MODERN ROYAL TOURS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FRAUGHT WITH PITFALLS AND PERIL
By royal biographer Emily Andrews
D uring this month’s royal tour to Kenya, the King expressed sorrow for historic British colonial acts of violence.
Was he right to do so (particularly after the British government had done the same in 2013) – and, indeed, should he have gone further with an abject apology?
Or are calls for royals to apologise for the sins of their fathers just more woke tokenism – in the same mould as pulling down statues of 18th-century slave owners or renaming British streets?
Modern royal tours have always been fraught with pitfalls and peril. The pressure weighs heavily on correctly observing local customs, eating the ‘right’ food, wearing the ‘right’ clothes and not stepping out of line politically (royals are asked to go by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office).
And that’s even before the huge cost is revealed (to the UK taxpayer for a non-realm visit and to the ‘locals’ when it’s a realm visit to, say, Australia or Jamaica).
After landing in Nairobi with Queen Camilla for the four-day tour, the King became the first royal to express sorrow over Britain’s suppression of the Mau Mau uprising, following angry calls from activists for Britain to pay millions in compensation for its colonial legacy.
Expressing ‘the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret’ for the ‘wrongdoings of the past’, he referred to ‘abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence’ committed against Kenyans during their struggle for independence, but stopped short of making a full apology.
The admission came after the British government agreed a decade ago to pay nearly £20 million in compensation to victims, and follows Barbados’ decision to become a republic in 2021.
Last year the Prince and Princess of Wales’ Caribbean visit was plunged into controversy by protesters and ‘colonial’ images.
Tours are no longer as straightforward as they used to be. In May, representatives from 12 Commonwealth countries called on the King to acknowledge and apologise for the impacts and ongoing legacy of British ‘genocide and colonisation’.
Five years ago, Charles (as Prince of Wales) made headlines while on a royal tour of Ghana. He said that Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade was an appalling atrocity that has left
