The Monarch Has Exercised a Prerogative Power That Most Britons Did Not Know Existed Until Now
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
By Isla Campbell | CrownAndClown.uk
The News
King Charles III has removed eight knights from the Order of the Garter, the most senior order of chivalry in England founded by Edward III in 1348. The London Prat headlined this as ‘King Charles Just Evicted Eight Knights,’ which captures the vernacular version of what is a constitutionally precise prerogative power exercised for reasons that the Palace describes as diplomatic and that the specifics of the removals make more legible to those following closely.
The Power Itself
The Monarch’s authority to remove members from the Orders of Chivalry is one of those prerogative powers that British constitutional practice contains in its specific unstated form. It exists. It has been exercised before. Each exercise generates the combination of constitutional interest from scholars and general public confusion from everyone else about what the Garter is, what membership means, and whether losing it has practical consequences beyond the suffix letters after one’s name.
The Diplomatic Context
The specific reasons for these removals are described in Palace communications as diplomatic considerations, which in Royal communication language means that the specifics involve geopolitical relationships whose full articulation would complicate the diplomacy they are managing. Reading the implicit message in these removals requires familiarity with the membership list and the current state of UK diplomatic relationships, which Private Eye has provided more clearly than the Palace has.
The Season Context
The broader Royal season in May proceeds with its regular calendar: investitures, state occasions, garden parties, and the charitable engagements that constitute the working Royal timetable. The knight evictions are the month’s most interesting constitutional development, which may indicate genuine significance or may indicate that May 2026 has been otherwise relatively quiet in constitutional terms. Read Private Eye for the full accounting.
More: Private Eye.
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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
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London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
London remains. The city absorbs every political crisis, every energy bill increase, every theatre ticket price surge, every development application, and every wave of newcomers with the specific resilience of a place that has been doing all of this simultaneously since before most other cities existed. The journalism that documents this absorption — the personal accounts of people living in specific parts of the city, paying attention to what living there is actually like — serves a function that official reporting does not: it makes the city legible to itself at the scale of the street and the neighbourhood rather than the policy and the statistic. This column is that journalism. It continues because the city continues, and the city will continue longer than any of the problems it is currently managing. The next development application has already been submitted. The next good coffee shop is already open. The next political crisis is already developing. We will cover all of them.
