Poor King Charles. He can’t do right to do wrong and he can’t do wrong without making things worse – but he can’t go both ways.
He wants a slimmed-down monarchy, but he wants his wife crowned queen, he wants a regular empire alongside his personal fortune of £1.8 billion and, worst of all, he wants a coronation-lite; a diminished spectacle shorn of excess ermine, splendour, circumstance, dukes, nobles, foibles, wombles, and Fergie.
He wants everyone to understand that he understands that this is no longer the Britain of the 1950s – but what’s the point of a coronation if it isn’t a glorious, once-in-our-lifetime spectacle; a ceremony that will amaze the watching world? A ceremony that underlines that the monarchy really means something, and in many cases something very deep, to a large number of Britons?
The then Prince Charles attends an installation service of the Knight Grand Cross of the Honorable Order of the Bath at Westminster Abbey in London, England on May 24, 2022
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall attend the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords, at the Palace of Westminster on May 27, 2015 in London
The Imperial State Crown which will be on display at the coronation of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey in London on May 6
That’s why I want a coronation with bells, the kind of dazzling show that only Britain can produce. I want it loud and proud; marching bands and golden trumpeters, jewels the size of clenched fists next to miles of flags and national exuberance.
I especially want a king who loves to ride to Westminster Abbey in a golden pumpkin carriage, thrilled to stagger about under a bucket-sized crown, a priceless symbol weighed down by rubies and diamonds and a thousand years of ritual and tradition.
What I don’t want is a hand-wringing monarch who’s a little embarrassed about the whole lame thing.
For so far the coronation predictions seem to suggest we can expect a grey-tinted day of understated pageantry, something that sounds like it’s been organized by a committee of lemon-sucking Lib Dems chaired by Mr J. Corbyn and his friend, St Alin Pomp without the look.
What is the point? To make the coronation a success, Charles must embrace the bling and welcome the ridiculousness of his fate as, well, a man born for it.
In this day of days he simply cannot be the awake fellow he fondly imagines himself to be, not when he holds a sovereign’s scepter as he is anointed with holy oil and clothed with temporal powers in an ancient ceremony that captures the knightly essence calls of kingship. Dude, it’s not like getting a loyalty card from Starbucks. This stuff is real.
But Charles seems to go out of his way to pretend it’s not quite real, and certainly not grand or exclusive, nor the utter, absolutely boiled essence of hereditary privilege that it really is. Dear me, no. Nothing to see here! Move along, dear hedgehogs. Nothing fancy or elitist happens behind this velvet rope, thanks anyway.
I mean, the QCQ (Quotidian Coronation Quiche) is bad enough, but cutting the guest list from 8,000 to 2,000? What does that actually yield, other than a saving on lunch catering costs? What’s the point of having dukes, except to invite them to your coronation? And not invite Lady Pamela Hicks? That seems a folly too far.
The 94-year-old member of the Mountbatten family was a bridesmaid at Charles’ parents’ wedding, attended his mother’s coronation in 1953 and the coronation of his grandfather, King George VI, in 1937.
As well as being a close family friend, she is an indomitable piece of living history, a testament to the fact that the Mountbattens and the Windsors are the Morecambe & Wise of royal circles; allies and families that have been closely intertwined for decades.
And now she’s been dropped from the guest list in what appears to be a cost-cutting, face-saving, wakeistic quirk. Replaced by who? Perhaps by campaigner Ngozi Fulani, who was recently involved in a ‘racing affair’ at Buckingham Palace. Or by someone else whose value to the Crown lies in what they symbolize to the outside world, rather than their service and loyalty.
The Queen’s coronation in 1953 was the first ever televised, here restored in color for the ITV documentary ‘A Queen Is Crowned’
Queen Elizabeth II in the documentary ‘A Queen is Crowned’, during the 1953 coronation
You know, his reign has only just begun, but there are already awkward moments where King Charles is displaying the tin-eared instincts of a self-important petty mayor rather than a royal highness. And I think you can bet your last golden guinea that his mother would never have forgotten those who were steadfast friends in their support of the Crown and of her family.
She is said to have ensured that Lady P was at the top of the guest list. For Queen Elizabeth II understood the folly of throwing old friends under the bus in the rush to seek the fashionable approval of new ones.
Also that the monarchy is not a meritocracy – and only a very foolish man would argue otherwise.