The choir sang, in English, Handel’s famous anthem Zadok the Priest – as it has done since 1727, connecting Charles III to the Israelite kings, who had their own national church (and certainly did not speak Latin). The monarch’s body in a sense belongs to the nation, which is why we expect to be shown an heir as soon as it is born, or why Elizabeth II was placed in state at Westminster before her funeral. He was meant to look humble, even vulnerable – a child of God on the brink of transformation. The Coronation rituals sought to make the divine tangible through beautiful music, such as Byrd’s setting of The Gloria (“Glory be to God in the highest”), or visual cues including the display of holy relics or that remarkable moment when the King removed the Robes of State prior to being anointed. So what we saw at the Abbey was an exercise in “high Anglicanism”, a Christianity that stresses the importance of God becoming flesh through Jesus.
In the aftermath of the Reformation, which divorced the Church of England from Rome, coronations were choreographed to emphasise that we were no longer popish but nor were we like those radical Protestants on the Continent. They are certainly not the King’s to take away. You might say that while republicans invent rights via constitutions, monarchs guard rights that come from the Almighty. So, the King is owed our loyalty but we, in turn, are owed good governance – a deal made while touching the Bible, the law of God, and sealed by kissing the holy book. In that spirit, Charles III promised to cause “law and justice, in mercy, to be executed” in the realm. Under the Anglo-Saxons, kings also swore an oath to protect the church, be fair and be merciful, and by the Medieval era this had turned into a sacred pledge. Facing the different points of the compass, he was addressed by the Archbishop at the High Altar, Lady of the Garter, Lady of the Thistle and a George Cross Holder from the Armed Forces – these representatives of service, honour and duty-taking asking us if we acknowledge the King as head of state (to which most of the Abbey yelled, “God save the King!”). His Majesty was then “recognised” by the congregation. It took place within a communion service, which is why it began with prayer and that powerful Kyrie sung in Welsh. The Coronation service was mystical but it was also thoroughly human, saying as much about the country – its politics, faith and history – as it did the individual on the throne. We are constituted not like a republic, with its abstract ideals and declarations (so easily rewritten), but like a family, with the King as a literal “body politic”.
Thanks to the telescopic power of TV, we were able to watch as the Archbishop of Canterbury tried to persuade the Crown to stay in place with some vigorous twisting: the genius of monarchy is to invest the attention of a nation in flesh-and-blood human beings. He might almost have been a pharaoh.Įverything we saw at Westminster Abbey was designed to awe the spectator, to convince us that the monarchy is legitimate, and therefore unchallengeable – because it is very old and endorsed by God.īut beneath that weight of gold and precious stones was a 74-year-old man. Perhaps the defining image was of Charles III, cloaked in gold, wearing St Edward’s Crown and holding the two sceptres of spiritual and temporal power. Tennyson called Britain a “crowned republic”, and the Coronation illustrated what this means.
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