Newsglobal.com.ng
At its peak, the government of the British Empire oversaw 531 million people, on three continents ranging from North America to Oceania. It was once said that the sun never set on the British Empire, but over the years, the global reach of the monarchy began to decline.
Seven prime ministers posed in the Throne Room of Buckingham Palace in London at a dinner hosted by Queen Elizabeth II on December 3, 1952, for ministers attending the Commonwealth Conference and their wives. From left: Dudley Senanayake, Prime Minister of Ceylon; Sir Godfrey Hugging, Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia; Sidney Holland, Prime Minister of New Zealand; Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; the queen; Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia; Louis St. Laurent; Prime Minister of Canada; Nicholas Havenga, Minister of Finance of South Africa; Khawaja Nazimuddin, Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Sir Chintaman Deshmukh, Minister of Finance of India. (AP Photo)
Six years after the devastation of World War I, Britain announced that all members of the Empire would be considered equal. This meant that the monarchy and its Parliament had no power over the domestic and foreign policies of these “Dominions”.
After World War II, the British Empire would continue to contract, as the countries under its colonial rule fought and gained their independence. In 1949, the British Commonwealth of Nations would no longer ask members to swear allegiance to the crown, and all nations under the umbrella of the association would simply be known as the Commonwealth of Nations.
Following queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne in 1952, the Commonwealth had already lost Ireland in 1948. Eire gained its autonomy in 1921 after 800 years of British involvement, leaving only the six counties of Northern Ireland, out of the island’s 32 counties. , as part of the United Kingdom.
During her coronation speech in 1953, the new monarch acknowledged and praised Britain’s imperial past. “I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and annals of more than a thousand years, but also the living strength and majesty of the Commonwealth and the Empire,” she said.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive in Jaipur, India, on January 22, 1961, greeted at the airport by Governor Gurmukh Nihal Singh. (AP Photo)
Elizabeth, the longest-serving sovereign in Britain, was on the throne seven years longer than Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother, who oversaw the expansion of Britain’s colonial possessions.
“[The] Queen’s reign is the kind of big rebranding for the British Empire, which was originally based on an ideology that dictated that whites and their settler descendants would be in charge,” Dr. Liam Liburd, an assistant professor of Black British history at Durham University in England, told Yahoo News.
“The development of the Commonwealth after the Queen’s coronation in 1953 can be seen as a kind of consolation prize for the British Empire.”
Decline of the empire
Over the decades, the Commonwealth would see the loss of territories and the departure of countries, with some rejoining. In the 1960s, most British colonies in Africa and Asia were independent, although some chose to remain part of the Commonwealth, an option offered on a voluntary basis.
The Queen meets a Chinese dragon dancer in Hong Kong during the 1975 Royal Tour. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Its most important colony in Asia left in 1997, when after 156 years, the United Kingdom ceded control of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China. Today, the British monarch is the head of state of 14 nations, including a collection of islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans that remain Britain’s colonial possessions.
New King
After the death of Queen Elizabeth, the Commonwealth gained a new leader, in her son and heir, King Charles III.
“She began as queen of the British Empire and became the queen of the British nation, unable and to some extent reluctant to accept the loss of the empire, and with several Commonwealth nations reconsidering their ties with Britain and the Commonwealth,” Liburd told Yahoo News.
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, delivers a speech at a dinner for Commonwealth heads of government on June 24 this year in Kigali, Rwanda. (Chris Jackson/fake images)
But what does the future of the Commonwealth look like for the reign of King Charles and how, as British Prime Minister Liz Truss described it after the Queen’s death, “our new carolea era” (from Carolus, the Latin version of Charles) will differ from the Elizabethan? years? If Queen Victoria built the Empire, will her great-great-grandson lose it all?
The future
Last year, Barbados became the world’s newest republic, after its citizens voted to remove the queen as their head of state. Speaking at the celebration event of the new republic, Prince Charles, a guest speaker, acknowledged the “appalling atrocity of slavery” the island had suffered. While Barbados dismissed the Queen as its head of state, it decided to remain a member of the Commonwealth.
Following in Barbados’ footsteps, six other Caribbean countries — Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Bahamas, Grenada, Jamaica and St. Kitts and Nevis — also signaled their intention to remove the British monarch as their sovereign.
Prince Charles speaks at the presidential inauguration ceremony marking the birth of a new republic in Barbados at Heroes Square in Bridgetown, Barbados, on Nov. 30, 2021, with President Sandra Mason of Barbados sitting to his left. (Jeff J. Mitchell/Pool via Reuters)
The news came after two real tours that were met with protests and PR disasters. In Belize and Jamaica, locals formally apologized to the visiting royal family. “As we saw with Prince William and Princess Kate’s Caribbean tour earlier this year, I think things are already changing,” Liburd told Yahoo News. “In many ways, the Commonwealth looks a bit like the monarchy itself. It has a kind of anachronistic, perhaps remnant, obsolete political order.”
Speaking at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Rwanda in June, Charles revealed an opening to members about the evolutionary state of the association. “I want to say clearly, as I have said before, that the constitutional arrangement of each member, as a republic or monarchy, is purely a matter for each member country to decide,” he said. “The benefit of long life brings me the experience that arrangements like these can change, calmly and without rancor”.
Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, travel in an antique Land Rover from Kingston, Jamaica, once used by Queen Elizabeth, as they leave a parade for staff completing the Caribbean Military Academy’s Officer Training Program, on their Caribbean tour on March 24. (Toby
Closer to home, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon proposed a date for another referendum on independence, and talks have been held on reuniting Northern Ireland with the republican south.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Sky News he would not hold an independence referendum in his first term, out of “respect and admiration” for the queen. However, he did not rule out the possibility of being re-elected.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, leader of neighboring New Zealand, said removing the British sovereign was inevitable but not a priority of her government. “I’ve made my point clear many times,” Ardern said after the queen’s death. “I think that’s where New Zealand will head, over time. I think it’s likely to happen during my lifetime.”
As a growing number of countries relinquish their ties to the British monarchy, the decline of the Commonwealth reduces Britain’s presence on the world stage.
“Restless lies the head wearing a crown,” is how William Shakespeare described the burden and responsibility of leadership in the second part of his play “Henry IV.” Maybe that’s how King Charles feels about leading his shrinking kingdom.
NGI 
SKJ