Some observant royal watchers thought King Charles looked emotional at times throughout his trip to Canada last week — and a Buckingham Palace spokesperson confirms to CBC News that the normally stoic monarch found delivering the throne speech to be a particularly poignant moment.
“His Majesty was deeply moved and touched by the enthusiastic response to his visit,” the palace spokesperson said.
“On the speech, the standing ovation in particular was an unexpected and emotional moment for His Majesty. You can hear his voice go a bit crackly in the final lines.”
Footage shows Charles looking pleased by the warm reception he received as the assembled dignitaries rose to applaud him and his speech.
Charles’s line about Canada “indeed” being the Truth North “strong and free” was particularly well received in the Senate chamber. There was no act of protest like when an Australian Indigenous senator shouted at the King in Parliament during his visit to that realm last year.
King Charles received a long round of applause on Tuesday in the Senate as he cited Canada’s national anthem, saying the song reminds us, ‘the True North is, indeed, strong and free.’
His voice then wavered and his eyes appeared to well up as he said the final line to the gathered parliamentarians: “May you honour the profound trust bestowed upon you by Canadians, and may God bless and guide you in all your duties.”
Charles also seemed to tear up outside the Senate building as thousands of people watched him arrive in the royal landau and inspect the military honour guard while the Royal Canadian Air Force band played O Canada. After the speech, he cheerfully greeted many of the onlookers and there were no obvious signs of protest.
“It was the warmest of welcomes and the fondest of returns to a nation and a people we love,” Charles and Queen Camilla themselves said in a joint statement released after they left Ottawa.
King Charles and Queen Camilla travelled in a ceremonial horse-drawn carriage through the Parliamentary precinct in Ottawa Tuesday ahead of the speech from the throne.
The U.K. press took note of Charles’s unusual display of emotion on this trip — his 20th official visit to Canada and his first as monarch.
“Royals don’t normally ‘do’ emotion, at least they do their very best to hide whatever feeling they have. But for some reason, King Charles seemed unable to do that on this occasion at the end of a short, but highly significant, visit,” ITV’s royal correspondent Chris Ship wrote in his coverage of the speech.
In an interview with CBC News, Justin Vovk, a royal historian at McMaster University, said there was “more emotion than we’ve come to expect from members of the royal family.”
“I think Charles was taken aback somewhat. The King had been itching to get here and eager to make his presence felt in Canada but no one really knew what kind of reaction he would receive,” Vovk said.
“Journalists, academics, royalists, we were all watching and wondering: would there be a tepid turnout? Would there be protests? And I think once Charles saw the level of reaction from the people, it floored him; it seems he wasn’t expecting it.”
The emotion may also have been driven by just how high-stakes the visit was for him and the country, Vovk said.
In the face of American taunts and insults, Prime Minister Mark Carney pressed Charles into service, asking the head of state to assert Canada’s sovereignty in the first throne speech delivered by a monarch in nearly 50 years.
It was a diplomatic balancing act because Charles, as the sovereign of 15 realms, had to fulfil his duties as King of Canada without torpedoing Anglo-American relations given there’s a sometimes mercurial president in the Oval Office and the U.K. is also facing trade threats.
“Opening Parliament, reading the speech from the throne, these are the most significant constitutional roles that the sovereign plays in our political system,” Vovk said.
“He understood the weight of it politically, personally and dynastically,” he said.
Plus, Vovk said, for Charles, “Canada has deep meaning for him and deep meaning for his family.”
The King’s favoured relative, his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and his own mother, Queen Elizabeth, made dozens of trips to Canada and wrote and spoke fondly about their experiences. Those sentiments have seemingly rubbed off on him, Vovk said.
The Queen Mother, writing to Princess Margaret in 1958, said: “I have a feeling that Canada gives one a boost. They are so nice and so loving and the Mounties are so beautiful and so romantic.”
Looking back at her historic 1939 tour with King George VI on the eve of the Second World War — the first time a reigning monarch had been in North America — the Queen Mother said: “Canada made us.”
Queen Elizabeth, who personally witnessed seminal moments in the nation’s history including the repatriation of the Constitution, described Canada as “home.”
“Charles is acutely aware that he and his family have had a presence in Canada at crucial moments. This is one of those moments,” Vovk said.
“He delivered, very deliberately, slogan-worthy, quotable lines — the True North, strong and free, Canada seeping into his bloodstream and straight to the heart. Those will be phrases associated with the monarchy in Canada for a very long time,” he said.
As for whether Charles’s ongoing cancer battle may have played into his emotional reaction, Vovk said it’s hard to say.
“It’s impossible to speculate on what goes on behind the curtain with the sovereign,” he said.
