LONDON: Britain`s King Charles III is supporting researchinto the historical links between the monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday.

A month ahead of his coronation, the palace said that academics will gain greater access to royal archives, and that Charles takes the issue `profoundly seriously`.

Charles`s 17th century predecessor King James II was the largest investor in the Royal African Company, which became a brutal pioneer of the transatlantic slave trade.

Last year, Charles told a meeting of Commonwealth leaders that in order to `unlock the power of our common future, we must also acknowledge the wrongs which have shaped our past`. But there was no apology from the then-heir to the throne for the royal family`s involvement in the transportation and selling of people for profit.

James 11, deposed in 1688, was not the only one of Charles`s forebears who was complicit in the slave trade.-AFP