The Tribune

By RICHARD PALMER

KING Charles III left The Bahamas with fond memories of a first official visit in 53 years to a country with a special place in his heart.

He has a longstanding connection with the islands that is both personal and constitutional and the reception he received during the trip has only increased his admiration for Bahamians, according to aides.

“His Majesty was delighted to return to the islands, which have such a special place in his heart,” his spokesman said. “You will have seen the immense pleasure it gave him to be there, right across all elements of the programme, and I know he was deeply grateful for the warmth and scale of the welcome he received from so many people, including from the Prime Minister, of course.

“The great wall of cheers he received when greeting crowds will echo long in his memory - and be a source of tremendous pride and encouragement as the tour continues to Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda.”

Charles, 77, has described The Bahamas as a country that has always held a special place in his affections and a “home away from home” for him and other members of the Royal Family. He has enjoyed holidays on the islands and trips while he was in the Royal Navy but perhaps the most important moment in the relationship came in July 1973,  when as a 24-year-old Prince of Wales serving in the Leander-class frigate HMS Minerva he witnessed The Bahamas become an independent nation, ending 325 years of British rule.

His role representing his mother Queen Elizabeth II on July 10 that year was a key moment in his training for the life that lay ahead of him and one for which he prepared with painstaking attention to detail, according to his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby, who credited Charles’s mentor and great-uncle Lord Mountbatten for instilling the discipline in him.

Charles has recalled fondly on several occasions attending three different independence balls in one night during the celebrations “and being danced into the ground – very nearly – by Mrs Pindling, the rather glamorous wife of the then Prime Minister”.

In his Naval journals, setting aside his admiration for Lynden Pindling, the father of the nation, and his wife Marguerite, the then Prince was slightly less flattering at times about the exacting programme he undertook. It included delivering five speeches he had written himself when off watch from his duties as a navigation officer in Minerva, laying foundation stones, visiting schools and hospitals, and attending the flag-raising ceremony.

He admitted losing his temper while playing polo in Nassau as part of the festivities after his horse ran away with him, galloping through the pony lines and injuring its shoulder. “The whole game was an unmitigated disaster,” he wrote in the journals.

Dimbleby described how he struggled in the stifling heat of a garden party for 2,500 people and at an inter-denominational service where the Rev Dr Reuben Edward Cooper, a key figure in the fight to achieve majority rule, “worked himself into an ‘evangelical frenzy’ that drove the congregation to ecstasies of fervour.”

Charles himself wrote in his journals: “At the end of his fantastic tirade there was practically a standing ovation and the Rev Cooper tottered back to his seat shaking all over and pouring with perspiration.”

At one of the independence balls he wrote he danced “as I have never danced before – purely to show everyone that I was just as good, if not better than they were!”

He has been dancing ever since, as anyone who watched his performance at the Junkanoo during his 2026 visit will testify, although it still catches his staff out. “The Youth Rally performances and the Junkanoo were particularly joyful standout highlights - but I don’t think anyone had expected him to get so swept up in the carnival spirit that he would actually join the parade,” his spokesman said on Thursday.

His presence at the handover of power ending British rule has also given him a very personal connection to the history of the islands and the constitutional fix that has meant that as monarch he has succeeded his mother as sovereign of The Bahamas and currently 13 other overseas realms, as well as being ceremonial head of the 56-nation Commonwealth. He is represented in The Bahamas by the Governor-General, Dame Cynthia 'Mother' Pratt. Honours are handed out in his name and the country’s final court of appeal remains the judicial committee of the Privy Council in London.

Yet before this last trip he does not appear to have visited the islands since February 1982, when travelling under the names Mr and Mrs Hardy, he and his first wife Diana, then five months pregnant with Prince William, spent 10 days at the home of Countess Mountbatten on Windermere Island with Norton and Penny Romsey,  Lord and Lady Brabourne. It was, Charles wrote afterwards, “a second honeymoon” that allowed Diana to relax but there was controversy when The Sun and Daily Star newspapers in Britain were accused of breaching her privacy after running photos of her in a bikini.

Since then, he has met Bahamian politicians, diplomats and ordinary citizens regularly, including a group of students who spent time studying traditional building crafts at Dumfries House, the headquarters of his King’s Foundation charity, last year. In a message marking the country’s 50th anniversary of independence in 2023, he said: “The people of The Bahamas have always given such a warm welcome to my family and myself and I know that my mother, the late Queen, and my late father retained equally happy memories of their five visits to The Bahamas between 1966 and 1994.

The islands, of course, also played host to his great uncle the Duke of Windsor and the Duchess, the former Mrs Simpson, from 1940 to 1945 when the former King Edward VIII was appointed Governor to keep the couple away from Europe amid fears over their Nazi sympathies.

In spite of that and the fairly infrequent royal visits since, the relationship between the Crown and The Bahamas appears to have stayed strong, even while Black Lives Matter and demands for slavery reparations have fuelled republican sentiment in parts of the Caribbean region.

When the Prince and Princess of Wales, then still Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, visited in 2022 on an ill-fated Platinum Jubilee tour of Belize, Jamaica, and The Bahamas dogged by protests, the warmest welcome was here. But in his only speech in The Bahamas, William appeared to encourage the people of all three countries to think about becoming republics. “We support with pride and respect your decisions about your future. Relationships evolve. Friendship endures,” he said.

On the plane back to Britain, a senior royal source briefed those of us in the travelling media pack that William wanted to rethink his own relationship with Commonwealth countries and that he or other future British monarchs might not be the best choice to lead the association in future, although perhaps in time he would evolve into the right person for the job.

It remains unclear exactly what his view is now but William is about to embark on a trip to the Commonwealth’s biggest nation, India, and also has plenty of other regular meetings with leaders from its other nations. Certainly, his father and his late grandmother the Queen have all shared the view that it is up to the people of The Bahamas to decide who should be their head of state.

It is the same with the other realms. When Barbados became a republic in November 2021, Charles was at the ceremony. Sources close to him said immediately afterwards that he believed the relationship between Britain and Barbados would remain as close as ever.

The growing pressure from Caribbean nations for slavery reparations and the refusal of successive British governments to countenance any payments is a diplomatic challenge for him and also a source of shame because his royal ancestors profited from the trade. It will be once again at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda, which started yesterday and runs until Wednesday.

But the monarchy remains an institution capable of bringing people together to resolve differences. It is also, as the King has shown in his relationship with Donald Trump, a powerful tool for soft power. Charles, who has stood up for Canada, Ukraine, and spoken of the need for urgent action to combat environmental problems in his dealings with the volatile US President, remains a highly influential voice and a champion of low-lying islands threatened by climate change.

In his 50th anniversary of independence message, he noted that the “unchecked crisis of global warming and climate change continues to ravage these islands”.

He and his aides believe his latest visit has helped to celebrate and reaffirm the modern partnership between The Bahamas and the UK, while acknowledging the great injustices of the past in a respectful way. His spokesman added: “In that sense, I think most would agree the visit has been both a sensitive balancing act and a strong diplomatic success.”

Richard Palmer is a British Royal Correspondent with 20 years' experience of covering the House of Windsor around the UK and overseas.