The King will be officially crowned today. The Coronation, although reportedly less grandiose than his mother’s 70 years ago, will be replete with pomp and circumstance and will be watched by hundreds of millions in Britain and around the world.

It’s said that no one does these kinds of events better than the Royal Family and the British. As a spectacle, it will be magnificent and memorable.

Nonetheless, the coronation of King Charles III inevitably gives rise to a reconsideration of the monarchy and its place in Britain, Bermuda and the Commonwealth.

At the turn of the 20th century, much of the world was led by crowned heads of state, whose powers extended from near total absolutism to the constitutional and limited monarchy of what was then the British Empire.

Many of these monarchies were toppled within 20 years, as the end of the First World War saw them overthrown and replaced with a variety of forms of more popular governments.

The House of Windsor survived, not least because it had already surrendered much of its power. Since then, that same adaptability has been in evidence and the late Queen deftly carved out a job description that enabled the Royal Family’s survival when clumsier people would have found themselves unemployed.

That the Royal Family are in many ways anachronistic is inarguable. The idea of the leadership of a country being handed down in hereditary succession and being placed above the rest of the people for no reason other than an accident of birth clashes with liberal democratic ideas about advancing on one’s own merit and effort.

This is true even when the Bushes, Kennedys, Nehru/Gandhis, Marcoses, Trudeaus and more are proof that the dynastic urge is still a force in democracies. But these scions, even when a familiar name gives them a step up the greasy pole, must still win at the ballot box. And second and third generations rarely prove as able as their patriarchs or matriarchs.

And yet the Royal Family survive and to some degree thrive. That may be because in an age of fractured politics where people stay increasingly in their own silos, they transcend politics and offer a sense of national identity that politicians rarely can.

Then, too, King Charles III, by a combination of skill and luck, grasped on to the importance of the environment in modern life. Having taken on the cause before it gripped the popular imagination, he has proved to be prescient, and this stands him in good stead across the political spectrum.

Other members of the Royal Family’s willingness to engage in public service and to gives their names to worthy causes has helped “the firm” as well. This work is both important and worthwhile, while shoring up the value of the family to the wider community, both in Britain and around the world.

To that extent, the survival of the Royal Family seems relatively assured, although questions will be rightly asked about their wealth and purpose in the future, and they will remain fodder for the tabloids, especially when their names are Andrew or Harry.

Much of the value is centred on the United Kingdom itself. For British Overseas Territories such as Bermuda and the broader Commonwealth, royalty’s role is more complicated.

Bermuda is institutionally British but culturally diverse, in that it is heavily influenced by North America, the Caribbean and the Azores as well as Britain and continental Europe. In that sense, the King is Bermuda’s head of state, but is necessarily more remote.

The coronation is not being widely celebrated, and Monday’s holiday will be no doubt a time for families and fun, with little thought being given to the man of the hour.

That is not entirely surprising in this age. But it contains within it seeds of destruction. It would do the Royal Family no harm to take more interest in the “last pink bits” as they travel the world.

In that context, that the King is hosting the British Overseas Territories at a reception and is also hosting an event for small-island states is encouraging. The moral force of the King engaging in these areas can only be helpful.

This engagement would be welcome as, if seems likely, more members of the Commonwealth become republics and move away from this body.

However, if this diminished the Commonwealth, that would be a loss. While it cannot be more than a loose grouping of countries who share a common language, they are largely joined together by similar institutions and values. The importance of an organisation that can share experiences and at times, as eventually occurred during the apartheid era, emerge as a moral force must be useful in a world which is becoming more polarised.

The late Queen dedicated much of her time and effort to maintaining the ties between Commonwealth nations. The King can and should do the same, even as those bonds will be strained by other pressures.

Royalty’s future lies in its exercise of soft power, too. Its ability to represent universal values, its longstanding commitment to the environment and culture, and its ability to use its platform to bring attention to issues when elected or appointed officials are concerned with more immediate issues gives them a role, albeit an inherited one, which would be hard for others to fill if they were not there.

To that extent, the King has a role to play in Britain and Bermuda. May he carry it out with wisdom, tact and compassion.