Outgoing Gov. Charlie Baker ought to ask incoming King Charles III to go to Boston.
If it’s all proper for Joe Biden, who thinks he’s a king to come back, it ought to be okay for the king.
The new king is, in fact, not beloved Queen Elizabeth II, who did go to Boston in 1976 when King Kevin was mayor and the Duke was governor. But that was a very long time in the past.
We haven’t had a British royal go to since. So perhaps it’s time.
And if Charles III is simply too busy ruling his kingdom, maybe he can ship over his automobile. It is that glossy, black classic Rolls-Royce Phantom VI limousine that he and the opposite royals have been using round in for per week.
Our Charlie may use it to regally take him to his residence to Swampscott in January after he leaves the State House on the final day of his eight-year reign as governor.
Like King Charles III, our Charlie may wave from the again seat of the Rolls to the group of admirers lining each side of Beacon Street who prove to bid him farewell. Women and kids, and a few males, would weep.
When a governor leaves workplace, as our Charles will, he does so by taking the ceremonious Lone Walk.
He leaves his third-floor workplace alone and walks down the Italian marble staircase, goes by Doric Hall and out the entrance doorways of the State House. Those doorways are solely open when a governor leaves workplace or a president comes to go to.
The governor then descends the out of doors stone steps right down to Beacon Street the place he’s met by household and buddies.
The ceremony is designed to point out the state and the world that, as soon as out of workplace in our democracy, a governor is simply one other common citizen, such as you and me.
And when you would possibly hear the sound of cannon fireplace coming from Boston Common, that’s for the brand new governor who has simply been sworn into workplace.
While it’s a ceremony that completely pales compared to what the British do, epically upon the departure or arrival of a monarch, it’s the finest now we have.
That is why a go to by Charles III, or the usage of his Rolls-Royce, can be a pleasant gesture, including gravitas to the occasion
Yes, we’re a democracy that rid itself of the British monarchy after profitable the Revolutionary War.
Still there are sufficient remnants of British royal reminders round, starting with the English language — which a few of us nonetheless converse — to make any modern-day British king really feel at residence.
For occasion, our Charlie may take their Charlie for a sail on the Charles River or procuring alongside Charles Street. The river, in any case, was named after his ancestor Charles I upon its “discovery” in 1614 by English explorer Captain John Smith.
Being the woke king that he’s, Charles III may overlook the inconvenient undeniable fact that Charles I used to be beheaded in 1649 by anti-royalists, and suggest the title be modified to the Quinobequin River, which is what the Native Americans known as it. It means meandering.
And Charles Street may then change into Quinobequin Street.
Charles III may additionally observe that the title of Dudley Square in Roxbury, named after 1650 English Colonial Gov. Thomas Dudley, was not too way back modified to Nubian Square to higher replicate the modern-day residents of the realm.
Our Charlie may then take their Charlie right down to King’s Chapel on the nook of Tremont and School streets. There Charles III may go to the chapel that was established below King James II by the unpopular English Colonial Gov. Edmund Andros in 1686.
Andros and King James II thought it was a good suggestion to impose the Anglican Church of England over the Boston Puritans, most of whom had left England to flee non secular persecution. This led to the “Boston Revolt” which pressured Andros to go away city. It was additionally a warning of the warfare for independence to come back.
We received’t maintain it in opposition to Charles III, although. He is welcome. But convey the automobile.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”