Monarch is hard at work as crowds continue to back Charles

THE King waves happily as he is greeted by cheering crowds at Buckingham Palace yesterday as he gets down to business.

- Richard Palmer

Charles III, accompanied by his principal private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, could be seen acknowledging spectators through the car windows as his motorcade of four cars and four police motorbikes sped down The Mall.

He had arrived at the Palace for with series of meetings Commonwealth representatives.

Excited young children sat on the shoulders of parents trying to take photos with their phones, and all cheered and waved at the new monarch as he was driven in his state Rolls-Royce from Clarence House through the Palace gates at around 1pm.

Inside the Palace, he received Commonwealth Secretary General Baroness Scotland in the 1844 Room and then attended a reception with high commissioners and other representatives from the 14 other countries where he is also head of state.

His meetings, part of the carefully choreographed plans drawn up years ago for this period of national mourning, came on the day it emerged that Antigua and Barbuda had pledged to hold a referendum on becoming a republic within three years after the death of the Queen.

Moments after signing a document confirming the new King as head of state, Gaston Browne, the Caribbean nation's Prime Minister, reiterated his commitment to giving his people a vote on becoming a republic if he is re-elected next year.