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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
National
Stephen Marche in London and Toronto

God save us all: Britain is about to get the king it deserves

KingCharles BarbaraGibson
Long live King Charles the Absurd. Illustration: Barbara Gibson/The Guardian

Say it out loud and try not to snicker: “The coronation of Charles the Third.”

In a time of post-post-colonialism, of anti-racist iconoclasm, a time in which the very notion of gender as a legitimate distinction is contested, and Christianity has been reduced to a scandal management system with costumes, a 74-year-old British gentleman will ride a fancy carriage to an old church where a few other elderly British gentlemen in gilded dresses will declare him emperor, patriarch and head of state because God says so.

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