Māori Queen meets King Charles in first Buckingham Palace visit

The audience at Buckingham Palace carried weight far beyond royal ritual. For the Kīngitanga, a meeting between the Māori monarch and the British sovereign still speaks to the unfinished history of colonisation, land loss and Treaty-era responsibility, and to the question of how Māori leadership now engages the Crown as a modern political force rather than a ceremonial curiosity.

Te Arikinui Kuini Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō met King Charles III on Thursday afternoon in London, her first meeting with the monarch since becoming Māori Queen in September 2024. Earlier in the week, she had also met Prince William at Windsor Castle, a visit that marked the first time a Māori monarch had been received there. The London stop placed her at the centre of a relationship that now stretches across both symbolic diplomacy and contemporary expectations of accountability.

According to the Kīngitanga, the Buckingham Palace discussion moved from the death of her father, Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, to the aspirations surrounding the 2040 commemoration of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Te Arikinui, the Kīngitanga said, is focused on building strong relationships between peoples as Aotearoa New Zealand approaches the 200-year anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti. That emphasis matters because the Māori monarch remains one of the most visible expressions of indigenous authority in New Zealand, carrying cultural legitimacy and political weight even without formal state power.

Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō became the eighth monarch of the Kīngitanga on 5 September 2024, six days after her father died at Tūrangawaewae Marae. She was 27 at the time and became only the second Māori Queen in the movement’s history, following Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, who reigned from 1966 to 2006. The succession underscored both continuity and change: a young monarch stepping into a role shaped by grief, protocol and an evolving relationship with the Crown.

The connection between the two royal houses is not new. King Te Rata travelled to England in 1914 to seek justice over land confiscations, King Charles and Queen Camilla visited Tūrangawaewae Marae in 2015, and Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō had already met then-Prince Charles in London in 2022. This week’s meetings continued that lineage while also reflecting a more assertive Māori diplomacy, one that places Te Tiriti, remembrance and future relationships at the centre.

The visit also coincided with the 50th anniversary celebrations of The King’s Trust, and Te Arikinui attended events recognising rangatahi Māori entrepreneurs supported by The King’s Trust Aotearoa New Zealand. The trust works with young people aged 17 to 30 and offers training, mentoring, funding and networking, including He Kākano seed grants of $5,000 to $20,000. In that setting, the relationship between the monarchy and Māori enterprise reached beyond ceremony and into economic opportunity for a new generation.