On July 1, 1969, 11-year-old Maria Sarnacki stood cheek to jowl with her classmates, Brownie camera raised, as she strained to capture Queen Elizabeth II and then-Prince Charles on the balcony of Caernarfon Castle.
“It was absolutely something out of a film, a fairy tale,” Sarnacki said. “The late Majesty and Prince Charles came out … and he turned and waved. And to this day I was convinced he waved to me and nobody else but to me.”
Sarnacki, now mayor of the small Welsh town of Caernarfon, was one of thousands outside the castle that day when Charles was formally presented as the Prince of Wales; a moment in history watched by 500 million worldwide.
While it remains a day she’ll “never forget,” she says the romance of the occasion has soured.
“We didn’t know any better,” she said, noting that as she aged and learned more about the history of her native Wales, the investiture of the Prince of Wales lost its significance.
“If it happened now, I probably wouldn’t even attend.”
Sarnacki’s opposition to the elaborate ceremony is shared by many throughout the country. An opinion poll taken shortly after the Queen’s death last year showed more than one-third of people in Wales would prefer for no investiture to take place on Welsh soil for Prince William, King Charles III’s eldest son and the newly-minted Prince of Wales.
For some, it’s a reminder that they are subjects rather than citizens, while others say the bigger issue is with the title itself.
An investiture ceremony for the Prince of Wales took place at Caernarfon Castle in Wales on July 1, 1969. Queen Elizabeth II formally conferred the title on her son, Prince Charles, who then gave a speech in Welsh.
A symbol of oppression
“There’s nothing Welsh about it,” says Elfed Wyn ap Elwyn, a crusader for Welsh independence and councillor for Gwynedd county, where Caernarfon is located. “It’s a title slapped on just to continue that façade, that historical shame.”
The “historical shame” the 25-year-old is referring to is when Wales was conquered by Edward I of England in the 13th century.
Caernarfon Castle was built as a symbol of his conquest and his son, Edward of Caernarfon, was dubbed the Prince of Wales, the first Englishman to have the title, according to Nia Jones, a historian of medieval Britain.
“The creation of the title Prince of Wales in the medieval periods is actually more of a recognition of the frustrations of the native Welsh elite after the conquest. It’s sort of like, well, you need to have someone in the English monarchy who’s got your back. So here you go, here’s the heir,” said Jones.
For the past 700 years, the title of Prince of Wales has been reserved for the heir apparent to the English throne.
Today, the moniker feels like “salt in the wound” rather than an outstretched hand, says Wyn ap Elwyn, who put forward a motion in October of last year to abolish the title. It passed with the support of 46 Gwynedd councillors, while four voted against and another four abstained.
“After the Queen died, I kept quiet because … you wanted to give them time to grieve. And I thought the discussions about the future of the monarchy could develop later. But it wasn’t even a week after, this title was thrust upon us,” he said.
William was officially named Prince of Wales by his father in a public broadcast the day after the Queen died on Sept. 8, 2022. The King anointed William as such, adding it was a title he himself had been “greatly privileged to bear during so much of my life and duty.”
But to Wyn ap Elwyn, a sheep farmer and the father of twins, the King’s announcement negated “everything that [the monarchy] said about Wales being an equal partner in the U.K.”
Speaking in both Welsh and English, Wyn ap Elwyn told the CBC, “No matter how much time passes, we are all still only subjects.”
It’s not yet known how Wyn ap Elwyn’s motion will be received by higher levels of government, but he says the most important goal has been accomplished: more people are joining the long, ongoing conversation about whether there’s a place for the monarchy in modern society.
An online petition to end the title “out of respect for Wales” has nearly 40,000 signatures. And in 2017, Welsh actor Michael Sheen returned his OBE (Order of the British Empire), an honour given by the sovereign to reward an individual’s contributions to their respective field, in a manner of protest again the Prince of Wales title.
The Welsh language and a war of words
Back in Caernarfon, steps from the castle walls, owner Rhys Davies stands behind the polished wooden bar of Tŷ Glyndwr, a bunkhouse named for the last Welsh Prince of Wales. He says he met the now-King back when he was just Prince Charles.
“I think I broke every royal protocol in the book because you’re not supposed to interrupt and everything he was saying I disagreed with, so I couldn’t sit still,” said Davies.
He concedes that since Charles was born into his position and the institution of the monarchy, “you can’t judge him that much,” but he says Charles should have done more to bolster the Welsh language.
Prior to his investiture in 1969, Prince Charles spent ten weeks learning about Welsh culture, history and language at Aberystwyth University in Wales, and delivered a speech in both English and Welsh during the ceremony.
But for Davies and some other local Welsh speakers — approximately 80 per cent of the people of Caernarfon speak the language — this gesture was not enough.
Davies says centuries of suppression of the Welsh language bears heavily on community members who can recall a time when they were discouraged from speaking it.
He tells CBC of the punishment of the “Welsh Not,” a wooden board placed around the neck of schoolchildren who were caught speaking their mother tongue in the 19th century.
“Opposition to monarchy tends to go fairly closely, I would say, with a strong Welsh identity,” said Jones.
The historian says the title of Prince of Wales is a “useful shorthand” for the various issues that separate Welshness and Britishness; characteristics of a “fractured” society that were never more prevalent than when Prince Charles was invested in 1969.
Jones says you could see how “split” the country was in the substantial support and strong opposition to the investiture.
Union flag-waving families lined the streets, with more than 4,000 people seated inside the castle to witness the event, 3,500 of which were people who lived and worked in Wales.
But botched bomb plots and nationalist anthems were clear manifestations of the growing nationalist and anti-monarchy sentiments.
The Welsh paramilitary group Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru concocted a plan for the investiture that involved several explosive devices, one of which detonated unexpectedly, killing two of its members, and another planted near the castle that seriously injured the boy who found it a few days later.
“They’re outdated, they’re irrelevant, and they’re holding us back,” says Dafydd Rhys, who was only nine at the time of Charles’s investiture.
He was prevented from attending the festivities by his politically-conscious parents, and he tells the CBC in Welsh that the abolition of the monarchy is one of the things he feels most strongly about.
“Holding an investiture now would probably expose even further fissures and might even perpetuate them,” said Jones.
“If you were someone in favour of Welsh independence, you might welcome an investiture because it would be something for people in Wales to kind of respond against.”
Rewriting the role of royal family
There are, however, many in Wales who support both the continuation of the Prince of Wales title and the monarchy itself.
A poll released in April of this year, showed more than half of Wales is in favour of keeping the monarchy.
“Having a monarchy is a really important part of who we are,” said Sam Rowlands, member of the Welsh Parliament. Furthermore, he says it’s a source of pride to have a Prince and Princess of Wales and would welcome an investiture.
“It’s a real honor and privilege for us to have that title known at a global level. I think it does a great deal in terms of an ambassadorial role for us … and the strength of us as a nation of the United Kingdom.”
As of November 2022, Kensington Palace says the Prince of Wales has no plans for an investiture like the one held for his father.
However, Prince William is keen to “deepen his understanding of the issues and opportunities of greatest importance to the Welsh people,” the palace told BBC News.
But as far as county councillor Wyn ap Elwyn is concerned, the best thing the Prince could do for the Welsh people is step down from the role he calls “inherently disrespectful” toward Wales.
“It’s not just that he’s an English prince, it has nothing to do with nationality. He’s a prince that’s been implanted here just to remind us that we are a conquered people,” he said.
“And princes, princesses, kings and queens belong in one place; and that’s a fairy tale.”
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