Queen Victoria's Power

Queen Victoria's Power Mike Bartlett’s verse play King Charles III, which finished an extended run at Wyndham’s Theatre in London this past January, stages a near-future crisis for King Charles III. Parliament has put forward a bill that will enable Whitehall to regulate the press. In deep distress, Charles pores over a copy of Walter Bagehot’s The English Constitution (1867). Can the king use the royal prerogative to prevent the bill’s passage? Bagehot’s Victorian-era judgments might help guide him. The new king sweats.