Nothing prepares you for a coronation – not quite, not completely. King Charles III had waited seven decades for his moment, he had rehearsed the ceremony days before, but as he approached the gates of Westminster Abbey, his face betrayed his anxiety. He turned around, he mumbled, he fidgeted.
For much of the two-hour service, his expression was, if not exactly a grimace, a study in suspense. When the two-kilogram St. Edward’s Crown was placed on his head, he darkly closed his eyes. Queen Camilla similarly prepared when her own turn came.
The audience was unprepared for the coronation, probably more. No one much younger than the 74-year-old king could remember the last one, which took place when Winston Churchill was prime minister.
More than 2,000 people marched through the abbey, and their eyes seemed to widen at the plethora of colorful garments, the grandeur of the jewels, the assortment of the great, the good and the deserving. The sighting of singer Lionel Richie sitting next to former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop gave some idea of the oddity of the occasion. There were roles for people with titles such as the Lady of the Order of the Thistle and the Pursuing Red Dragon.
It would be wrong to say that the British public had been seized by the prospect of the coronation. According to a poll, two-fifths thought it was a waste of taxpayers’ money. Two-thirds didn’t care much or not at all, according to another. After all, there had been a glut of royal pageantry over the past year: Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee weekend last June, followed by her funeral in September.
Yet, as so often, the royal ceremony proved almost irresistible. Above all, the music, guided, we are told, by the king himself. Westminster Abbey is a fragmented building, where few seats have a direct view of the central space. It has hosted coronations since 1066, meaning for many centuries most attendees had to wring their necks. For this reason, and because most of the congregation had to be seated for two hours before the start of the main service, music mattered.
Interpretation by Handel’s Chorus Zadok the Priest, sung at the holiest moment of the service as the king was anointed with oil behind a screen, was a triumph. When the congregation later responded with the words “God save the King”, the noise reverberated deep into the Masonry.
The coronation, which remains above all a Christian service, was intended to underline Charles III’s commitment to his duty. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s sermon placed the king in the context of Jesus Christ: “anointed not to be served, but to serve”.
In truth, Charles III has already rendered many services and undergone many initiations: service in the army, media ridicule, endless public engagements. The coronation is just one more ritual. You might even say it was redundant: he’s been king since September. But this ceremony helped to draw the line between the fallible and opinionated prince that he was and the blameless and neutral monarch that he is supposed to be today.
Previously there had been grumblings over a new oath of allegiance – introduced to allow the public to express their loyalty to the king. It didn’t sound very British; it sounded almost – gasp – American.
The previous arrangement had been even worse – a few aristocrats expressed their loyalty – but fixing anything in the British constitution is fraught with pitfalls. In this case, the call for taking the oath, which was never intended to be mandatory, was watered down to an invitation. At least at Westminster Abbey, the congregation gladly accepted the invitation, perhaps proving that you can persuade the British public to do anything as long as you pretend not to.
Prince William, next in line to the throne, swore allegiance to his father, sealed with a kiss on his cheek. Her brother Prince Harry, who quit royal duties and published an angry memoir four months ago, dealt with his cousins and uncle Prince Andrew and sat in the third row. His wife Meghan stayed at home in California. The divisions of the Windsors remain and do not appear to have widened.
In preparation for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, the abbey was closed for five months, Charles could not match that, nor the 4,000 soldiers in his procession match his. What her coronation offered was more diversity: the participation of female bishops for the first time and more representation from other faiths – a personal passion of hers.
Diversity had limits. The whole of Britain, let alone the Commonwealth, could not enter the coronation. Britain is not just the glow of the orb; it is the darkness of the sky outside. It’s not just worshipers waving the flag on the Mall; it was the Republican protesters who were arrested in Trafalgar Square. It wasn’t just the millions of people who gawked at the television; it was the millions who were most interested in afternoon football.
Still, those who crowded into the abbey and around the television felt more than sufficient. Feathered hats, spring dresses and morning suits paraded out of service towards Parliament Square. John Kerry, the US climate envoy, filmed the wooden and gold state coach on his smartphone.
In the early afternoon, King Charles III smiled at the crowd from a balcony at Buckingham Palace. Nothing has prepared us for the coronation, but the coronation has prepared us for what is to come: a monarch who may never achieve the acclaim of Elizabeth II, but who will nonetheless deftly channel two millennia of tradition into the British national consciousness.
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