Charles III: The crowning of Britain's new king
Yesterday's coronation of Britain's King Charles III was a golden occasion from the crowns to the carriages. Mark Phillips has some royal highlights. This was billed as a slimmed-down coronation for the more modern monarchy King Charles had promised. Now we know what that looks like. It means taking the newer, lighter family coach, the six-horsepower model from the palace to Westminster Abbey. Instead of the heavy, unwieldy eight-horsepower gold state coach Charles' mother the Queen, and every monarch for two and a half centuries has used. It means holding a service where some of the participants were more reflective of today's British multicultural society.
It means cutting the service down from the seemingly endless more than three hours of seventy years ago to about two and a half hours this time. There was always controversy over just how much new should be added and how much old should be retained in the ancient rite of crowning British monarchs that goes back almost a thousand years. Many think the spectacle is still a necessary part of the royal story. This is an historic solemn religious and state event, but it's also a TV show. It is. And the King, as you know at the beginning, put out this expression that he wanted it to be more modest. Hugo Vickers is a royal historian.
And he is absolutely delighted that people, including me, have said, well, you may want it to be modest, we want it to be magnificent. There was plenty of magnificence. Enough flowing robes and gold and jewels to make you squint. Swords and orbs and sceptres representing ancient hereditary power and assumed heavenly approval. And if all that can seem very unmodern, well, that's just the way it's always been. I mean, of course a coronation rather like a monarchy is completely irrational. Robert Hardman is a royal author.
Orbs, ointments, sceptres. Where is there a place for that kind of thing in the modern era? The fact is, we are where we are. We've evolved in this way. As humans, we like ritual. And public opinion polls consistently show a solid majority supports the monarchy. But in a less deferential age, the monarchy isn't viewed with the same reverence anymore. All the same kind of nonsense of mystical oil being anointed out of sight of cameras, the hand of God descending on our King.
Paulie Toinby is a newspaper columnist. I think all that sort of folder role seems extraordinarily old fashioned and peculiar. Like all stories involving this royal family, there were unavoidable subplots. When the crown was put on Queen Camilla's head, the woman who had been the third person in Charles' marriage to Princess Diana was finally having her day and allowed herself a little smile. When the self-exiled Prince Harry arrived alone, he was given a seat in the third row. And as soon as the service was over, he hopped in a car, skipped the royal lunch, and jumped on a flight back to LA. The future of the monarchy is now firmly in the hands of his brother.
The Golden State coach was put into service for the return trip to the palace. No coronation, ancient or modern, would be complete without images like this. But will this coronation be remembered the way the Queen's was, as a turning point in history when the grim post-war years gave way to a new optimism? Maybe, but that new Queen was young. This King is old. Historians talk about coronations reflecting the nation and the state of the nation and the mood of the times. Roya Nicker is royal editor of the London Sunday Times. And this country has been through a lot of turbulence in the last few years.
Politically, economically, our own royal family has been through turbulence. So I think it's almost the opening of a new chapter and the turning of a page.
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