Queen Elizabeth II was a thoroughly admirable woman who conducted herself throughout her life with unfailing dignity and integrity.
The same cannot be said for all her family. It was a marvel that the Queen endured with such grace and stoicism the serial humiliations inflicted on her by Charles, Andrew and her grandson Harry. She deserved better.
Charles revealed his true character with his sham marriage to Lady Diana Spencer and has never fully rehabilitated himself in the public eye.
The new king is weak, pompous, priggish and ineffectual, but also vain enough that he will find it hard - unlike his mother - to resist meddling in politics. His accession to the throne is bound to energise the republican movement.
