor at the University of Plymouth in southwestern England, in an interview.
A tie in a colour so closely associated with Canada may seem like a small sartorial detail, but in the world of royal symbolism, it can speak volumes.
“It actually can play a huge role, because it’s an expression of what we call soft power,” said royal historian Justin Vovk.
Prime Minister Mark Carney sits down with King Charles in London during his first foreign trip as Canada’s prime minister.
“The monarchy can’t wield military or economic or political force the way governments do, so they’re forced to resort to indirect avenues to influence or support groups and causes that are important to them.”
These avenues, said Vovk, who is on the advisory board of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada, can take the form of fashion and the clothing members of the Royal Family wear or the kinds of non-political events they take part in.
In mid-February, Charles issued a message commemorating Canada’s Flag Day. Over the past few weeks, he has worn Canadian military medals while visiting a Royal Navy vessel, presented a ceremonial sword to his Canadian attendant and planted a maple tree behind Buckingham Palace (there’s a report from CBC colleague J.P. Tasker detailing some of these below).
There’s also been heavy suggestion that the bright-red dress Catherine, Princess of Wales, wore to the Commonwealth Day service was another sartorial sign of support for Canada.
“HRH The Princess of Wales left no doubt!” Ralph Goodale, Canada’s high commissioner in the U.K., posted on X. “On Commonwealth Day in London she wore Canada’s colours. And so did the U.K.’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. In diplomacy, symbols are important.”
HRH The Princess of Wales left no doubt! On Commonwealth Day in London she wore Canada’s colours. And so did the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. In diplomacy, symbols are important. pic.twitter.com/lcKy8ZYmj6
Vovk sees significance in the timing of what Charles has done, with most of it coming after the King met with Justin Trudeau just days before he stepped down as prime minister.
King Charles, who as a constitutional monarch acts on the advice of the governments where he is head of state, hasn’t made any official public statements on current high-level political matters that are critical for those countries. Nor would he, unless a prime minister asked him to.
“I think it’s a safe bet to say that in that private audience, the King got the advice, the permission, whatever you want to call it, from the now former prime minister that Canadians need some kind of show of support,” Vovk said.
The royals, says Rowbotham, are good at symbolism and have generations of experience showing it.
“There is no way that Charles is not as aware as his mother was of the importance of royal symbolism,” she said, noting the late Queen Elizabeth’s comment, “I have to be seen to be believed.”
Still, given the existential nature of the threat Trump keeps levelling toward Canada, some Canadians might see something like the colour of a tie as a rather limited way to make a statement or try to exert any kind of influence.
“It’s very understandable that people feel that way,” Vovk said.
King Charles and other members of the Royal Family are showing some subtle but notable signs of support for Canada amid its economic fight with the United States.
But if you look at the example of clothing, he said, it is one of the most “clear and recognizable ways of sending a message without using words.”
For the Royal Family, it’s something that goes back to the earliest days of Elizabeth’s reign in the 1950s, Vovk said.
“The wardrobe was chosen to be recognizable. It was a way by wearing a certain colour that was associated with a group or a country [that] the Queen could show that she was recognizing that relationship without having to make a statement that risked violating the constitutional division of power.”
When she went to Ireland, she often wore green. On trips to Canada, red was a frequent choice.
Whether there are further signals of support for Canada from Charles is something that will depend considerably on Canadian agendas, Rowbotham suggested.
“If Canada wants more and that is conveyed through the prime minister, through the other senior officials, the high commissioner, etc., it will be responded to positively.”
One of the more visible signs of support that could come from Charles — an official visit — isn’t in the cards in the near future, given the upcoming federal election campaign. Plans for a visit last year were postponed after his cancer diagnosis.
More broadly, symbolism could take on a greater significance for the Royal Family.
“Monarchy is no longer seen as being the default form of government around the world, and certainly not in Europe and North America,” said Vovk.
“The Royal Family has to tread more carefully than ever with the public and with the prime ministers of the various Commonwealth realms. By using symbolism, it allows the Royal Family to still send out messages, to still show solidarity.”
This has emerged over the war in Ukraine, and the Royal Family’s noticeable use of the country’s colours at various events or engagements.
“Symbolism allows the Royal Family to have a voice without using words that could get them constitutionally into trouble,” Vovk said.
A sword from the King
Our friend in the CBC Politics bureau, J.P. Tasker, had this report the other day:
King Charles presented his Canadian personal attendant and messenger with a new ceremonial sword at Buckingham Palace last week, a symbolic gesture that carries added meaning as the country stares down U.S. President Donald Trump and his increasingly forceful annexationist taunts.
Charles gave Greg Peters, the Usher of the Black Rod in Canada’s Senate, the sword during an audience at his official royal residence in London. Peters was accompanied by Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagné.
In the royal tradition, a sword like this is seen as a symbol of sovereignty. The Senate commissioned the sword to mark the change of reign from Elizabeth to Charles.
Buckingham Palace does not publicly comment on the King’s private audiences.
But a palace source told CBC News there was a particularly warm exchange between Peters, a staunch monarchist originally from Prince Edward Island, and the sovereign during the sword presentation and the audience that followed.
The King, Peters and Gagné had a 30-minute discussion about topics of great concern in Canada and internationally, the palace source said.
The King also reaffirmed his Flag Day message, the source said, a reference to Charles’s February statement when he said Canada is “a proud, resilient and compassionate country” and the sight of the Canada’s maple-leaf flag elicits “a sense of pride and admiration.”
Nathan Tidridge, vice-president of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada, said handing over a sword to someone like Peters at this juncture is “deeply meaningful symbolism.”
“The sword is being presented at this time when the country is under attack — it’s remarkable,” said Tidridge, who is also a high school teacher in Waterdown, Ont., and an expert on Crown-Indigenous history.
“What you’re seeing is the Crown reinforcing Canadian sovereignty. I worry his government advisers just don’t know what to do with him. He can do so much to highlight Canada, he just needs to be better utilized.”
Tidridge said it’s easy to dismiss the sword ceremony as a meaningless symbol — but symbols and ceremony are “so tied to national identity” and Canada needs to cherish them now more than ever.
“We’re in an existential crisis and Canadians are looking for things to really rally around right now — the Crown should be one of them.”
The sword exchange and audience was the second time in two weeks the King received a Canadian delegation.
Charles met with Trudeau and Ralph Goodale, Canada’s high commissioner to the U.K., at Sandringham House, northeast of London, after a summit on Ukraine’s future.
Trudeau said the two discussed Canadian sovereignty and the country’s “independent future.”
The day after that Trudeau meeting, Charles toured a Royal Navy ship wearing a naval uniform outfitted with his Canadian medals.
In a social media post, the Canadian High Commission thanked the King for what it called a “meaningful gesture.”
Charles also planted a red maple leaf tree on the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
The tree-planting was described as a tribute to his late mother and to commemorate the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, a pan-Commonwealth network of forest conservation projects — but the symbolism was not lost on royal watchers.
Christopher McCreery, an expert on Canadian honours and the Crown, said these gestures are like Elizabeth’s “brooch warfare,” where she’d choose a specific brooch to wear for a specific state visit.
The Queen, for example, wore a sapphire snowflake brooch gifted to her by Canada’s Governor General after meeting Trump during a visit to the U.K. in July 2018. Canada and the U.S. were sparring at the time over his first-term steel and aluminum tariffs and the fraught NAFTA renegotiation talks.
For his visit to the naval vessel, Charles “could’ve worn a bunch of different uniforms” that don’t include his Canadian regalia, McCreery said.
“The 51st state talk has already become very tiresome for, I think, every single Canadian. So I’m sure it’s equally tiresome for the King as King of Canada.”
A Canadian on the King’s music list
Canadian crooner Michael Bublé can count King Charles among his fans.
Bublé’s 2009 chart-topper Haven’t Met You Yet is one of 17 tracks on Charles’s Apple Music playlist, which debuted on Commonwealth Day earlier this month.
The King’s Music Room serves up songs spanning 10 decades and offers genres ranging from Afrobeat to disco and reggae from artists throughout the Commonwealth.
The list kicks off with Could You Be Loved by Bob Marley & The Wailers and My Boy Lollipop from Millie Small. It ends beyond the Commonwealth and on an American note, with Crazy in Love from Beyoncé and Upside Down from Diana Ross.
“Throughout my life, music has meant a great deal to me,” Charles says, while seated at his desk at Buckingham Palace.
It is something that “can lift our spirits” and “brings us joy.”
The playlist is both “a time capsule and place capsule,” said Catherine Moore, an adjunct professor in the faculty of music at the University of Toronto.
“This is many different parts of the world, many different types of music.”
Moore was curious about the singers on the King’s list and looked them all up.
“The youngest is age 27, that’s RAYE. The oldest was born in 1899 and actually died in 1941, so seven years before King Charles was born,” she said.
For those listening to the playlist, the songs could spark various memories or connections. For Moore, that ranged from thinking of buying her first Grace Jones (La Vie En Rose) cassette to how Anoushka Shankar (Indian Summer) is playing in Toronto on March 25.
“It brings all these things together, and I’d like to imagine that it does the same for King Charles.”
It’s also a reflection of how times have changed.
‘Here we are in the digital age, entering what he’s calling The King’s Music Room. And so you think … back in time, you’d have to go to the palace and be a courtier to hear the King’s music,” said Moore.
Thinking about what might have led Charles to choose each song is interesting, Moore suggested.
“Music connects people. It opens doors. It makes us think about what was the relationship between these artists and how do they connect in a person’s mind.”
Royally quotable
“That’s the least I can do.”
— Catherine, Princess of Wales, after members of the Irish Guards thanked her for putting money behind the bar. Catherine joined the soldiers for a drink after celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with the regiment. She became its colonel in chief in 2023.
Royal reads
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If royal visits are about sending a message, then the picture of Prince William in a tank near the Russian border must be one of the most direct. [BBC]
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Queen Camilla sent a personal letter of support to French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot. [BBC]
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Heavily redacted court documents related to Prince Harry’s U.S. visa have been released in the U.S., with his “exact status” remaining confidential over fears he could be subjected to harassment. [The Guardian]
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King Charles learned about groundbreaking research into cancer therapies during a visit to Northern Ireland. [BBC]
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King Charles and Queen Camilla are still planning to meet Pope Francis in the Vatican when they travel to Italy next month despite the Pope’s ongoing illness. [ITV]
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Police have admitted acting unlawfully in arresting a trainee Baptist minister who called out “Who elected him?” at a local proclamation of the accession of King Charles. [The Guardian]
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She was known as the “nine-day queen” and was used as a pawn in the ruthless ambition that defined the Tudor court. But for centuries, historians have struggled to find a single portrait of Lady Jane Grey that was painted during her lifetime. Now, research suggests a mysterious portrait depicts the royal who reigned over England for slightly more than a week in the summer of 1553. [The Guardian]
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