| William V | |
|---|---|
| |
| Head of the British Monarchy and the Commonwealth Realms Ruled By William | |
| Reign | 28 March 2015 – present |
| Coronation | 25 December 2015 |
| Predecessor | Andrew |
| Heir | Prince Frederick |
| Born | 20 October, 1991 Port Elizabeth, South Africa |
| Spouse | Sibusisiwe Zulu (m. 2019) |
| Issue | Princess Faith Prince Frederick Prince George |
| Full name | |
| William Charles Gordon Philip | |
| House | Mountbatten-Windsor (official) Glücksburg (agnatic) |
| Father | King Andrew |
| Mother | Louisa Gordon-Lennox |
| Religion | Anglican |
William V (William Charles Gordon Philip; born 20 October 1991) is the head of the exiled senior branch of the British royal family. He is the head of state of the Dominion of South Africa, his primary residence, and of a few other realms and territories scattered around the world. He is the Lord of Mann, the Isle of Man being the only part of Britain to recognise his rule. He also serves as Head of the Commonwealth, representing the international role of the prewar British monarchy. William acceded to the throne upon the death of his father Andrew in 2015.
Family and background[]
Exile in Africa[]
William's father Andrew came to South Africa shortly after the nuclear exchange of September 1983. He was stationed aboard the carrier HMS Invincible, and returning to Britain was judged too great a risk for someone who, for all anyone knew, was already King. He did in fact inherit the throne one year later after his mother Elizabeth II died of complications due to radiation exposure. Andrew was now king, but once again, a return to Britain was deemed unsafe.
In 1985, South Africa itself was on the brink of collapse. With the capital no longer safe, Andrew and the personnel of the British embassy fled to the city of Port Elizabeth. Before long, the British found themselves joining forces with the South African Opposition. This group had fled to the city from Durban and was putting itself forward as an alternative government for the country, promising to reverse all the policies of the apartheid regime. Andrew's presence provided the opportunity to also reverse the the 1960 referendum, narrowly passed, that had abolished the monarchy and given the National Party freer rein. The king provided a symbol of the time before apartheid; the Opposition government provided a place for him within the new South Africa. Suddenly Andrew was no longer an exiled king at all, but the head of state of an African opposition government.
The Opposition prime minister, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, informed Britain's emergency government of this turn of events and invited them to join him there. Many chose to stay to keep trying to shore up the homeland, but others decided that leaving was the best option. A series of convoys departed England for Port Elizabeth - orderly at first, but increasingly desperate and ragged.
It was under these circumstances that William's parents first met. Louisa Gordon-Lennox was the daughter of Charles, the Duke of Richmond. The Gordon-Lennoxes had their seat at Goodwood House in Sussex, and from there most of the family managed the short journey to Worthing, a place where many survivors were congregating and which was in regular contact with the national government site based in Portland. As a peer, the Duke was a member of the House of Lords and therefore one of the more prominent public figures to arrive at the southern coast, and he soon was relocated to Portland and later to another site at Culdrose in Cornwall. Louisa was still a teenager, seven years younger than Andrew. At first the Duke was highly sceptical of the idea of exile, but in 1987 consented to leave with his family on the Second Convoy.
Andrew and Louisa's relationship started not long after the move. The two were among the very small set of people in Port Elizabeth from the same aristocratic circles, so it was natural that they would notice one another. Not much time passed before Andrew, and government leaders, began to sense the need to marry in order to represent the continuity of the realm. Some felt that marrying somebody local would tie Andrew better to his new kingdom, but Louisa’s shared background and her knowledge of royal culture made her a good match. And Andrew still thought of himself after all as a British monarch temporarily in South Africa. He still did not expect this situation to be permanent.
Very shortly after beginning a relationship with Andrew, and long before it was publicly known, Louisa also began to feel a great deal of pressure compelling her in the same direction. She was destined to be Queen, and the marriage would be her great act of service to her nation.
The royal marriage[]
The marriage took place in 1989 in the Cathedral Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Port Elizabeth, the church newly repaired after suffering serious damage in the first Dominion-Xhosa War the year before. Louisa was twenty-one, Andrew twenty-eight. Politically, the wedding was a triumph, providing a focus of unity for the exiles, the Anglo-South African community, and the pro-Commonwealth South Africans who had come to the Eastern Cape.
Both King and Queen entered the marriage primarily out of a sense of duty to the country - and by all accounts, the marriage was neither warm nor happy. Both persevered in the same spirit of duty, rather than affection. Andrew was wise enough to keep his many infidelities discreet and private, assisted by a compliant local press. The couple continued to perform their ceremonial responsibilities, but they spent less and less time together as the years went on. Twenty years later, when the King began traveling to other surviving Commonwealth realms around the world, he largely did so without the Queen.
Early life[]
On 20 October 1991, Louisa gave birth to a healthy son, another joyous sign of the stability of the realm. She and Andrew named him William Charles Gordon Philip: William, a name with so much history in the royal family; Charles, for both the King's late brother and Louisa's father; Gordon, from Louisa's maiden name; and Philip, for Andrew's father. Two years later, William's sister was born, the couple's only other child Elizabeth, named after her late grandmother.
William spent his entire life in the public eye, a living symbol of the Dominion's future. His education began privately, but he was enrolled in school at the age of ten. As soon as he was old enough, he enlisted in the Navy, following his father's footsteps. He was assigned to the External Territorial Survey, leading to placements in the DSA's stations at Gough Island and Antarctica. This was done to highlight for the public the country's territorial reach, this being the era when the militaristic Dominion Party was in power.
Accession[]
In 2015, Andrew set off on another round of trips, this time across the Atlantic. His plane was to visit each of the island territories - the first time that any of them had experienced a visit from the reigning monarch - and afterward meet with leaders of a few of the South American and Caribbean nations. But en route from Tristan Da Cunha to Saint Helena, the aircraft encountered an unexpected storm and was lost. Ships from South Africa and South America searched the area to no avail. On 28 March Andrew was officially presumed dead and William acclaimed the new sovereign.
William first had to attend to the transition. He had to leave active naval service to assume the role of Commander-in-Chief. He then oversaw the winding-down of the search for his father's plane over the next few weeks. In December, his coronation took place in St. Mary's Cathedral in Port Elizabeth. It was performed by a retired Anglican bishop as a way to link to the old British traditions without giving the impression of having an established church.
William's regnal name and number also raised some questions over protocol. The number five represented his continuity with the throne of England, the First having been William the Conqueror himself. Certainly he was not the fifth William to rule in South Africa, or any of his realms, for that matter. In the end, the government advised that he keep the numeral V, as the outside world would mostly know him as heir to the British royal family; but within South Africa the numeral is often omitted.
Rule[]
William V's personal flag as sovereign and Head of the Commonwealth
Not long after the coronation, William completed his late father's tour, giving the Atlantic dependencies the royal visit that they had been expecting, though postponing the planned trip to South America and the Caribbean. He wanted to follow this up with a trip to the Antarctic base - which would be another first for a reigning monarch - but this was also postponed due to safety concerns.
Born in Africa, William brought a new sensibility to the kingship, which had always seemed somewhat backward-looking toward England and the British Empire. William instead emphasised the country's African context and people. The constitutional limitations of the role meant that this was a shift in style, not policy, yet it was noticeable. Coming as it did after the fall of the Dominion Party government and during attempts by the government to mend relations with the country's neighbors, this was a welcome change.
In another sign of this improving international reputation, Australia-New Zealand dropped its objection to its client state Tuvalu restoring the Crown to its position as head of state. Tuvalu's parliament had voted to take this step in 2012, but in the tense months of the Xhosa War, ANZ had asked the Tuvaluans to delay this. Now, relations were improving, and William thus added another small country to his list of realms.
Marriage[]
Nothing showed this new orientation more than William's 2019 marriage to Sibusisiwe Zulu, daughter of the King Misuzulu of KwaZulu. The marriage was without doubt a political one, a return to an older pattern of royal marriages as a tool of diplomacy. The governments of the respective countries negotiated the whole thing. The couple engaged in a brief courtship, just enough to establish that they could be compatible with one another and committed to their public role.
The ceremony in Port Elizabeth was held along traditional English lines with some nods to the bride's heritage, such as her jewellery and some music performed afterward. It was broadcast in many countries and put the DSA at the center of attention in much of Africa and beyond.
The wedding earned a mixed reaction. The DSA might pride itself on being a more just and open society than the apartheid regime that it had displaced, but many of its citizens still held a strong implicit sense of racial hierarchy, to which the marriage gave a serious jolt. On the other hand, it was of course popular among the country's Black population. Abroad, people in African countries were fascinated by the wedding. In Britain, people complained bitterly about it, since it seemed to confirm that Andrew's son had abandoned the home country for good.
William and Sibusisiwe had their first child early in 2021, a daughter whom they named Faith Elizabeth Mary. This was another nod to a Zulu tradition of using names with meaning relevant to the circumstances of the birth, using of course a recognisable English name. In late 2022, the couple gave birth to a son, Frederick Christian Andrew Ernest. Frederick is now the heir apparent to the throne of the Dominion of South Africa and of William's other realms and territories.
There was some controversy when Frederick was born as he would displace his elder sister as heir to the throne. Whilst speaking to the press, Prime Minister Ebrahim Patel stated that agnatic preference succession was something that his government may fix for future generations but Frederick would remain heir. Another son, George Henry Philip William, was born in 2024.
Travels[]
So far William's travels have focused on neighboring African nations, especially the Anglophone states of the southern part of the continent. The king has proved effective at cultivating a positive public image and improving the overall diplomatic climate. His only overseas trip so far has been the one to the Atlantic islands shortly after his coronation.
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