REFLECTIONS ON THE CORONATION OF KING CHARLES III
The King’s Coronation – perhaps the most spectacular piece of pageantry that we are likely to witness for many years – took place nearly a fortnight ago. It’s therefore getting to be ‘old news’; but I thought you might like a few brief reflections on it from me, as someone who was privileged to be in the Abbey on the day.
My presence at the event, incidentally, was as a result of an extraordinary piece of luck. My name was one of only 14 drawn out of a hat in which over 200 names of Conservative members of the House of Lords were competing for a ticket. By contrast, my wife Elizabeth was their ex officio, as Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire. So, a double privilege but one which meant that we ended up sitting in different parts of the Abbey.
I won’t talk about the things you are bound to have thought about and said for yourselves; the sense of gravity and seriousness, but also the sense of joyousness about the occasion, which was impossible to miss; and of course the fantastic music which I am sure we all found moving and uplifting. I certainly did.
There were two things above all that struck me about the occasion. The first was the contrast between this Coronation and the Coronation of the late Queen in 1953. The second was the profoundly religious significance of the ceremony alongside its constitutional significance.
The seating capacity of the Abbey is just over 2,000; and when we arrived it was pretty well full. In 1953, by virtue of stands built on scaffolding, they managed to squeeze 8,000 people into the building. This included virtually the entire hereditary peerage of England, Scotland and Wales, perhaps 1,200 people – plus their spouses, making another 1,200 – all of them in coronets and tiaras. It’s clear that the stands on which the members of the peerage were sitting in 1953 were by modern standards extremely unsafe. They also did permanent damage to the stone floor of the abbey. This time, there wasn’t going to be a repeat. The King decreed that numbers were to be kept to a minimum, and that in particular, the number of the peerage should be restricted to a maximum of 50 from those currently sitting in the Lords. No peers’ wives; no coronets; no tiaras. And the stark difference in the make-up of the congregation hit us in the face from the moment that Elizabeth and I took our respective seats.
Elizabeth found that sitting on her right was the Governor of Jamaica; and on her left, another Lord Lieutenant. Behind her was a lady from South East Asia; in front of her was the holder of a British military medal. Simply from the juxtaposition of those four people it was impossible not to appreciate that one of the big themes of this unique occasion was that of diversity; men and women from all parts of the world and from all parts of our own community, meeting together with a shared purpose. It was the palpable diversity in the congregation that instantly – in my mind – set apart this Coronation from any of its predecessors in our history. And that theme of diversity was no accident: it manifested itself in all sorts of ways throughout the service that followed.
The King had specifically requested that as many members as possible of the ordinary public should be present. Out of the 2,000 seats available 450 had been allocated to men and women who were recent recipients of the British Empire Medal, invited in recognition of the service they have given to their local communities. In other words, it was not an occasion for the great and the good, but the good.
It was noticeable, as well, that despite it being a profoundly Christian service, there was a profusion of representatives from different faiths and denominations given pride of place. Leaders from the Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Moslems, the Jewish communities, Bahais, Methodists, Coptics, Roman Catholics, and many more.
And the theme of diversity was even apparent in the choice of music – as you heard, a heady mix of well-known anthems from the past and works specially commissioned from contemporary composers; women composers alongside the men; the Abbey choristers alternating with Afro-Caribbean Gospel singers. A very different feel from 70 years ago.
And so, as the service progressed we were able on television screens to witness the solemn rites and rituals that combine to bring about the crowning of a monarch. Many of us, I suspect, may not have fully appreciated the weight of history that rests on the Coronation service. Its rituals signify, as they have for more than a thousand years, the dedication of the Sovereign before God. They point to the sacrificial role the Sovereign plays in the service of the nation. The recurring mantra of service was very striking.
Some people have spoken of the proceedings as a blend of the old and the new; but I think that skirts over what is really interesting. The thing I felt above all was the ancientness of each and every step involved in the very deliberate process of sanctifying a king. The royal anointing, out of all public view, with oil from the Mount of Olives; the humility of a monarch stripped of all his finery; and the time-hallowed words uttered by the archbishop and in turn by his sovereign.
Together, these rituals achieved something almost other-worldly; and this indeed what they were meant to do. The rites and traditions that form the core of the service have remained substantially unchanged since the coronation of King Edgar in 973. The archbishop of Canterbury at that time was Dunstan – later canonised – and it was Dunstan who quite consciously fashioned the coronation service as a fusion of ideas: the idea of a monarch with supreme worldly authority, embodied by orb, sceptre and crown – and the idea of a king as God’s anointed regent on earth. That second idea traces its roots back in a direct line to the Holy Roman Emperors of the Byzantine era, and further back still to the anointing of King Solomon as described in the Old Testament. We are all familiar with Handel’s anthem Zadok the Priest, first performed at the coronation of George II. In fact, the words of Zadok the Priest have been uttered at every coronation since that of King Edgar. I used the expression ‘other-worldly’ because the anointing of the monarch marks the moment when the King is said to become a different person – a sanctified man. For hundreds of years people took that idea very literally. In mediaeval England, people thought that anointed kings could heal skin diseases. Even in the 20th century, at the late Queen’s coronation, people talked about a mystical aura that surrounded her when she was crowned.
One may think that all this sits oddly with the role of the monarch in our own day. But, like it or not, the traditions of the coronation have persisted across the centuries. The British monarch is the only Christian sovereign left in Europe who is still crowned and anointed. Every other monarchy that exists has dispensed with these rituals – even the Pope is no longer crowned. Can this last? To my mind, they will last for as long as they continue to mean anything in constitutional terms; because we need to remember that the King is not only head of state – he is also the inheritor from the Pope of supreme authority over the established church. So it may be that the unique rituals that we witnessed the other day may survive longer than some cynics might suppose.
As the Coronation came to its magnificent conclusion with the William Walton Te Deum, and the King and Queen processed out, I realised that I had been in the Abbey for no fewer than five hours. The time did not drag. Indeed, I am sure Elizabeth and I were not alone in barely believing we had been part of such a momentous event. We had not just been observers of it; we felt we had shared in it, which was something very special.
I am sure that this was no accident. The ancient rites and rituals of the service were things that the King himself could do nothing about. However, the rest of the occasion was very much a product of his personal design. And in designing the service and particularly its guest-list as he did, the King demonstrated, unmistakeably, a continuation of Her late Majesty the Queen’s wish that the citizens of this country should feel that the Crown – in however intangible a way – ‘belongs’ to them. I do think that the coronation ceremony and all the splendid processions that went with it were a visible manifestation of that aim. The thousands of people gathered to line the streets of London to cheer their King and his Queen, will surely have felt that the Crown and its wearer were – on that day, and maybe for ever after – truly theirs.
Earl Howe
Delivered to P&TGRS AGM
May 19th 2023
image (c) Huge Burnard 2023