When King Charles III, the oldest monarch ever to succeed to the British throne – and 14 other related thrones for that matter – was formally crowned in a traditional coronation at Westminster Abbey on Saturday, it came with all the flummery, pomp, circumstance and ceremonial that the country can still manage.
We may not be able to make the trains run on time or fill in the potholes in our roads, but we can muster immaculately marching troops, their bearskins bobbing through the drizzle down the Mall, and military bands in perfect unison thanks to the electronic commands in the drummers’ earphones. The slightest hint of dissent was stamped out: the small group of anti-monarchists of the pressure group Republic gathering in Trafalgar Square were not even allowed to gather up the placards from their van before some were arrested and bundled off. Only the drizzle could apparently be allowed to rain on this parade.
Even the rain, so reminiscent of the late queen’s coronation 70 years ago, gave the many thousands waiting to see the parade and wave at the king and his queen as they passed by in the gold state coach a kind of retro feeling from across the decades, when the world seemed simpler and the country more united in deference. Perhaps the weather was traditional, too.
Inside the abbey the 100-minute-long ceremony echoed down the centuries, with its traditional oath of allegiance and the king’s promise that he was a faithful Protestant and would “according to the true intent of the enactments … secure the Protestant succession”. That was rather belied by the brief participation of other faith leaders in the ceremonials, or the black Gospel Ascension Choir swaying in unison as they sang a modern alleluia beautifully – none of these would have happened in 1953’s strictly Anglican ceremony.
For those of us whose only experience of the last coronation is through brief black and white news clips, we knew that Charles would be anointed using a 12th-century spoon with holy herb-infested oils from Jerusalem. But the moments surrounding it, the donning of the colobium sindonis – a white linen shroud tunic – or the 110-year-old gold cloak or supertunica, still startled. The 74-year-old seemed positively weighed down physically and metaphorically as he kept on being loaded with the clobber – sceptre, orb, royal ring, ceremonial swords – all of which he was fortunately able to hand straight back to the attendant clerics.
Adding the crown, which looked enormous, perched on the top of his head and adjusted to make sure it fitted by the archbishop of Canterbury (“suits you, sir”) seemed almost superfluous. If he was moved, Charles just looked glum, though his eyes seemed to water as Prince William, having sworn allegiance as his liege man of life and limb, leaned up to kiss his father. Camilla too, the first former royal mistress to wear a crown since Anne Boleyn, also seemed moved.
The abbey had filled up with 2,200 guests from several hours before the royal couple departed Buckingham Palace – Ant and Dec, Joanna Lumley, Emma Thompson – plus assorted world leaders: Michael D Higgins, the president of Ireland, and Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin; Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte; Jill Biden and her granddaughter Finnegan, in place of the US president. A clutch of former prime ministers followed: Tony Blair and John Major in morning suits, each resplendent in the ceremonial collars of the Order of the Garter, followed by Gordon Brown, resplendent in his own way in a business suit, and Boris Johnson, not resplendent in any way in his rumpled morning suit. Behind them came Prince Harry, on his own and smiling nervously, to be seated in the third row back among the other minor royals, his view partly obscured by Princess Anne’s bicorn hat in front of him as she had come in the uniform of the colonel of the Blues and Royals cavalry regiment.
The king and queen had travelled from the palace to the abbey in the diamond jubilee state carriage drawn by six Windsor grey horses – a comparatively modern means of transport having been donated to the previous monarch in 2011 by the people of Australia. It has suspension and air conditioning, a rather different matter than the vehicle that transported them back in the opposite direction a couple of hours later.
The gold state coach, possibly the most uncomfortable vehicle in the country, was wheeled out to transport the king and his queen from the abbey to Buckingham Palace. It was built for George III’s coronation in 1761 but with true British craftsmanship was not ready in time. It has neither suspension nor easiness, so bumpy that the old sailor William IV described riding in it as like being on a ship in rough seas, and Queen Victoria, who found the oscillation alarming, declined to ride in it at all. It is evidently a rite of passage for royals, but one they need only travel once.
It lumbered down the Mall at a stately pace – so slowly that the extravagant and deeply unpopular George IV, after his coronation in 1821, kept shouting for it to go faster for fear that the crowd might break the windows and get him. No risk of that today, thanks to the overzealous Metropolitan police.
Back at Buckingham Palace, there was one more ritual: a balcony appearance. On Sunday there will be a grand concert at Windsor and on Monday street parties if the weather permits. “It’s a very good thing for the country, bringing in foreigners to spend money here,” said one bystander questioned in 1953. It’s a trick we’re still playing.
Stephen Bates, a former Guardian correspondent, is the author of The Shortest History of the Crown (Old Street Publishing)
