King Charles allows probe into crown’s ties to slavery: Buckingham Palace

King Charles III has made the unprecedented call to authorize independent research into the British monarchy’s ties to slavery.

The move by Buckingham Palace reportedly marks the first time the crown has backed such an investigation, after centuries of keeping mum on their official dealings with the slave trade.

Manchester University historian Camilla de Koning will probe the ruling family’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and the ways in which it supported the empire’s expansion, The Guardian reported on Thursday.

De Koning’s study, which began in October, is co-sponsored by Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), an independent nonprofit that manages several palaces in the kingdom, and is due to wrap up in fall of 2026.

In a statement obtained by The Post, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said that the King takes this work “profoundly seriously,” repeating his message to Commonwealth leaders in Rwanda last year: “I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many, as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.”

“That process has continued with vigor and determination since His Majesty’s accession,” the palace rep continued, adding that researchers would be granted access to the royal collections and archives. “Given the complexities of the issues it is important to explore them as thoroughly as possible.”

Meanwhile, The Guardian has also just unveiled a previously buried document that evidently confirms King William III’s engagement in the slave-trading Royal African Company, showing a transfer of the modern-day equivalent of $1,245 of shares from Edward Colston, the company’s deputy governor, in 1689.

The royal family has been traditionally reluctant to address its association with the slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries. Nevertheless, historians have long reiterated that British monarchs indeed bolstered or benefited from the trafficking of millions of people from Africa to the Caribbean and North America.

“This document offers clear evidence of the British monarchy’s central involvement in the expansion of the slave trade, and the huge importance of crown support for the enslaving voyages to Africa,” said historian Brooke Newman, who dug up the archival document in question. “Edward Colston has become notorious now due to historians’ dedicated research and campaigners in Bristol, but in fact he was a far less significant figure than the successive kings and queens who invested and gave royal backing to slavery and the slave trade.”

The Windsor family, who took power over the monarchy in 1917, has also recently been forced to reckon with systemic racism within their institution, as ex-royals Prince Harry and American wife Meghan Markle, who shares African ancestry, previously alleged that family members were concerned about the skin color of their firstborn child, Archie, now 3, and that Markle herself has been the victim of royal racism.