King Charles is set to visit Australia and Samoa this month for a tour starting on Friday, 18 October, and ending on 26 October. This will be his first major overseas trip since his coronation last year.
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Rumour has it that senior Australian politicians have 'snubbed' Charles and Camilla ahead of their trip. Regardless, the 75-year-old has decided to undertake such a long journey to make his mark as the monarch and further strengthen UK-Australia relations.
Amidst this, another royal tour to Australia has come back into the spotlight—one that, according to one expert, changed the course of the British Royal Family and continues to impact them to this day.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Australia tour
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's 2018 tour of Australia marked a significant turning point in their royal roles and their relationship with the monarchy—at least this is what royal historian Tim Ewart believes. He told Sky News Australia’s The Royals in Australia that while Harry and Meghan’s tour was very successful, it became a ‘catalyst’ for their eventual departure from the Royal Family.
The couple received a warm welcome from the Australian public, and Meghan’s impact in the country was compared to twice what Princess Diana had worldwide. Ewart explained:
They loved Australia and Australia responded to them. In those early days of Meghan and Harry, Meghan got an incredible reaction from the public.
If Diana had been a breath of fresh air, it was Diana multiplied by two for Meghan.
However, things allegedly changed for them upon returning to the UK, as they did not receive the praise and recognition they had expected after their successful tour. Ewart added:
Australia broke Harry and Meghan and was one of the catalysts for them leaving the royal family. She and Harry had expected they would get much more praise and recognition from that royal tour.
Reportedly, Meghan grew frustrated after the trip as she realised that she ‘wasn’t the hero’ in the Royal Family and would always be ‘a cog in the wheel.’ Within 18 months of the tour, the couple stepped down from their positions as senior royals.
In the couple’s 2021 bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview, Harry also claimed Meghan’s ‘effortless’ success on the tour ‘brought back memories’ for the Firm—something they may not have wanted to see repeated.
King Charles’ upcoming Australian trip
Meanwhile, the preparation for King Charles' upcoming visit to Australia is in full swing! The fully-packed tour will see the King and Queen visit Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian War Memorial, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander memorial. The King is scheduled to meet with Professors Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer to learn more about their groundbreaking research on melanoma, one of Australia’s most common cancers. Meanwhile, Queen Camilla will join a discussion centred on the issue of domestic violence.
Royal expert Ingrid Seward believes that the tour will be ‘extremely exhausting’ for Camilla as she ‘doesn’t like flying’ and gets ‘very tired.’
Australia has played a key role in Charles’ life. He spent six months as a typical teenager at Timbertop School outside Melbourne in the 1960s, an experience that, according to The Independent, changed his character to some extent.
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Sources used:
The Sun: How Meghan Markle & Harry’s Australia tour ‘broke them’ & was the ‘catalyst’ for Megxit – ahead of King’s ‘tiring’ trip
The Independent: King Charles III set to visit Australia and Samoa on a trip spanning a dozen time zones
