Thomas of the United Kingdom and of the Netherlands

Full name
	Thomas Frederick Francis Albert Charles

Thomas
Thomas
King of the British and of the People of his other Realms
Reign	15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017
Coronation	20 March 1997
Predecessor	Charles III
Successor	Alexandra
Prime Ministers	See list John Major; Tony Blair; Gordon Brown; David Cameron;
King of the Dutch
Reign	15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017
Inauguration	1 January 1998
Predecessor	Charles III
Successor	Alexandra
Grand Duke of the Luxembourgers
Reign	15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017
Coronation	1 January 1998
Predecessor	Charles III
Successor	Alexandra
Born	17 December 1957 (age 66); Balmoral Castle, Scotland
Spouse	Christy Turlington (m. 1995)
Issue	William Smith; Jacqueline Smith; Queen Alexandra; Prince Richard; Princess Nicole; Princess Elle; Princess Vivian;
Full name
Full name
	Thomas Frederick Francis Albert Charles
House	Hanover-Stuart-Orange-Nassau
Father	Charles III
Mother	Lauren Bacall
Religion	Protestant
Military service
Branch/service	Royal Navy;
Years of service	1979-1997 (active service)
Rank	Admiral of the Fleet
Battles/wars	The Troubles; Falklands War; Multinational Force in Lebanon; Gulf War

Thomas (English: Thomas William Frederick Francis Albert Charles; German: Thomas Wilhelm Friedrich Franz Albrecht Carl; Dutch: Thomas Willem Frederik Frans Albert Karel; French: Thomas Guillaume Frédéric François Albert Charles; born 17 December 1957) was King of the British, King of the Dutch, and Grand Duke of the Luxembourgers from 15 January 1997 to 13 October 2017.

A decorated Royal Navy officer and naval aviator in his youth, Thomas initially served in the country's naval forces for an almost two-decades-long period during which he saw involvement in several notable conflicts, namely the Falklands War, The Troubles conflict in Northern Ireland, and the Gulf War in which a US-led coalition successfully repelled Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein from neighbouring Kuwait. Besides this, Thomas also enjoyed a roughly two-decades-long successful career as a "charming" and "suave" Hollywood action star, having starred in several critically acclaimed films including Saving Private Ryan, Top Gun, The Hunt for Red October, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Marathon Man, Excalibur, A Few Good Men, and Love Actually. Throughout his nearly two-decades-long career, he won the Academy Awards five times, the BAFTA Film Awards four times, and the Golden Globe Awards thrice. In addition to acting, Thomas also has a growing career as a filmmaker, having so far directed and produced the critically acclaimed heist thriller The Golden Trail and its follow-up prequel The Founding Trail as well as other films including Don't Look Up and Gran Turismo, all of which are made under the media company Regal Legacy founded by himself and his siblings.

In January 1997, Thomas ascended to the throne upon his father's abdication. In his early years, he came to acquire a reputation as a vocal figure for reform in the United Kingdom with his most notable success in that regard being the passage of the Succession to the Crown Act 1995 which lifted restrictions on marriages to Roman Catholics, instituted absolute primogeniture, and abolished the requirement for the first six persons in line to the throne to seek the monarch's permission to marry. Moreover, the notable passage of the Church of England Act 1998 resulted in the formal disestablishment of the Church of England, making Thomas the last monarch to serve as supreme governor since King Henry VIII separated England from the Holy See. Meanwhile, abroad, Thomas was also an instrumental figure behind the independence of East Timor and the unification of the island of New Guinea under Papua New Guinea, both of which saw him receive the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize award together with Indonesian President B. J. Habibie. In October 2017, following a health crisis in the final year of his reign, an aging Thomas ultimately abdicated the throne in favour of his daughter who subsequently ascended to the throne as Queen Alexandra. Following his abdication, Thomas has since come to devote himself to both philanthropic and entrepreneurial causes.

Prior to his marriage, Thomas was involved in a long-term relationship with the American actress Jaclyn Smith, with whom he had two children that included a professional footballer and journalist. In December 1995, he married the American supermodel Christy Turlington, with whom he had five children including the reigning Queen Alexandra.

As one of the major shareholders of the multi-billion dollar holding company Atlantic Connection and also the sole shareholder of the Luxembourgish holding company LC Holdings, Thomas is estimated to be worth around $53 billion, making him one of the richest monarchs in the world.

Early Life

On 17 December 1957, roughly two years into his father's reign as monarch, Thomas was born as the eldest child of King Charles III and the American actress Lauren Bacall.

Christened Thomas William Frederick Francis Albert Charles upon his birth, his given name was derived from the Republican politician and New York governor Thomas E. Dewey, a two-time presidential nominee and who is both his godfather and a close friend of his father's. On the other hand, his middle names were reportedly chosen in honour of his maternal grandfather William Perske, the American singer Frank Sinatra, and his own father himself.

Heir Apparent

Soon after his birth, Thomas, being his father's heir apparent to the throne was immediately made Duke of Cornwall, which lasted until January 1st the following year, when he was then formally Prince of the Welsh by his father's behest. Notably, Thomas became the first heir apparent in British history to have ever used the princely title's much older styling, as his predecessors have all used the more common styling of Prince of Wales as opposed to Prince of the Welsh.

Mirroring that of his own father's upbringing, Thomas's upbringing in Buckingham Palace was reportedly said to have been somewhat restrictive in the early years, as a consequence of fringe rumours espousing harmful plots targeting the royal family. Nevertheless, the prince was able to benefit from the more modern and liberal parenting style of his parents, with his father in particular emphasising qualities of "individuality, self-dependent, and survivability" in the young prince, while his mother generally added onto the efforts of Thomas's father in "liberalising" the young heir to the throne.

The American Prince

As his parents had previously been involved in the Hollywood industry as actors themselves, Thomas also grew up with a firm passion for American movies and films, an interest helped by his parents' convenient associations with various Hollywood celebrities. At the same time, he also became fond of locally-made British films as well, with the famed English actress Audrey Hepburn, being a personal favourite and later a close friend of his.

Owing to his parents' close association with the American actress Katharine Hepburn who had consistently been a close friend of the royal couple and also the prince's own godmother, Thomas would also occasionally spend some time living under the actress's care at her family residence in Fenwick, Connecticut. Later on, in his memoirs, Thomas himself described his time of living in Hepburn's family home as a "wholly wild and fascinating experience". He also generally described the actress in a wholly positive light, having written in one instance, "While there were some minor, and understandable blunders from her, I could feel that we generally appreciated and cared for one another". Moreover, when living at the actress's Connecticut family home, Thomas was said to have generally fancied "dipping his toes every morning on the shores of the cold water", whilst also having much interest in sports such as golf and tennis, an interest made convenient with the presence of nearby golf courses and alike.

Interestingly, the supposed state of their "mother and son" relationship proved quick to gain a sizable degree of notoriety among the local community, so much so that Thomas was initially mistaken to be an alleged secret lovechild between Hepburn and her known romantic partner at the time, namely the actor Spencer Tracy, although these were quickly refuted by Hepburn's own family members who were already aware of the royal family's connections to the actress. Nevertheless, when the two were mostly apart, both Thomas and Hepburn maintained their lifelong friendship through the extensive use of telephones, and to a certain extent, an exchange of gifts, particularly during Christmas or during their own respective birthday celebrations. In later years, Thomas himself would often refer to Hepburn as "my mother on the other side of the pond" and sometimes as "my great Aunt Kate". Moreover, while pursuing his university studies in the United States, Thomas himself largely lived together with the actress who essentially acted as his overseeing his welfare and security while the latter was preoccupied with his academic studies, with Thomas himself having enrolled at the prestigious Yale University. Eventually, in 1975, Thomas graduated from the university with a bachelor's degree in international relations, making him the first royal to ever earn an academic degree. Since then, one former educator of his at the university later recounted Thomas as a "bright and energetic young student always on the verge of asking important questions whenever possible". Similarly, a former friend of Thomas's at the university described the royal as a "very unassuming, talkative, and intelligent young man".

Military Career

In 1979, Thomas attended the Britannia Royal Navy College in Dartmouth, after which he was subsequently commissioned as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. However, with the exception of a few months or so, during which he played a largely minor role in The Troubles conflict in the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, the prince would largely see minimal combat throughout most of his career in the Royal Navy. At the same time, in benefiting from the fact that he was less likely in general to ever see active combat, the prince, who in his capacity as a Royal Navy officer opted to otherwise embark on a long naval trip aboard, which he later did so onboard the Royal Navy flagship HMS Lauren, thereby allowing him to personally visit a number of countries located east of the European continent, namely Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia, and Japan.

Eventually, in 1982, with the onset of the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina, an opportunity for the prince to see his first active combat in the years since he was commissioned in the Royal Navy finally came about. However, the controversial decision to have Thomas on board the British task force sent to the Falkland Islands was initially met with considerable opposition by both the prince's father, King Charles III and then-Prime Minister Edward Heath, both of whom were said to have opposed the prince's involvement in the conflict out of the need to protect the heir to the British throne. However, after a brief, but overall contentious argument between Thomas himself and the prime minister, it was ultimately decided that the prince would be allowed to set sail on board the task force headed for the Falkland Islands, in exchange for the prince agreeing to be under strict supervision by a fellow Royal Navy officer who in a later interview claimed that the prime minister ordered him to "protect the prince at all costs" and "have him be the first to be evacuated in case the ship sinks by enemy fire". Regardless of this, with the conclusion of the war, Thomas was subsequently granted his first promotion as an officer in the Royal Navy, having been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. Then, he subsequently joined an international peacekeeping force in Lebanon, which earned him another promotion, this time to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

From 1990 to 1991, Thomas would see his final active combat experience as a Royal Navy officer, when he was deployed to the Middle East as part of an international coalition force, which in the span of a few months, managed to successfully push Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein out of neighbouring Kuwait. For his actions during the conflict, he was promoted to the rank of Commodore. Later on, shortly after his ascension to the throne, he promptly resigned his commission in the Royal Navy, although he was nonetheless made an Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom as the ceremonial head of the Royal Navy itself.

In a 2018 interview with the BBC, Thomas publicly revealed that while serving in the British Armed Forces during the Gulf War in which a US-led coalition successfully repelled Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein from occupied Kuwait, he once suggested to then-US President George H. W. Bush to oust Hussein completely rather than simply repelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Citing the later controversy that surrounded the Iraq War, Thomas said, "Of course, at the time, no one including myself would have known that we would invade Iraq once again albeit on a rather dubious and questionable basis but at that time, some part of me just felt that we should have kept going and remove Saddam right at that moment. At least from our perspective, the fact that he invaded another country unprovoked meant that there was a genuine reason to take military action against him and therefore the United Nations wouldn't really be pestering us that much about some sort of justification for the war". In line with this, Thomas also sensationally revealed that in the months preceding the Iraq War, behind closed doors, he constantly asked and pressured then-Prime Minister Tony Blair about the conflict's actual justification until the very end, stating, "To simply put it, we all knew that Saddam was a ruthless and authoritarian dictator but weapons of mass destruction? As history would show, we never even saw one with our own two eyes and by the looks of it he couldn't even build a proper army that can fight well". Aside from this, Thomas also revealed that his late father, whose reign was to be marked by, among others, the disastrous Suez Crisis in 1956, was so disturbed and angered by Blair's participation in the conflict that he once threatened to "hang" the latter in public if he could.

Acting Career

Having been exposed to the acting industry from an early age by his parents, both of whom were former actors, and also by the influential and successful American actress Katharine Hepburn, in preparation for adulthood, Thomas took up private acting lessons with the eventual hope of becoming a successful actor in his own right with his early inspirations and idols being Cary Grant, Laurence Olivier, Clark Gable, and Gary Cooper. Meanwhile, in order to hone his acting skills, Thomas went to the recently established Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York, United States where he was taught in method acting in which actors seek to bring out expressive performances by connecting with their characters' emotions and purposes in a story. Meanwhile, it was also during this period that, in order to conceal his true identity, he adopted the alias of "Charles T. Lawrence" in which the given name refers to his own father while the surname refers to British actor Laurence Olivier who is highly regarded by Thomas as one of the most talented British actors alive.

In 1977, at just twenty years old, Thomas made his acting debut as the lead actor in the British period drama The Duellists in which he played the obsessive Bonapartist Gabriel Freud opposite Keith Carradine who played the aristocrat Armand d'Hubert. While the film itself became an immediate critical success among critics, with praise for its direction and historical authenticity, Thomas, as a newcomer in the acting industry, was also met with praise in his role as Gabriel Freud, a role that he later revealed saw him underwent rigorous training in fencing in order to better familiarise himself with his character. Consequently, the performance later saw him win "Best Actor" at not just the Academy Awards but also at the British Academy Film Awards and the Golden Globe Awards, thereby immediately catapulting him into instant stardom under his alias of "Charles T. Lawrence". In the following year, Thomas starred in the epic war drama The Deer Hunter in which he portrayed an American soldier alongside the likes of Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken. Then, in the following year, after reportedly turning down an offer to star in the legal drama film Kramer vs. Kramer, a project that would see him reunite with actress Meryl Streep, Thomas instead joined Clint Eastwood to star in the prison action film Escape from Alcatraz where he plays one of the three prisoners who escaped the infamous Alcatraz Prison.

Following a nearly two-year-long hiatus due to the birth of his son, Thomas returned to portray the legendary King Arthur in the 1981's epic medieval fantasy Excalibur. Then, in the following year, he was chosen by Richard Attenborough, who reportedly knew his true identity, to portray his late grandfather King Frederick in the critically acclaimed biographical film Gandhi in which Ben Kingsley portrays the eponymous Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. For this, while Kingsley won Best Actor at both the Academy Awards and the BAFTA Film Awards, Thomas himself won the award for Best Supporting Actor on both occasions and also a third at the Golden Globe Awards, a feat that saw him replicate the previous success that he had with The Duellists just several years prior. In that same year, Thomas also starred alongside comedian Eddie Murphy, who was then making his film debut, in the 1982 buddy cop film 48 Hrs.. An immediate success upon its release, on a personal level, the film saw Thomas begin a warm friendship with Eddie Murphy, with whom he later reunited for the 1990 sequel Another 48 Hrs. although this was otherwise poorly received compared to its predecessor. Then, in 1984, Thomas was reunited once again with Laurence Olivier, this time in the historical drama film The Bounty where his portrayal of English sailor Fletcher Christian, who famously seized the Royal Navy's HMS Bounty, was both widely acclaimed and also won him his third Best Actor award at the BAFTA Film Awards as well. In 1986, alongside a young Tom Cruise, Thomas was cast in the action film Top Gun in which he portrays LCDR Rick "Jester" Heatherly, a naval aviator and instructor. Meanwhile, two years later, Thomas portrayed the American inventor Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream, a film that, while only a mild success with critics, nonetheless yielded him yet another Best Actor award at both the Academy Awards and the BAFTA Film Awards.

Entering the 1990s, Thomas publicly indicated his willingness to transition away from his traditionally "tough" and "gritty" roles in action films to more "lighthearted" ones in the coming years, thereby signaling an end to his streak in action movies. To that end, after starring in 1990's The Hunt for Red October, in which he played the fictional spy character Jack Ryan, and 1992's A Few Good Men, the latter in which he was reunited with both Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, Thomas made a drastic shift to the romantic comedy genre via his leading role in 1993's Sleepless in Seattle opposite Meg Ryan in which he plays Sam Baldwin, a widowed architect fancied by Annie Reed who is portrayed by Ryan. An instant commercial success with around $200 million made at the box office, the film saw Thomas's shift into a new genre received well by critics while he later went on to win his last Best Actor award prior to the end of his acting career. In 1994, Thomas was cast by Richard Curtis in Four Weddings and a Funeral, thereby further winning him his final awards at both the BAFTA Film Awards and the Golden Globe Awards respectively. Meanwhile, in that same year, Thomas also starred alongside his future sister-in-law Jodie Foster in Maverick. In the following year, Thomas made his first and only entry into the superhero genre via his portrayal of Batman in Batman Forever.

Despite his royal status and background, both of which only came to light late into his career, Thomas has since been regarded by most critics to be a highly talented actor deserving of his accolades and awards with his Sleepless in Seattle co-star Meg Ryan regarding him as "a complete natural who can carry himself easily through situations". In addition, despite his British ancestry, Thomas has been met with much praise from critics for his ability to portray American characters with little to no fault, a feat which the royal himself attributed to years of mastering code-switching which thereby allows him to speak in an almost perfect American accent while masking his traditional British accent when necessary. Meanwhile, during a 2018 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Thomas revealed that at some point in 1987, when he was then a well-established actor, he was approached by the English director John Glen to portray the famous British spy character James Bond following the retirement of Roger Moore from playing the character throughout seven films. However, despite being well favoured by Glen to assume the character's mantle, Thomas, who later starred in The Hunt for Red October alongside the inaugural James Bond actor Sean Connery, opted to turn down the role, the reason for which he later cited to be a desire to gradually move on from the action genre which therefore came with a desire not to be associated with the character for fear of "accidentally playing it for too long".

In 2017, in honour of his 60th birthday, Thomas was given his personal star on the Hollywood walk of fame, becoming the second royal to receive such an honour after his father, the late King Charles III, who received his star in 1997 in honour of his 80th birthday given that he was previously an actor prior to becoming his country's monarch. Likewise, his mother, the late Queen Lauren, received her star around the same time as her husband did. In the ensuing unveiling ceremony, Thomas himself gave a brief speech reminiscing on his "glorious" acting days while also expressing his personal pride in "having made the great actors and actresses who taught me proud", namely his parents, both of whom were former actors, his "late aunt" Katharine Hepburn, and the late Laurence Olivier, his self-professed idol in the acting industry.

Reign

Reforms & Projects

Upon his father's abdication in January 1997, Thomas automatically ascended to the throne. Despite his longstanding ceremonial status, Thomas, in a manner similar to that of his father and predecessor Charles III, also partook to some degree in the country's political affairs whilst adhering to his position as a constitutional monarch.

Among others, the most notable instance was the passing of the Succession to the Crown Act 1995, a law that was actually passed roughly two years prior to his ascension to the throne, but in which Thomas himself had a rather prominent role in shaping it. Spurred by the opposition against his marriage to his Catholic-born wife, Thomas, in conjunction with a number of sympathetic politicians, campaigned for the removal of the longstanding restrictions on marriages between members of the royal family and Roman Catholic individuals, which he famously called an "immoral relic of the past" while also arguing that it would clash with the modernising image of the United Kingdom, particularly one that will host an ever-increasing number of religious minorities. Meanwhile, in addressing concerns over the potential of having a Catholic monarch due to the lifting of the restrictions, Thomas asserted that the British monarch, as per longstanding convention, will generally remain an Anglican Protestant regardless of marriage to a Roman Catholic spouse, stating, "There's a clear and implicit difference between marrying a Catholic and being a Catholic, which I hope the Parliament will soon realise and therefore take it upon themselves to correct this grievous injustice in a modern and increasingly tolerant country". Eventually, via votes from both Conservative and Labour parliamentarians, the bill proposed, which also included ending Hanover's longstanding semi-Salic succession laws, was successfully passed into law, thereby ensuring that Thomas would be allowed to marry his wife for as long as he remained a Protestant and that Hanover, in the event of the birth of a female heir, would not come to separate from the United Kingdom once again, hence securing a firm continuation of the union for the foreseeable future.

In his advocacy for the basic principles of separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judiciary, Thomas was also a vocal figure calling for the establishment of a "supreme court", having once said, "As fine as everyone seems to be with it right now, does it not feel a little weird that all the supreme judicial stuff is being done by one half of the legislative branch rather than by the judicial branch itself". In this, Thomas proposed that each of the United Kingdom's five constituent countries, namely England, Scotland, Wales, Hanover, and Northern Ireland be represented by one justice on the country's apex court while the chief justice would normally be from England. In addition, having learned from the politicisation of the United States Supreme Court, Thomas also proposed that the process of nominating justices should not involve elected parliamentarians, stating, "Undoubtedly, every politician, man or woman, in the House of Commons have their own vested interest which might or might not be good for the nation and the people as a whole. To even let them have a say in how the country's highest court should be run or how it should look ideologically is therefore absolutely dangerous and would only serve to weaken the country's democracy rather than bolstering it". Eventually, on 1 October 2009, via the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the United Kingdom Supreme Court was formally established and, despite not adopting the King's "one country, one justice" proposal, did make it that rather than being elected by lawmakers such as in the United States whose senators vote to confirm a new justice nominated by the president, an incoming justice would instead be nominated by an independent commission, followed by the Justice Secretary accepting or rejecting the nomination (which can only be done once), before later being officially appointed by the issuing of letters patent. Moreover, unlike their American counterparts who are appointed for life, British justices are required to retire upon reaching the current mandated age of seventy-five as a countermeasure against deliberate appointments of young justices for potentially political purposes.

A proponent of aggressive economic spending, Thomas has also actively called for the construction of "smart" and "useful" megaprojects via the Crown Heritage Investment Fund (CHIF), the country's sovereign wealth fund, having once famously remarked during a 1993 BBC interview, "The overall wealth of the United Kingdom's sovereign wealth fund is currently in the hundreds of billions which could only rise to even a trillion in the near future. With the Cold War now essentially over, this level of wealth should be fully unleashed and not for building more nukes or superweapons but rather infrastructure that will benefit the entire British people regardless of where they are from or where they currently live". In this, despite unsuccessfully advocating for a bridge connecting Great Britain to the island of Ireland, Thomas, taking inspiration from the construction of the Channel Tunnel linking Great Britain to France, was successful in proposing for the eventual construction of the high-speed railway lines of High Speed 1 and High Speed 2, both of which serve to considerably reduce travel time between the United Kingdom's major cities. In addition, Thomas was a vocal supporter of the London Crossrail Project which was later completed in the form of the Alexandra line in May 2022 during the reign of his successor (and whom it was named after) Queen Alexandra. Consequently, Thomas has come to be referred to by some people as the "Builder King" or "Tom the Builder", a play on the name of the famous British children's television series Bob the Builder while critics of his megaprojects proposals reportedly refer to him as "Big Money Tommy".

In a rare 2000 interview with the BBC, Thomas publicly expressed his opposition towards calls for abolishing the House of Lords, the upper house of the United Kingdom's parliament, while asserting that he is personally open to "thoughtful reforms", citing the Tilgner Report and the ensuing House of Lords Reform Act 1980. In this, Thomas cited his firsthand experience of "intense political polarisation" in the United States whose upper house, the Senate, is a purely elected body but whose effectiveness has been an occasional source of doubt due to the practice of filibustering where one or more members prolong on a debate to either delay or oppose it from being decided on by lawmakers. Calling it "the number one killer of democracy", Thomas asserts that the House of Lords, as it currently stands, "must not be entirely filled or dominated by self-interested politicians who prefer upholding their name and reputation more than the democratic process itself".

Amidst the intense debate over declaring an official national day for the United Kingdom, one of the few countries alongside Denmark to not have one in the world, Thomas once suggested that, in its current incarnation, the United Kingdom should celebrate November 20th as the country's national day given that it is the date when in 1924 the Kingdom of Hanover formally united with the United Kingdom to become one of its five constituent countries and therefore give the country its current form. In addition, as an avid football fan, Thomas also suggested that the date of July 30th where in 1966 England won its first FIFA World Cup trophy, becoming the first and only constituent country of the United Kingdom to win the tournament. However, the proposal was criticised by non-English politicians who deem it to be "too Anglo-centric". Nonetheless, in the absence of one, the Queen's Official Birthday, traditionally celebrated sometime between the end of May and the start of June, has served this purpose somewhat.

Disestablishment of the Church of England

In the lead-up to the 1997 United Kingdom general election, which took place just several months into Thomas's reign as monarch, the opposing Labour Party, together with the Hanoverian Union Party, ran on a centrist platform that included a series of reforms which, among others, included a potential disestablishment of the Church of England, England's established church and to which Thomas, as the British monarch, is tied via his role as the Supreme Governor. Consequently, while not necessarily a theocratic state, together with Denmark and Greece, the United Kingdom is one of only a few European countries to officially have a state religion, something that the former King Charles III himself reportedly criticised, particularly after the events of the Iranian Revolution in 1978 that reportedly caused him to loathe being the head of a state religion especially given that other European monarchies, namely Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Norway, and Sweden do not have state religions despite also being constitutional monarchies.

Eventually, in February 1998, following an expected Labour victory at the polls a year earlier that saw Tony Blair elected prime minister, the Hanoverian Union Party's Laurenz Aumann, whose party had entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the Labour Party on the premise of subsequently debating and potentially realising the disestablishment of the Church of England, brought forth what later came to be the Church of England Act 1998 that, after much intense debate and even considerable public commentary from the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, was subsequently passed by a firm majority in the House of Commons. Then, upon reaching the House of Lords, where twenty-five of the six hundred seats are explicitly reserved for the Lords Spiritual, a select group of bishops of the Church of England, the bill was once again met with considerable attention and scrutiny but was eventually passed, albeit by a narrow majority, and was subsequently granted royal assent by Thomas himself, thereby marking the end of the Church of England as an established church for almost four centuries long while also seemingly confirming the United Kingdom as a secular state in line with the growing trend among its religious demographics. To that end, the title of Defender of the Faith, first granted to King Henry VIII, was therefore officially discontinued in its usage, effectively signifying the secularisation of the British monarchy. Meanwhile, despite being allowed to remain as the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, together with twenty-four other bishops, were officially disqualified from sitting in the House of Lords in their capacity as the Lords Spiritual, a title that was itself abolished with their reserved twenty-five seats being filled by crossbenchers at the next rearrangement of seats in the House of Lords.

In November 2017, following his abdication as monarch, Thomas publicly expressed his wish that his daughter and successor Alexandra, in a first for British history, have a civil ceremony rather than a religious one given that the British monarch is no longer formally associated with the Church of England save for a longstanding requirement to be of the Protestant faith in order to succeed to the throne. Such an idea was later realised when, in the absence of a coronation, a civil investiture ceremony for Queen Alexandra instead took place in October 2019 at the Parliament Complex. Conducted by the President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the ceremony saw the Queen pledge to "uphold the principles of the rule of law, representative democracy, the separation of powers, as well as ethnic, linguistic, racial, and religious inclusiveness". In addition, its secular nature saw the participation of the leaders of all of the United Kingdom's religious faiths including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism, whom led the procession into the building and, in unanimous fashion, then asked the monarch whether she would "uphold the cultural and religious diversity of the United Kingdom" while holding their respective religious texts.

Hong Kong handover & End of The Troubles

On 1 July 1997, just several months into his reign as king, Thomas would personally be at the forefront of a monumental event in history with the British colony of Hong Kong, as per a 99-year lease agreed upon between the United Kingdom and Qing China, was to be officially handed back to China which is now currently administered by the Chinese Communist Party. To that end, a handover ceremony took place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre where, in a move that surprised many observers, Thomas himself attended the ceremony as the British monarch while accompanied by his brother Prince Nelson, newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair, outgoing Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten, and Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Charles Guthrie. In a major highlight of the ceremony, Thomas himself read out a prepared speech bidding farewell to the native Hong Kong population while also wishing them well under the new administration of the Chinese government via the "one country, two systems" policy. Later, in recent times, amidst increasing tensions between the two countries, anonymous sources have claimed that Thomas "detested" the whole occasion and instead preferred a fully democratic and fledgling capitalistic Hong Kong independent of any sovereign nation's control in any shape or form. Adding further, the sources also claimed that Thomas "breathed a huge sigh of relief" and "immediately drank a bottle of whiskey" right after the aircraft carrying the British monarch and his entourage left Hong Kong's airspace, adding, "The King was very relieved to be on his way back home after having to sit through an excruciating boastful display of communist pride and power right in front of his own two eyes". Nonetheless, in the wake of the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests, Thomas has vocally criticised the Chinese government for their "creeping violation and betrayal of the founding principles of Hong Kong's independence", adding, "The United Kingdom did not cede Hong Kong for it to essentially become a Chinese province or territory where they could do anything they want but rather a free nation with its own set of laws and regulations free from Chinese interference".

Meanwhile, on 10 April 1998, Thomas also oversaw the ratification of the Good Friday Agreement which officially brought the conflict known as The Troubles to an end as self-government was restored to Northern Ireland albeit on the principle of power-sharing. In addition, the British-Irish Council was established around a year later in a major step toward improving collaboration and relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Meanwhile, on a personal level, given the somewhat sectarian nature of the conflict and the fact that he recently wedded a Roman Catholic, Thomas later hailed the Good Friday Agreement as "the treaty to end all wars and avoid further suffering between the Irish people", adding, "As history would tell, there have been too many instances of unnecessary cruelty and violence between the two sides, each with their own agenda and means of achieving it. Without a doubt, to finally bring such dark episodes to an end after so long is a positive step forward and one that will hopefully last for eternity for the good of everyone".

East Timor & Papua New Guinea

A passionate supporter and advocate of decolonisation, Thomas, together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was an instrumental figure in the unification of the island of New Guinea under one single entity, namely Papua New Guinea. In this, Thomas, who supported Papua New Guinea's independence from Britain while otherwise being critical of Indonesia's controversial Act of Free Choice referendum in which citizens of Indonesia's Western New Guinea region handpicked by the military voted unanimously in favour of Indonesian control, first publicly pressed for a second referendum following the fall of Suharto's "New Order" regime, an event that was followed by gradual democratisation in Indonesia, firstly under Suharto's own deputy B. J. Habibie. To that end, just several months into Habibie's presidency, Thomas personally traveled to Indonesia to directly meet the Indonesian president where, after a week-long meeting behind closed doors, he ultimately proved successful in convincing the Indonesian leader to agree to a free and fair referendum concerning Western New Guinea as well as East Timor, both of which are former European colonies that came under Indonesian control.

Eventually, on 30 August 1999, under the sponsorship of the United Nations, joint referendums were simultaneously held in both East Timor and Western New Guinea asking voters to choose between greater autonomy within Indonesia or complete independence. In the end, the population in both areas voted decisively for independence, thereby resulting in East Timor becoming an independent nation several years later while Western New Guinea subsequently united with the independent Papua New Guinea, thereby uniting the island of New Guinea for the first time under a single political entity. Since then, for his role in directly meeting with President B. J. Habibie and successfully convincing the latter to grant independence to both areas respectively, Thomas has come to be well-regarded in both East Timor and Papua New Guinea, with the latter country, where he also reigns as monarch, later commissioning a statue of the king in the center of the capital of Port Moresby. Likewise, Bill Skate, whose premiership saw the country unite with the neighbouring Indonesian region, hailed Thomas as an "instrumental figure who publicly fought and advocated for the freedom and rights of Papuan islanders, be it those in Papua New Guinea itself or in the former Indonesian occupation region of Western New Guinea". Even more, both Thomas and Habibie were later nominated and jointly received the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize award for their successful diplomatic efforts regarding East Timor and Papua New Guinea, making the former the only monarch in history to ever receive the award. Meanwhile, Habibie himself left the presidency not long afterward in October 1999 while Indonesian nationalists have come to resent the independence of both East Timor and Western New Guinea, both of which they considered to be fundamentally Indonesian, a factor that reportedly led Thomas to avoid visiting Indonesia afterward for the entirety of his reign over fears of an assassination attempt by hardline Indonesian nationalists who allegedly blamed the royal for his role in precipitating both the independence of East Timor and the unification of the island of New Guinea. However, his daughter and successor Alexandra did otherwise visit the Southeast Asian country albeit with a heavy security presence due to security concerns.

Final Years

With the onset of the financial crisis of 2007-2008, a global recession that was considered to be the most serious recession since the Great Depression Thomas personally had the tax rate for himself as the British monarch raised to a slightly higher amount as a way to contribute more financially to efforts in mending the recession's immediate effects. Evidently, in an interview with the BBC around that same time, he remarked, "When the Second World War happened, my father broke royal convention and decided to go to war against Japan in the Pacific while my grandparents chose to bravely face the German bombings head-on, thus putting them both in grave danger just as the average soldier and citizen". He promptly declared that "while I would not be the King of England to face an armed invasion of our country, I would also not be the one to sit back and watch my own people face the hardships alone, for that is what Louis XVI of France did, and in the end, as we all know it, he ultimately lost his head". At the same time, in a manner deemed unconventional by many as the country's head of state, Thomas also openly encouraged the government under then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown to pursue aggressive economic policies meant to combat the recession's immediate effects, declaring that "if God wills it, the United Kingdom would be the first country in the world to escape this burgeoning recession". Nonetheless, Brown himself was subsequently voted out of office in the 2010 general election, which saw him being replaced with the current Conservative prime minister David Cameron, with whom he was said to have later developed a close working relationship, one that continued well under his successor, the reigning Queen Alexandra.

Entering the 2010s, following the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, Thomas publicly praised the effective legalisation of same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom, describing it as "long overdue" and a "momentous step towards a more tolerant and inclusive Britain". Meanwhile, around that same time, amidst widespread political unrest in the Middle East caused by the Arab Spring, Thomas notably met with the Bahraini cleric and politician Ali Salman during the latter's highly-publicised trip to Europe with the primary aim of gaining the support of the European Union for the new republican regime in Bahrain that was then at odds with the likes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of whom are monarchies and opposed the Arab Spring. However, back home, the period also saw the deaths of Thomas's parents, namely the former King Charles III and Queen Lauren in March 2011 and August 2014 respectively. During a later interview, Thomas described the period as "the most emotionally difficult of my life" while simultaneously expressing his personal pride in his parents' "long and eventful lives".

On 1 January 2016, following intense political debate and longstanding concerns over the Palace of Westminster's deteriorating condition and its accompanying maintenance costs, the United Kingdom's parliament was officially relocated from the Palace of Westminster, which was subsequently converted into a paid national museum, to the nearby King Charles III Centre, a building that was previously opened by the late King Charles III in 1986 which boasts a capacity of up to 2,500, making it twice as large than the Palace of Westminster in terms of overall capacity. The relocation, which symbolically took place on the 1000th anniversary of the Palace of Westminster's construction in 1016, saw Thomas deliver a farewell speech as parliamentarians were set to depart the building before later delivering a welcoming speech at the King Charles III Centre in honour of its new role as the country's parliamentary complex. In line with this, after a spontaneous vote among parliamentarians, the building was renamed to "Parliament Complex" whereas the names of the lower and upper chambers, the House of Commons and House of Lords, were retained on the basis of familiarity. A personal proponent of the decision to relocate the country's parliament, Thomas himself later declared in his welcoming speech, "At this precise moment, exactly a thousand years since the building that defined this country's legislature was first built, a new era begins for one of the country's three important branches. With a more modern-looking building to call home, perhaps the country's politics will emulate this relocation itself, namely in the direction of better and healthier dialogue between parties that benefits the people". Consequently the 2015 United Kingdom general election became the last general election to be held prior to parliament's relocation while the 2020 United Kingdom general election became the first general election to take place after the relocation.

Abdication

In the final year of his reign, despite already being sixty-seven years of age, Thomas was consistently described as being a "generally healthy, and well-conditioned man", as he was notably credited for almost regularly playing a game of polo with the palace staff and his close associates during his free time, leading him to be known as the "Polo King" among his close circles. However, on October 6th, having just gone back to his chambers alongside his wife, the King unexpectedly collapsed onto his bed while the latter had gone inside the chambers' bathroom. Around a minute later, royal doctors were immediately summoned following signs of a weakened pulse, leading him to be transferred instead to a special room for an operation. At the same time, by his own wife's insistence, any knowledge of the incident was kept secret from spreading outside of the palace itself, as to not force an immediate return for their daughter Alexandra from her university. Following an initially successful operation, he was declared to be in a "mildly stable" condition but soon afterward, subsequent operations were also conducted which lasted until just hours before his daughter Alexandra's return from her university, during which he was declared to had fully recovered from his illness, which was subsequently noted to have been a stroke but was otherwise kept secret from public knowledge.

In light of the incident, Thomas began seriously contemplating an abdication, during which he made it known to the then Prime Minister David Cameron who he had specifically invited to Buckingham Palace for the matter. Discussions between the two would continue until December 10th when in a coordinated manner, Thomas first declared his abdication at 10:30 AM in a BBC broadcast from Buckingham Palace before an Act of Parliament was granted royal assent by the King himself, thereby effectively formalising his abdication. In his abdication speech, Thomas chose not to publicly disclose the details of his illness leading to his abdication, having instead chosen to cite "ill-health and inability to sustain the continuation of royal duties" as his primary reasons for abdication.

Immediately following his abdication, a brief debate ensued over his post-abdication titles. Eventually, the debate was resolved when it was decided that Thomas, following a precedent established by his father during the latter's own abdication in 1997, would be styled "King and Grand Duke Emeritus". Later, in October 2019, Thomas attended the investiture ceremony of his daughter at the Parliament Complex.

Post-Abdication

Atlantic Connection

Following his abdication, Thomas began taking a more active role in overseeing the interests of the American-British multibillion-dollar holding company Atlantic Connection which holds considerable stakes in various industries through its many subsidiary companies. Having inherited his late father's shares in the company upon the latter's passing in March 2011 to become one of the company's select few biggest shareholders, Thomas has overseen some further expansion of the company's portfolio since assuming his position on the board of directors, with his particular interest being in sports. To that end, the company established the Major League Soccer side Los Angeles FC in 2014, and National Hockey League's Vegas Golden Knights in 2017.

As one of Atlantic Connection's biggest shareholders, Thomas has at times advocated for the company to pursue a "green and sustainable" strategy regarding its long-term future, stating, "Above all, there is the undeniable issue of climate change that regardless of everyone's opinions on it will ultimately bring only bad luck and terrible fortunes for all of humanity. At the same time, a solution rooted in both compromise and sustainability must and can be achieved to ensure that the company, in its current position, will be one of the foremost leaders in traversing a new and inclusive era where both consumers and companies can co-exist in peace while also providing mutual benefit for each other".

Around early 2024, amidst rumours of a plan for a new stadium concerning the English football club Manchester United, a project that was dubbed "Wembley of the North", Thomas publicly expressed in a BBC Sport interview his readiness to financially contribute to the construction of a new stadium if necessary and in conjunction with Manchester United's two major shareholders, namely the Glazer family and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the latter having recently acquired a minority stake in the club via his own company INEOS. In this, when asked if he was seeking anything in return as a major contributor to the stadium's design, Thomas replied by stating that he personally seeks no more than just 15`% of the stadium's annual revenue upon completion, the majority of which he plans to reinvest into the stadium itself while adding that his main motivation was to "see the football club that I supported for decades and counting to regain its lost status as England's greatest football club of all time". In the meantime, despite his rather public willingness to do so, Thomas also revealed that as part of his investment, he had communicated several particular caveats to the owners of Manchester United which, according to BBC Sport, include a permanent sale of the controversial academy graduate Mason Greenwood, a consistent top-four finish in the league, a consistent finish beyond the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League, and a minimum of twenty titles won within the next decade. Meanwhile, when asked what he would name the new hypothetical stadium, Thomas insisted on retaining the "Old Trafford" name but is otherwise open to having the new stadium be named "New Trafford" instead, thereby properly establishing itself as the successor to Manchester United's longtime stadium.

Return to Hollywood

In January 2019, having abdicated the throne roughly two years prior, Thomas made his directorial debut with the heist thriller film The Golden Trail which starred Gary Oldman as Michael Pearce, a retired master thief who recruits a group of individuals, each with their own expertise, led by Lawrence Spencer, portrayed by Henry Cavill, to recover a seemingly untraceable €100 million lost during an infamous 1970s bank robbery led by the notorious German thief Martin Ritschel (Christoph Waltz). Largely inspired by his own experience of watching the Ocean's heist films, the film, primarily shot in the United Kingdom as well as other countries including France, Switzerland, and Germany, proved to be both a critical and commercial success with praises directed towards the film's attention to detail, its ending twist, "witty" dialogue, and the particular performances of Henry Cavill, Daniel Kaluuya, and Lashana Lynch. Following this success, Thomas announced that a prequel exploring the past life of Michael Pearce is "under consideration" before later confirming its development sometime in June 2019 during an interview with The Guardian in which he offered a brief glimpse into the movie by summarising it as "a story where a man seemingly set for life suddenly finds himself extremely down on his luck and therefore decides to use his own instincts to uplift himself by any means necessary while sticking to his own set of morals". Later, during an interview in March 2020, Thomas revealed that production had wrapped in January and the film, titled The Founding Trail, was slated for a November release like its predecessor but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to reconsiderations about its release. Eventually, in November 2022, starring Tom Hardy as the younger version of Gary Oldman's character, the film finally made its highly-anticipated debut to generally positive reviews with praises for Hardy's acting, its exploration of the English underclass, and its attention to detail for the robbery scenes, a trait carried over from the first film. However, despite the sustained success, Thomas announced that the sequel would be his last concerning the film, stating, "From the get-go, I always knew that in order to tell a compelling story like this one, it would need at least more than a single movie. Now, since the story is pretty much already told in its entirety across two critically acclaimed movies and judging by how the second movie ended, I've made it pretty clear that, as was intended, the story ends right where it should be and should not be expanded any further with an unnecessary sequel that could potentially erode or destroy the goodwill or enjoyment the public had with the first two titles".

Meanwhile, in addition to his work with The Golden Trail and The Founding Trail, Thomas also directed several other films of varying genres. To that end, he directed the otherwise critically panned 2020 political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted which starred Anne Hathaway, his daughter-in-law, and the likes of Ben Affleck and Willem Dafoe. Undeterred by the initial setback, he went on to direct the 2021 political satire film Don't Look Up which starred, among others, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Timothée Chalamet, and Meryl Streep. Then, in 2023, just a year after The Founding Trail was released, Thomas directed the sports biographical film Gran Turismo which starred Archie Madekwe as the real-life Jann Mardenborough, a teenage British Gran Turismo player who later became a professional racing car driver. A modest commercial success upon its release, Thomas later described the film as "somewhat of a personal project", adding that he found Mardenborough's unlikely trajectory from an unknown teenager to a professional racing driver similar to that of his eldest son William Smith who famously led the United States to victory at the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Personal Life

A noted collector of cars, Thomas is known to have possessed a modest collection of both vintage and luxury vehicles, some of which include the iconic Jaguar E-Type, along with several others such as an Aston Martin Vantage, a second-generation Dodge Challenger, a Ferrari F40, and a Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R. Despite this, for leisurely purposes, Thomas would usually ride his longtime Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which he first acquired back in 1971, especially around the United Kingdom's less populous regions where he would enjoy better peace and otherwise less disturbance. On the other hand, his main vehicle, which he would often be spotted driving in public, is a BMW i8 hybrid which replaced his previous main vehicle, namely a BMW 8 Series.

In a 2006 interview with the BBC, Thomas revealed that had it not been for his royal background, he would have preferred to play professional football in his youth, a career he ultimately never pursued owing to an inherent sense of nervousness originating from him likely being the only royal in a football team filled mostly by individuals of commoner background coupled with the sport's considerable physicality at the time which was deemed to be a safety risk for an heir to the throne although he has nonetheless described himself as "fairly adept in it but perhaps not enough to necessarily play for a big football club", adding that during his teenage years, his son William Smith, who later went on to become an extremely successful professional footballer, often held leisure football practices with him in the family's backyard. Regardless, in a 1998 interview with the BBC, Thomas revealed himself to be a lifelong fan of Premier League club Manchester United whose legendary Northern Irish former player George Best was named by him as his favourite player of all time. To that end, Thomas has been a longtime season ticket holder himself and has also vocally spoken out on the club's apparent issues, namely its decline in performance following the retirement of longtime manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Known for his physically active lifestyle, in addition to football, Thomas is known to have enjoyed a variety of other sports including swimming, polo, golf, and tennis. Moreover, since its introduction in 1981, save for only a few instances, Thomas has consistently run in almost every edition of the London Marathon, often alongside his wife, a fellow marathon enthusiast, since the couple's marriage in 1995. Aside from this, while previously a habitual smoker, since becoming a father and especially following the death of his father-in-law from smoking-induced lung cancer, Thomas has long abstained from smoking and, in turn, has been a vocal advocate against the habit himself. In November 2017, while addressing a stroke that briefly paralysed him the previous month, Thomas jokingly claimed that he would have been "dead for good" if not for his decision to quit smoking beforehand, adding, "Since at least 1979, I have had a very solid purpose to live for a long time which is to see my children grow up and have their own children afterward. Because of that, I'm doing everything possible so that like my father, who passed away late into his 90s, I'll live long enough to see my family grow and enjoy what life has to offer me next".

While initially seen by observers and media outlets in his youth as the stereotypical "playboy prince", owing to his good looks and the fact that he later married a well-known American supermodel, since ascending to the throne and even after abdicating afterward, Thomas is deemed by observers to have successfully reinvented his image and persona from that of a "playboy prince", a label that he has since contested, to more of an attentive and mindful monarch, owing to his role in the United Kingdom's mid-2000s constitutional reforms, and also that of a loving father and family man, particularly to his seven children, each of whom has mostly described Thomas in relatively glowing terms. In this, regarding the past public perception of him, Thomas said, "Sure, I was fairly good-looking, rich, and knew a lot of women, some famous and some not so, but to call me a playboy or the sort is stretching the truth a little. Like any other normal person, I had my fair share of romantic crushes but, as those who know me will say, once I find a particular woman that I like, I will be absolutely loyal to that person until the end for I'm not necessarily the type of person to fool around when I shouldn't be, especially with a woman's heart". During his bachelorhood, Thomas was often compared to Monaco's Prince Albert II, both of whom are well-known European royals and are the sons of famous American actresses, namely Lauren Bacall and Grace Kelly respectively. However, in a 2011 interview, Thomas disclosed that he and Albert are "nothing more than just two simple friends" while adding that the apparent similarities between the two are "just coincidences and nothing more".

Romances

Considered to be one of the world's most eligible bachelors, in his youth, Thomas was variously linked to many different famous women, both of royal and non-royal lineages. However, since his marriage to the American supermodel Christy Turlington, Thomas has only ever acknowledged two other prior relationships, namely one with the American actress Jaclyn Smith and the other with the American politician Caroline Kennedy. Otherwise, since 1996, Thomas has been married to the American supermodel Christy Turlington, with whom he has five children in total.

From 1978 to 1992, a period of almost two decades long, Thomas engaged in a long-term relationship with the American actress Jaclyn Smith. In this, the two had first met each other while Smith was in the midst of starring in the popular crime drama television series Charlie's Angels which also starred the likes of Kate Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Subsequently, in 1979, the couple welcomed their first child together, namely a son named William, and in 1982, a daughter named Jacqueline. However, despite the births of their two children, Smith's status as a divorcee, coupled with her ex-husband still being alive at the time, meant that the two could not practically marry without triggering a constitutional crisis back home in the United Kingdom where Thomas, being next in line to the throne, was expected to marry a Protestant woman who is neither married nor divorced in line with his eventual status as the supreme head of the Church of England. Eventually, by 1992, the couple decided to part ways on mutual terms, thereby leading to a brief period of separation before they were reunited around a decade later due to their son's decision to further his career as a professional footballer in England.

In addition to Smith, for a brief period from 1975 to 1976, Thomas was also briefly romantically involved with the American politician Caroline Kennedy, the daughter and only surviving child of the late President John F. Kennedy. However, despite some encouraging signs, coupled with traditionally close relations between the British royal family and the Kennedy family, the latter family's Roman Catholic identity, coupled with Kennedy's intention to avoid the spotlight of being a queen consort, resulted in the two ending their short-lived romance although they have since remained friends on rather warm terms. Later on, their respective daughter and son, namely Alexandra and Jack Schlossberg, began a relationship that eventually culminated in marriage on 1 January 2024, thereby reconnecting the two once again as in-law parents.

Beginning in 1993, following a chance meeting at an exclusive gala in Paris, France, Thomas began a romantic relationship with the American supermodel Christy Turlington, to whom he was initially introduced by his sister, namely the Princess Royal. In this, despite a slight age gap of thirteen years, coupled with issues over Christy's Roman Catholic belief and her suitability as a queen consort, the couple enjoyed a firm and strong relationship which eventually translated into an official wedding on 14 December 1995, an event that saw the American supermodel become the first British royal consort of the Roman Catholic faith, a feat made possible by the passage of the Succession to the Crown Act 1995 which, among others, replaced male-preference primogeniture in favour of absolute primogeniture while also lifting the longstanding restrictions on British royals marrying a Roman Catholic spouse, something that was previously forbidden by the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Following this, in 1996, the couple then welcomed their first child together, namely the future Queen Alexandra, followed by their only son Richard in 1999, and three further daughters in 2003 and 2004, namely princesses Nicole as well as twins Elle and Vivian, who are named after the Legally Blonde characters Elle Woods and Vivian Kensington, played by actresses Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair respectively.

Titles & Honours

17 December 1957 - 15 January 1997 His Royal Highness The Prince of the Welsh, Prince of Orange, and Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017 His Majesty The King of the British, King of the Dutch, and Grand Duke of the Luxembourgers
14 October 2017 - Present His Majesty The King and Grand Duke Emeritus

Honours

National & Commonwealth

United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Royal Williamite Order
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Thomas
United Kingdom - Recipient of the Royal Family Order of King Charles III
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Medal of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of King Charles III
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Royal Guelphic Order
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Order of St. George
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Order of the British Empire
United Kingdom - Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order
Netherlands - Grand Master of the Military William Order
Netherlands - Grand Master and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion
Netherlands - Grand Master of the Order of the Crown
Netherlands - Grand Master of the Order for Loyalty and Merit
Netherlands - Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Ark
Netherlands - Honorary Commander of the Order of Saint John in the Netherlands
Luxembourg - Grand Master and Grand Cross of the Order of the Oak Crown
Luxembourg - Grand Master of the Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Canada - Sovereign of the Order of Canada
Australia - Sovereign of the Order of Australia
New Zealand - Sovereign of the Order of New Zealand
West Indies - Sovereign of the Order of West Indies
Solomon Islands - Sovereign of the Order of Solomon Islands
Belize - Sovereign of the Order of Belize
Tuvalu - Sovereign of the Order of Tuvalu
Puerto Rico - Sovereign of the Order of Puerto Rico

Foreign

Spain - Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece
Norway - Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of St Olav
Norway - Recipient of the Medal of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of King Olav V
Norway - Recipient of the Royal House Centenary Medal
Norway - Recipient of the King Harald V Silver Jubilee Medal
Sweden - Member of the Royal Order of the Seraphim
Sweden - Commander Grand Cross of the Royal Order of the Sword
Denmark - Knight of the Order of the Elephant
Denmark - Grand Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog
Germany - Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Japan - Collar and Grand Order of the Order of the Chrysanthemum
Japan - Golden Medal of Merit Japanese Red Cross
Japan - Golden Medal of Honorary Member of Japanese Red Cross
France - Grand Cross of the National Order of the Legion of Honour
Malaysia - Honorary Recipient of the Order of the Crown of the Realm
China - Recipient of the Order of Friendship
Republic of China - Recipient of the Order of Brilliant Jade

Military Appointments

United Kingdom
3 June 1979 - 28 May 1980: Officer Cadet, Royal Navy
28 May 1980 - 25 June 1982: Midshipman, Royal Navy
25 June 1982 - 11 January 1984: Lieutenant, Royal Navy
11 January 1984 - 5 May 1985: Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy
5 May 1985 - 15 June 1991: Captain, Royal Navy
15 June 1991 - 14 December 1995: Commodore, Royal Navy
14 December 1995 - 15 January 1997: Admiral of the Fleet, Royal Navy
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Lord High Admiral, Royal Navy
13 October 2017 - Present: Admiral of the Fleet, Royal Navy
25 June 1982 - 3 June 1986: Colonel, British Army
3 June 1986 - 12 November 1990: Brigadier, British Army
3 June 1986 - 15 January 1997: Major General, British Army
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces
13 October 2017 - Present: Field Marshal, British Army
5 June 1986 - 15 January 1997: Air Marshal, Royal Air Force
15 January 1997 - Present: Marshal of the Royal Air Force

Canada
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Army
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Navy
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Air Force

Australia
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Army
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Navy
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Air Force

New Zealand
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the New Zealand Army
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal New Zealand Navy
15 January 1997 - 13 October 2017: Commander-in-Chief of the Royal New Zealand Air Force