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LONDON — King Charles III, Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, met some of their most ardent supporters on Friday, as the trio shook hands and chatted with people on the Mall near Buckingham Palace, including those who have been camping out to secure spots for Saturday’s coronation.
Royal superfans have descended on the British capital from all over the world, carrying tents and cardboard cutouts of Charles and an impressive array of homemade crowns.
Friday wasn’t the easiest day for the campers. The heavens opened up with thundershowers, more than once. But then in the afternoon, when the sun peeked out, the royals stepped out of their cars for a walkabout.
“King Charles, so nice to meet you. We came from America,” said one woman.
“Well done,” responded Charles, who shook her hand and moved along. One man said he was from Colombia, to which Charles responded, “Many happy memories.”
For the royals — who were wearing microphones with audio that was aired by the BBC — it was a change of pace from the “Not My King” protests at Charles’s recent public engagements.
For the crowds, it was a treat — better than the Harry and Meghan “look-alike” couple that had shown up on the Mall on Thursday.
While the role of the British monarch is non-political, those visiting London during King Charles III’s coronation weekend have high hopes for him. (Video: Naomi Schanen/The Washington Post)
A BBC reporter in the crowd asked Kate how she and William were feeling. “A bit like a swan, relatively calm on the outside but paddling on the inside,” the always immaculately composed royal said.
Kate also spoke on a cellphone to somebody’s aunt in Texas.
Among the campers on the Mall this week is Donna Werner, 71, a homemaker from Connecticut who arrived Tuesday. She brought along a sun hat with paper cutouts of Charles — and a glue gun in case any of them toppled off her head. “We don’t have anything like this in the States,” she said. “All the history. It goes back a thousand years. The castles, the gardens, the royals, I love it all.”
Kerry Evans, 58, from Lincolnshire, set up camp Wednesday morning. She brought a red tent — “my own Buckingham Palace” — and some of the letters she’s received from “ladies-in-waiting” who respond on behalf of royals. (She said Sarah Ferguson’s office was the best at responding to her letters; Princess Anne’s was the worst.)
Many of those camped out were fans of Charles, unsurprisingly, but they spoke about him with less wild-eyed enthusiasm than they did his mother.
Nacho Gerfauo Woloszyn, a 28-year-old psychologist, flew in from Uruguay. He camped alongside friends he met last year at Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. He said Charles “has a lot of detractors, but he has earned the opportunity to bring it all together and have a chance to be king. I think he’ll be great.”
Asked who his favorite royal was, he said: “I love Anne — she’s great, determined, responsible. I think she’d be a great queen, but that’s not her choice.”
Mary Thorpe, 73, a Texan standing outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, said Charles didn’t have the same kind of “admiration and love” his mother had, “from the U.K. and the rest of the world.” Asked why she thought that was, she said, “Maybe it’s because he’s starting as a boomer.”
