So much for the magic, now for business. The coronation weekend reasserted Britain not as a modest, symbolic, “bicycling” monarchy of the sort adopted by many of Europe’s other hereditary kingdoms. Its royal family remains spectacular, drenched in history, religion, ritual and extravagance, an all-bells-and-whistles celebrity institution. Heredity is indefensible as a basis for high office, but it can survive if legitimised by consent. A king should indeed enjoy popular support, or he is nothing. But the question remains: is this popularity more safely guaranteed by unobtrusive moderation or by great congregations of soldiers, golden coaches, screaming jets, pop stars, bishops and God?
In his study of monarchy, the constitutionalist Vernon Bogdanor classified Britain as a “magic monarchy”. It respected the writer Walter Bagehot’s concept of a “mystical and theatrical” institution, kept wholly distinct from the grimmer realities of democratic government. That was the past weekend in spades. I lost count of the references to God, but there was no mention of parliament or democracy. Not even China’s Xi Jinping or Russia’s Vladimir Putin would have dared summon millions to watch them unclothe and disappear into a cubicle to commune with the almighty as the central legitimating act of their office. Is Britain completely mad?
Trying to read meaning into such events is hopeless. Yet the absence of any civil ritual for the succession must surely be anachronistic. Other European monarchs are formally recognised by their democratic parliaments, not by an “established” church. Today, only a tiny minority of Britons would have recognised, let alone concurred with, the terminology of the coronation service. The reference to the Protestant succession was superfluous and, to many, deeply offensive. There is an urgent need to reform the whole idea of the coronation before Prince William must endure the same nonsense.
The same applies to the one theme to emerge from the weekend’s diverse ceremonies. This is the word “service”, which the king and Prince William invoked so often, they sounded like marketing executives toying with a new brand. This has to be better defined if it is to be more than a performative cliche, especially when its only validating authority is offered as not parliament, but God. Charles I lost his head for such presumption.
The king doesn’t seem to regard service with the pious selflessness of a Mother Teresa. He can certainly point to a refreshingly controversial career in which he has made his voice heard even while holding himself aloof from political partisanship or bias. The challenge will be to continue this aloofness, especially when only a third of young people under 25 support the monarchy – and when most of them also appear to want a more “activist” monarch.
It is in the definition of the word “service” that the thrills and spills of this high-profile monarchy seem likely to lie. Every interest group will be crying out for its support. All will be waiting to see where this may lead the king’s weekly conclaves with his prime minister over issues as varied as the climate, refugees, healthcare, the arts and overseas aid. The king is not given to shutting up.
For the monarchy, the critical test will be the sustenance of popularity, measured by the short-term crudities, the rises and falls, of opinion polling. That is the real message of the coronation. But the king could make a start. As an initial gesture of generosity, he could accept that Windsor and Clarence House are perfectly adequate homes. Buckingham Palace might become a public museum – as the king himself once mooted – and its 40-acre garden a public park.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
