King Charles, Prince William’s Crisis Deepens

King Charles III’s monarchy has the support of less than half of Britain in a historic low creating major pressure on the sovereign and Prince William.

A poll by agency Savanta on behalf of the anti-monarchy pressure group Republic showed levels of support for an elected head of state that are unprecedented in modern times.

Just 48 percent of adults in the United Kingdom said they would prefer to be a monarchy compared to 32 percent who wanted to scrap the crown and 20 percent who answered “don’t know.” The data was based on a representative sample of over 2,200 U.K. adults.

Historically, similar questions generally returned upwards of 70 percent in favor of the royals for much of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. However, this started to change several years ago against the backdrop of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s allegations against the royal family.

The scandal over Prince Andrew’s association with Jeffrey Epstein played out over the same time period and has been back in the news in recent days with the unsealing of court documents.

Historian Ed Owens, author of After Elizabeth: Can the Monarchy Save Itself, told Newsweek: “I think it’s striking. It’s a poll that’s been commissioned by Republic, which is clearly interested in revealing declining support for monarchy, but nevertheless, to see that 50 percent of the British public now outwardly claim to want a monarchy is a remarkable shift in opinion.

“As Republic notes, this is a significant drop over ten years. A more than 25 percent drop over the last decade,” Owens said. “It speaks to many of the deeper concerns the public has over the state of the country, the state of the monarchy, recent scandals involving Prince Andrew, and, of course, Harry and Meghan, as well.

“I think we can explain this downward trend in relation to those big events, the wider family scandal, and the dysfunction of the family, but I would also emphasize that this is a historic downward curve as well.”

In 2021, public discussion about declining support for the monarchy among 18-24-year-olds peaked in the aftermath of Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.

However, support among the older generations was so high that the decline had little impact on the overall data for all age…