Located in the heart of Galway City on High Street the King’s Head has been in the center of the revolution for 800 years. Its signage features the head of Charle I, the only English King to be executed during the English Revolution.
King Charles III takes the throne this weekend, but most English miss his Mum
The Kings Head may look and feel like a pub that has been around forever — and it does have links to the 14 Tribes of Galway, as well as the Mayor of Galway. But it became significant, when Richard Brandon, Executioner for the City of London refused involvement in the Execution of King Charles I, the face that adorns the sign today. Oliver Cromwell, the Protestant caretaker responsible for the English Revolution, sent emissaries to Ireland, Scotland and Wales, which his armies had taken over, in search of a volunteer. Behind the home of Peter Stubbers, Galway’s new Military Governor — the first English and non-tribal Mayor of Galway City — lived Richard Gunning, who agreed to do the job. Local legend had it that Gunning was given the property as payment for his part in the execution of King Charles I, “the Price of Royal Blood.”
Eventually, following the English Reformation, Ireland’s independence, “The Troubles,” and other travesties, the Grealish family took over the King’s Head. They uncovered the medieval walls and restored the medieval windows. They brought in Irish musicians to play free, live Irish music seven nights a week, along with regular stand-up comedy and lunchtime theatre. The King’s Head has become the type of gathering and community place that Charles III, newly crowned this past weekend, might actually appreciate, even if it does allude to the downfall of the Stuart monarchy.
The Coronation of King Charles III
Back in London, nearly 400 miles away, the former Prince of Wales was exchanging robes, getting rubbed with oil, being presented with swords and orbs and sceptres and crowns, and eventually, making his way to Buckingham Palace in a 253-year-old Gold State Coach — the one that the late Queen used in 1952. Since that time, Britain has been awash in various controversies surrounding the treatment of various parties surrounding the main event. The Met police detained 52 people associated with the anti-monarchical movement, Republic, on charges of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance just days after striking a deal with the city for peaceful protest. Other protestors against Big Oil and for other causes, also faced silencing in exchange for the perfect pageantry — a specialty of the English. Even Prince Harry left the ceremony aggrieved over his diminished role. The official “coronation photo” shows King Charles with Prince William and Prince George, sans the other son.
Another coronation cake featuring the Coronation designed by Apple genius Jony Ive. The logo merges he rose of England, the thistle of Scotland, the daffodil of Wales and the shamrock of Northern Ireland to form the shape of St Edward’s crown.
Since the partying ended on a week ago Sunday night following the coronation concert, however, the new King Charles is nowhere to be found, begging the question of the kind of king he aims to become: an active one engaged in the day-to-day affairs of government, as his “Black Spider Memos” to politicians and ministers over the years, suggest; one who took a more middle ground, like his mother, or a monarch on a perpetual holiday. Before the big day, all things indicated that Charles, a brooding, self-conscious young prince could the hardest-working king of the 21st Century.
The “work” of a “working royal” has alway been a bit hard to define. The position of Prince of Wales had no specified constitutional purpose or duties after his stint at Cambridge and in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, Charles’ staff researched many precedents and possibilities. The Prince once told The Telegraph that it would be “criminally negligent” of him to do nothing, so he started more than a dozen charities, including the Prince’s Trust, and has served as the patron of of others.
Another cake for one of the suggested “garden parties” to be had during coronation weekend. This one represents the St. Edward's Crown, used during the coronation ceremony of Queen Elizabeth.
King Charles III, like his extremely Catholic first namesake, has also spoken out for years on his most passionate causes from preserving monuments to gardening to alternative medicine, often skirting the line of England’s constitutional mandate that monarchs remain apolitical. The danger of this became apparent when in 2019 he fretted that young people weren’t learning the church organ due to lack of access. Two years later, England had International Organ Day and the backing of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
A Greene King ale “with its bright tropical fruit notes and smooth, satisfying finish,” the Coronation Ale — originally brewed in Bury St Edmunds to celebrate the Coronation of Edward VIII — was saved for Charles III
It’s been said many, many, many times — and well documented in The Crown, that perennial thorn in the monarchy’s side — that Charles has often been the “cuckoo in the royal nest,” according to a recent New Yorker essay. The first member of his immediate family to attend college, the king has never been considered intellectual, but reads history — and Shakespeare, as his estranged son, Prince Harry, wrote about in his scathing biography, Spare. He’s also long been an environmentalist, warning of the dangers of pollution and industrial farming in the 1980s. A 1984 article in the Daily Mirror envisioned the future king sitting “cross-legged on the throne wearing a kaftan and eating muesli.” He said of his onetime positions, “Perhaps we just have to accept that it is God’s will that the unorthodox individual is doomed to years of frustration, ridicule, and failure in order to act out his role in the scheme of things, until his day arrives, and mankind is ready to receive his message.”
A set of “unofficial” English humour coronation mugs lining the table of a store in Islington.
But perhaps the most pertinent role for the new king would be as head of tourism — chief promoter of the British way of life, with all its quirks and charms. Although his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, ceded several of the colonies under the English empire to independence, Charles III must prepare to potentially let go of more. Shortly after Charles was confirmed king, Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said he intended to hold a republic referendum within the next three years. “This is not an act of hostility or any difference between Antigua and Barbuda and the monarchy, but it is the final step to complete that circle of independence,” he told broadcaster ITV News. In March, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness told Charles’ son William that the nation was “moving on” as an independent country, thanks to a survey that showed 56 percent of Jamaicans favoured removing the British monarch as the head of state. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves proposed a referendum for July.
The “official china” of the coronation, mass produced and sold in every trinket shop across Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Notwithstanding, recent attempts to measure the size of the impact of the royal family on UK tourism have estimated the capital value of UK monarchy as £67.5 billion ($85 billion) and the annual contribution to the UK economy £1.766 billion ($1.9 billion). Visit Britain, the national tourism agency responsible for marketing England, Scotland and Wales worldwide, does not collate statistics on the royal family as an attraction. That said, it has found that 60 percent of overseas visitors to Britain are likely to visit places associated with the royal family. More than a third of tourists visiting London list Buckingham Palace as a ‘must see’ top preference; the Tower of London, housing the Crown Jewels, is reputedly amongst the most visited paid-for UK attractions. Everyone loved the queen (and maybe they will love the king.
A large St. Edwards crown hangs over the city centre of Nottingham the week before the coronation.
“We have observed the power of a monarch in attracting the tourist gaze of domestic and international visitors, albeit difficult to quantify in hard metrics,” the Regional Studies Association, a UK think tank surmised late last year. “We have also witnessed, amongst habitual, dedicated, and enthusiastic “Royal Tourists,” a psychological need for royal narratives and for imagined participation in royal lives that has persevered.
“Yet, we note tensions within the devolved nations of Scotland and Wales around the transition of monarch.” Um, duh.
Charles advertises for the Peachy King Bar near Covent Garden.
While the average annual cost for UK taxpayers in royal upkeep comes to around £500 million a year, Brand Finance estimates the monarchy’s brand contributes £2.5 billion to the British economy in the same timeframe. So in addition to pontificating on politically correct causes, such as the environment, and occasionally talking the Tories out of a bad idea, the monarchy generates about four times what it costs citizens.
Whether Charles makes more money for England or helps usher in a more progressive, cultured and benevolent society remains to be seen. But he can’t do much worse than Charles I, or Charles II for that matter. Charles I lost popular support over public welfare issues such as the imposition of drainage schemes in The Fens. Moreover, Charles believed in the divine right of kings, thinking themselves above the law. After his defeat by Parliament in the Civil Wars, Charles I was imprisoned and on 20 January 1649 the High Court of Justice at Westminster Hall put him on trial for treason. Ten days later, a large crowd of men, women and children assembled in the ‘open street before Whitehall in anticipation the execution of their king. With one blow of his axe the executioner severed the King’s head from his body, killing him instantly. The executioner held up King Charles’s head for the crowd to see. Some spectators sought grisly souvenirs of the event, rushing forward to dip their handkerchiefs into the royal blood. A week later the monarchy was officially abolished.
The coronation as environmental science fair project. Another sign of monarchial change near Covent Garden in Central London.
Charles II, a monarch in exile until the English tired of Oliver Cromwell, would rule closely with parliament, and returned to popular acclaim. The royalists made new regalia, as the previous crown had been melted down, and the new king returned a flair for public spectacle. But the final phase of Charles II's reign was taken up mainly with attempts to settle religious dissension — to show favouritism to one side or even tolerance was potentially fatal. Charles managed to please no religion, but somehow managed to avert open rebellion.
Because Charles had no legitimate children, there was a widespread fear that his Roman Catholic brother James would inherit the throne. Charles looked to marry off James’ daughter to Protestant Prince William of Orange in Holland to keep the Protestant throne alive. The plan ultimately worked. Four hundred years later, we have Charles III to endure, William, the next in line and as always, the royal drama of family — as well as the King’s Head pubs to watch the telly and argue about it all.
Among the streets of Camden Passage in the heart of Islington, however, the Queen still speaks to the passers-by. This window, a part of an apartment block owned by an American ex-pat, has been devoted to the late QE II since the 90s.