“What is the finest sight in the world? A Coronation. What do people talk most about? A Coronation. What is delightful to have passed? A Coronation.”
Horace Walpole
Saturday I got up early to watch Charles III’s coronation. It was the second one I’d seen. The first was Elizabeth II’s which I watched seventy years ago on someone else’s TV because we didn’t own one yet. It was an impossibly grainy image on a tiny screen of a Cinderella-looking carriage drawn by four horses. I was only seven years old, but I have a vivid memory of it, probably because I was so fascinated by fairy tales and princesses and queens and golden coaches made out of pumpkins.
This time my husband and I watched it in color on a much larger screen while talking on the phone to our daughter in California the whole time as she kept us updated with texts from her friends and comments on Tumblr. Now, seventy years later, I am no longer all that fascinated by princess and carriages, but I am fascinated by history, and in terms of historical events, a coronation simply can’t be beat.
The coronation of England’s rulers has taken place in Westminster Abbey since 1066, when William the Conqueror was crowned there on Christmas Day. All British kings and queens except two (or three, depending on how you’re counting–Jane Grey, the
Nine-Days Queen” was executed before they could get her crowned) have been crowned in the Abbey since William the Conqueror in 1066. Only the boy king, Edward V, one of the little princes in the Tower, and Edward VIII, were never crowned, Edward V because Richard III had had him declared illegitimate and then had him disappeared and Edward VIII because he abdicated before his coronation took place, leaving his brother holding the bag. When George VI was crowned on May 12, 1937, the date for Edward’s coronation, the king wryly remarked, “Same date, different king.”
His coronation was broadcast over the radio and Elizabeth II’s over TV, but otherwise they were almost identical to that of earlier coronations, and the ceremony itself is nearly identical to the one Mark Twain described in The Prince and the Pauper or to the one in 1066 of William the Conqueror.
The ceremony begins with a procession down the Mall from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey, with the king/queen riding in a coach (not the golden one) accompanied by the Lord Mayor, the members of the royal household, an assortment of clerical, court, and parliamentary officials, and mounted officers. Once at the Abbey, the Sovereign enters, wearing a red-velvet-and-ermine cape with a long train and a crown, though not the one he or she will be crowned with.
The coronation itself is a complicated ceremony with a number of steps which have remained essentially the same since William the Conqueror’s coronation. The Sovereign sits down on the Coronation Chair, underneath which is the Stone of Scone (which actually was stolen from Scotland and in the 1950s some Scottish university students stole it back–it’s now on loan from them) and takes an oath to rule the kingdom according to law, to exercise justice with mercy, and to maintain the Church of England.
He’s then anointed with chrism (holy oil) which was originally given to Thomas à Becket, the then-Archbishop of Canterbury by the Virgin Mary, and given the royal spurs (symbolizing chivalry), the royal swords (symbolizing State, Mercy, and Justice), the royal ring (often called “the Wedding Ring of England”), the orb, and the sceptre, and is crowned with St. Edward’s crown.
The gold-and-purple velvet crown weighs nearly five pounds and is decorated with 444 gems, including rubies, topazes, amethysts, sapphires, and emeralds. Queen Elizabeth II commented that you had to be careful not to look down while reading the royal oath or “you could break your neck,” it was so heavy. I thought Charles looked weighed down by it, and I noticed during the communion part of the ceremony he was bare-headed.
After Communion, the monarch changes clothes again, this time a purple robe, and takes the Coronation Oath. The Archbishop then raises the crown for all to see, the congregation shouts “God save the king (or queen)!” and the Abbey bells ring out to announce the ascension of the new monarch.
It’s a very solemn occasion, though some kings haven’t taken it all that seriously. King John giggled and jeered during the anointing and left immediately after the crowning and before Holy Communion, George IV flirted with his mistress throughout the service, and Edward VIII demanded that his mistress, Wallis Simpson, be seated in a special place above the altar, which courtiers promptly dubbed “the Loose Box.”
And even if the monarch does take it seriously, things don’t always go smoothly. At Queen Victoria’s coronation, the Archbishop jammed the ring onto the wrong finger so she couldn’t get it off, and eighty-year-old Lord Rolle fell down the steps during the homage. He “rolled quite down…” Victoria remembered. “When he attempted to re-ascend them, I got up and advanced to the end of the steps in order to prevent another fall.”
Richard II’s shoe fell off and Edward VII’s crown was almost put on backwards. To make matters worse, Edward had just had an appendectomy and could barely walk. Which was still better than Queen Anne, who was having an attack of gout and couldn’t walk at all–she had to be carried in in a sedan chair. The Dean at George II’s coronation forgot to bring the chalice and paten for communion, and at George III’s, he forgot the Sword of State.
Elizabeth II’s coronation seemed to go off without a hitch but behind the scenes, there were “noblemen who split their breeches…and earls and viscounts producing miniature bottles from inside their coronets,” and when one of the peers knelt down to pay homage to the queen, there was a clatter as mothballs tumbled from his robes.
Charles III’s followed most of the traditions, changing the ceremony only by making it shorter and including leaders of different faiths to participate in what used to be a purely Church of England ceremony. There was also a gospel choir, and the traditional church choir included girls this time.
The highlights were Prince William’s kissing his father on the cheek after pledging allegiance to him, nine-year-old George (next in line to the throne after William) carrying his grandfather’s train, his brother and sister, Louis and Charlotte, dressed in black and white respectively and looking like a miniature Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, and the fact that it rained (which somehow seemed appropriate.)
Some sovereigns, including this one, have had to deal with the fact that some–or all–of the people didn’t want them crowned. The public booed and hissed at Anne Boleyn as she rode to the Abbey, William the Conqueror had to post armed guards outside, and at this one, large numbers of people wearing yellow and black and bearing signs saying, “Abolish the Monarchy,” gathered in Trafalgar Square gathered to protest and were promptly arrested by security.
After the ceremony, everyone recesses to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” out of the Abbey for another procession back to Buckingham Palace. But that doesn’t fully convey the grandeur and panoply of the affair. There are banners and bunting and Union Jacks everywhere, marching bands and horses and troops in scarlet-and-black uniforms and helmets with flowing white plumes.
There’s music–by Handel, Elgar, and Purcell–and fireworks and a 62-gun salute from the Tower of London, and a sea of embroidered clerical robes and peers’ white ermine capes. And of diamonds and jewels and gold, from the Communion plate to the Sovereign’s clothing. Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation dress was white satin embroidered with silver and gold thread. “So glorious was the show with gold and satin,” Samuel Pepys wrote after seeing Charles II’s, “that we could not look at it,” and Mark Twain described the Abbey as being “frosted like a Milky Way of diamonds” and, when the sun hit the jewels, “flaming into a dazzling splendour of many-coloured fires.”
And there are other events, too–an RAF flyover and an appearance by the royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace and a fancy luncheon hosted by the new Sovereign for all the foreign dignitaries and other invited guests. Past coronations held lavish banquets, featuring roast swans and peacocks and venison, but in 1953, when Elizabeth II was crowned, post-war food rationing was still in effect, and they had to settle for chicken salad. “Poulet Reine Elizabeth” or “Coronation chicken” as it was dubbed, was a very special chicken salad, made with crème fraiche, apricot jam, curry powder, and wine, and it instantly became England’s most popular dish. (This coronation’s dish was called “Coronation Quiche” and featured spinach, broad beans, and tarragon–and sounded as exciting as Charles.
The coronation’s also a public event, with street parties and local celebrations in every town and village and people willing to stay up all night to secure a space from which to see it. Millions of spectators jam the procession and recession routes to catch a glimpse of the monarch. The weather this time meant that the flyover was smaller than they’d planned (though still resplendent with vapor trails of red and blue and white), the glass windows of the Cinderella coach (which is actually called the Gold State Coach) were spattered with rain, making it harder to see the new King and Queen, and the people along the procession route got drenched.
But there were still plenty of people and plenty of costumes–Union-Jack-printed dresses and suits and T-shirts and cardboard masks of Charles’ and Camilla’s faces and red-and-blue wigs. And there were millions more watching on TV around the world. Like me.
Paul Gallico wrote a delightful novella about an English family–mother, father, little boy, little girl, and crabby mother-in-law who come up to London from Sheffield for the coronation, only to find they’ve been swindled out of their “front row seats and champagne brunch” affair and now it’s too late to even find a place in the crowds where they can catch even a glimpse of the royal coach going by. It’s heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting as the father desperately tries to give his family the coronation experience he promised them, even to the champagne. If you’re a coronation fan, you definitely need to read it.
I’m glad I got up to see the coronation, especially since I may not live to see another one. Or, at this rate, there may not be another one. But if there is, and I’m still around, I’ll definitely be watching.
Connie Willis
