A tea and a photo put King Carlos in the crosshairs

LONDON - King Charles III had nothing to do with the Northern Ireland trade deal presented Monday by the United Kingdom and the European Union.

But he could be forgiven for thinking he had put his real mark on the

It's called Windsor March, which is the King's surname.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, shake hands during a joint press conference after their meeting at the Fairmont Hotel in Windsor, .

Photo by Dan Kitwood/POOL/AFP.

He sealed himself in a luxury hotel in Windsor, West London, where he has a castle.

And it was there, at Windsor Castle, that Carlos received one of the negotiators, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, for tea minutes after she and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak presented the agreement to the

. .

That courtesy call, and the resulting photo of a smiling king appearing to celebrate the arrival of his guest, drew angry recriminations from critics, who said the government improperly recruited Carlos to be an ally on one of the most divisive

. of British politics.

By tradition, Britain's constitutional monarch stays out of politics, not to mention the noxious crosswinds of

Buckingham Palace and Downing Street disagreed over who had initiated the meeting with von der Leyen.

The palace said the king was acting on "

", while a spokesman for the prime minister said Sunak "strongly believes that it is up to the king to make such decisions".

To many, this may seem like a trivial dispute over protocol.

But historians say the British monarch is a resonant figure for unionists in Northern Ireland, who are the main holdouts to the trade deal.

Unionists are in favor of the North remaining part of the United Kingdom and profess allegiance to the British monarch.

By giving the King such a prominent role in finalizing the deal, and by wrapping it in Windsor's name, some observers said the government was making it

for Unionists to reject it.

"By calling it the Windsor Agreement, the government has tried to make it sound like they support it," said Vernon Bogdanor, an authority on constitutional monarchy at King's College London.

"I think the king has been put in a very uncomfortable position."

Other royal watchers were less willing to exonerate Carlos for his rousing role in the day's events.

They said the king and his courtiers had misjudged themselves in agreeing to meet von der Leyen because of Charles's desire to appear statesmanlike

to be in the thick of things and on the right side of history.

"He could have met her today, tomorrow or next week," said Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent.

"It is your responsibility and your people's responsibility to decide if the time is right, and this was not. Their judgment was clouded because they were flattered

the prospect of being in the spotlight."

Monarchs meet regularly with foreign leaders at the request of the Government.

Sometimes those leaders are ill-advised:

Queen Elizabeth II met with

, Romania's maligned dictator, and Russian President

, who once kept her waiting.

Carlos hosted a banquet for President

of South Africa, a week before he faced an

vote on money laundering charges.

"We don't know if he argued against it or not," Bogdanor said of the king's meeting with von der Leyen, "but either way, he had to go through with it."

What makes this episode murkier is that Carlos, by instinct and experience, would probably embrace the Windsor Frame.

The deal is intended to strengthen the UK and restore relations between Britain and the EU.

Although the king has never spoken publicly on Brexit, he hinted at his opinion in a speech to the German Parliament in 2020, when he said:

"no country is

."

Furthermore, Carlos is a man of passionate political convictions who embraces causes, from climate change to organic farming, in a way that his mother, Isabel, never did.

He was frustrated, according to people with ties to the palace, when the government of Sunak's predecessor,

, advised him not to attend the United Nations climate summit in

, Egypt, last fall.

Carlos recognized after ascending the throne in September that he would have to renounce any political commitment.

He did not protest government advice not to attend the conference, instead giving a glittering reception at Buckingham Palace before the event;

Guests included

President

's climate envoy, and

, a fashion designer and daughter of

, who has promoted sustainable manufacturing.

Climate change was one of the items on the agenda of the King's meeting with von der Leyen, according to the palace, as was Russia's war in Ukraine.

at Buckingham Palace ,

who visited London to address Parliament and call for Britain to supply fighter jets to the Ukrainian air force.

Taking note of that visit, the government declined questions about the king's meeting with von der Leyen.

"Ursula von der Leyen is a very high-level international representative," Foreign Affairs Minister

told LBC radio.

"So it's not unusual, as part of our hospitality to international guests, to facilitate a meeting."

But British support for Ukraine is widely accepted by the political class.

trade status

for Northern Ireland, on the other hand, is the subject of an almost theological debate between Brexiteers hardliners in Sunak's Conservative Party and Northern Ireland's unionist politicians.

Both groups expressed their discontent with the visible presence of the king.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a eurosceptic Conservative lawmaker and former cabinet minister, told GB News that "the sovereign should only be involved when things have been

."

Arlene Foster, former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said on Twitter:

"It is crude and it will go down very badly in Northern Ireland. We must remember that it is not a decision of the king, but of the government, which seems to have no ear."

Part of that unease may reflect the importance of the monarchy to unionists.

Bogdanor said that Unionists tended to view their loyalty to the king in more contractual terms than the English, for whom loyalty was generally automatic.

The core of that contract, he said, was to preserve the union.

"The king has a huge resonance in Northern Ireland," he said.

"The king is what separates the unionists from the nationalists."

And yet Charles has been on the throne for less than seven months.

His mother reigned for 70 years, making her an iconic figure in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, where her portrait appears on murals and walls in the city's loyalist neighborhoods.

Some pundits predicted that the debate over the king's role would quickly fizzle out as unionists dealt with a close reading of the text of the Windsor Agreement.

"If it had been the queen, it could have been important," said Katy Hayward, a professor of politics at Queen's University Belfast.

"But I haven't seen or heard anything to indicate that he raised more than one eyebrow."

c.2023 The New York Times Company

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