King Charles and Queen Camilla have arrived in Washington DC for a whirlwind four-day state visit, where they were officially welcomed by President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania at the White House. The King and Queen landed in the US capital on Monday, greeted by the Trumps with a warm embrace between Melania and Camilla, while Charles and Trump shook hands. However, a body language expert believes the monarch seemed different during the welcome, displaying signs of unease following a recent shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in which Trump was targeted.
Body Language Analysis
Bruce Durham, a body language expert from Huddle Culture, told the Mirror that Charles exhibited unusual behaviour. "What's really interesting here is there's a deviation in King Charles's behaviour. King Charles is ingrained in and conditioned to formal displays of royal behaviour. Protocol and etiquette have been his entire life—how to behave, act, when to speak, and when to be silent. What we see here is that Charles, on a number of occasions, is showing signs of not being fully focused on the task at hand."
Durham noted the "tortoise effect" shortly after Charles arrived. "Just after he arrives, what you see is what we call the tortoise effect. Charles has been in thousands of engagements like this. He knows what to do. He knows where to stand. He would have been briefed by his staff. Yet when Camilla comes across to engage and greet Donald Trump, Charles puts his head down. This is exactly what we do when we have either fear, doubt, or a lack of self-confidence. There is no reason for Charles to put his head down. This is an activation of the sympathetic nervous system—the amygdala, the fight-or-flight response firing. In that moment, Charles is physically present, but his mind is absent somewhere else."
Self-Soothing and Recovery
According to the expert, this instinctive act could be due to the recent shooting. Durham explained that Charles performed a subconscious ritual to calm his mind. "Shortly after this, you see Charles perform a self-soothe with his left hand on his thigh. That is to tell himself that he's OK. Whatever is going on in his mind, he is telling himself it's OK, it will be fine, calm down—you're OK right now. Then immediately he puts both hands behind his back, as if he has remembered what to do. When they are about to turn and walk into the White House, you see Charles start to become more like the King Charles we know. This is an activation of the parasympathetic nervous system."
Durham believes the shooting was likely at the forefront of the King's mind. "Charles may be aware of a threat. He may be uncomfortable, perhaps thinking that there could be a shooter in the crowd. But we all behave in this way. After a while, if that threat does not materialise, the parasympathetic nervous system takes over. We begin to breathe easier, reduce our heart rate, and adapt. That is why you see Charles start to return to the King Charles we recognise, with protocol, gregariousness, and sometimes humour."
Unusual Behaviour
The expert said this jittery behaviour is unusual for the King, but given the divisive nature of the state visit, it is no wonder Charles might be hyper-aware of a potential threat. "For sure, he displays a behaviour where 'his mind is not where his feet are.' At the start, without doubt, he is physically present, but mentally he is thinking of something else. It would be logical to think of the recent shooting. His baseline behaviour had changed. Charles has done this thousands of times, so the change? The answer could be fear."
