I first met Sherlock Holmes as a teenager and read Doyle’s serial text repeatedly until they conveyed the author’s art of deduction; they also influenced a deep interest in the Histories that developed the Modern Period and the shared works with Americans to sustain a Global Power. Living in Virginia, too, kept me in touch with the Elizabethan successes to make the Island Independent from invasions. For me, King Charles’ family culminates in a wonderful story worth knowing and offers useful insight. 

I publish these lines as they appear to me when I reflect on lessons learned and represent a continuation. They attempt to describe a religious function which a King performs for a constitutional kingdom and The Commonwealth as Head of the Armed Forces and an Independent Church. To see King Charles III as the Head of a Church also transformed my perspective of him and his role plus the importance of a Queen to maintain "the pursuit of happiness"--as embedded in the American Preamble.  

A Portrait in verse 

Antony Frame ISBN 9781300887362  
Link to King_Charles_III_and_Queen_Camilla_Portraits_in_Verse.pdf

Dated: December 2025 

Question or Comment?

 Google Form  or email

A King for All Seasons:

The Religious Function at Work.

A Portrait in Verse

Photograph of a building built in the Renaissance Revival style with colonnades and arcades. A clock tower stands at the intersection of the George and Pitt streets. Due to the long exposure, ghosted figures of people can be seen walking on the streets in front of the post office.

This is a photograph from one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

The majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. They include photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such an assortment of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period. In 1886, some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced as engravings in the published accounts of the voyage, The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante, 1879-1882.

Provenance

Album compiled by the Reverend J N Dalton (1839-1931) and presented to King George V.

Dalton, John  Neale. “The Cruise of HMS Bacchante 1879-1882: General Post Office, Melbourne 1881.” The Royal Collection Trust, His Majesty The King., www.rct.uk/collection/search#/37/collection/2580787/the-cruise-of-hms-bacchante-1879-1882-general-post-office-melbourne. Accessed 24 June 2025.

Albumen print | 23.0 x 28.1 cm (image) | RCIN 2580787.

Written at Staunton, Virginia
Seat of Augusta County in the Blue Ridge.

Inspired by

The Histories and Lineage of a British Education

and Its Influences.