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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Jennifer Newton

Coronation blunders Charles wants to avoid - red-faced trip, booed King and wife drama

The Coronation is the oldest royal event in history dating back over 1,000 years - and it is just weeks until the crowning of King Charles will take place.

Organisers will no doubt be working day and night to make sure the big day on May 6 goes off without a hitch with rehearsals now well underway.

But as the Mirror revealed earlier this week, organisers face a "race against time" to finalise details of the King and Queen’s historic crowning at Westminster Abbey.

Rehearsals have overran, there are fears the King could trip in his robes and outfits for senior female royals have only just been finalised.

King Charles' Coronation takes place on May 6 (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Organisers are putting in the finals stages of planning the ceremony (Getty Images)

Fortunately, there is still time to iron out any glitches - but there have been Coronations throughout the ages, where major blunders or down right bizarre events have taken place.

And here, the Mirror speaks to royal historian and the joint chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces Tracy Borman to find out more about Coronation fails...

Blown away crown

Coronations in England date all the way back to King Edgar in 973, with the crowning usually the pinnacle moment of the ceremony.

But one monarch who had a moment to forget at his Coronation was the medieval King Richard II, who ruled from 1377 to 1399.

Richard II, who saw his crown blow off his head at his Coronation (Getty Images)
Charles will be crowned with St Edward's Crown, pictured (Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2023)

Tracy explained: "At his Coronation, a gust of wind blew off his crown, and that was seen as a really bad omen - and it was because he ultimately lost his crown.

"Later he was actually pushed off the throne and usurped by a cousin in 1399."

Unfortunate stumble

It has been reported there are fears he may trip in his heavy ceremonial robes at his Coronation - and there is actually a case of a stumble being recorded at a Coronation.

It came in 1838 when at just 19 years old Queen Victoria was crowned in a five-hour long ceremony that had been badly rehearsed.

Queen Victoria's Coronation lasted five hour (Getty Images)
Victoria was just 19 at her Coronation ceremony (Popperfoto via Getty Images)

And Tracy, the researcher who discovered Danny Dyer's royal connections, revealed: "At Queen Victoria's Coronation, the Archbishop actually tripped up the steps as he was going to crown her - and he fell over."

Not only that, the Coronation ring was painfully forced on to the wrong finger and a confused bishop wrongly told her the service was over - when it wasn't.

However, later in her journal she wrote it the say was "the proudest of my life'.

High drama

But one King, whose Coronation must go down as one of most drama-filled was that of George IV, who had previously been the prince regent for George III, and clearly had expensive tastes.

Tracy said: "He was a man of excess, he always spent so much money, he spent the most on a Coronation than had ever been spent, he spent £243,000, which for the 1800s was an absolute fortune."

George VI planned a very expensive Coronation that ended in drama (Hulton Archive)
Queen Caroline was barred from attending her husband George IV's Coronation (Hulton Archive)

So what drama ensued on his big day, Tracy explained: "But he hated his wife Queen Caroline - and so he barred her from Coronation, so she turned up anyway!

She found the Abbey doors slammed in her face and it created this huge scandal and the King was booed as he came out of the Abbey for so cruelly humiliating her."

Life-sized model

Most Coronation ceremonies have remained the same through the years - and Charles' in a few weeks time will have many of the same elements as those from hundreds of years ago.

But small tweaks to the services are often made to reflect the wants and interests of the monarch being crowned - even if they do seem a little weird.

But one Queen who took a risk with one specific part of her Coronation saw it surprisingly pay off.

Tracy, who is about to head on a UK tour called 'How To Be A Good Monarch', said: "Elizabeth I chose to use her Coronation to both honour and celebrate her scandalous mother Anne Boelyn.

"So this was a brave move because Anne Boelyn hadn't been mentioned since her execution in 1535 but when Elizabeth was crowned in 1559, she put her mother front and centre - she even had a life-sized model of her mother on the procession route.

"So she was making a real statement there, and actually it was quite risky because people didn't like Anne Boelyn and they didn't like to be reminded of her but the new Queen used that as an opportunity to express how she felt about her mother."

Tracy Borman will be at theatres around the UK from April 17 with How To Be A Good Monarch – 1000 Years of Kings & Queens – for ticket information visit www.tracyborman.co.uk/theatre. Tracy’s new book Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History is published on May 18 by Hodder & Stoughton but will be on sale at theatres on the tour.

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