When the crown of St. Edward was laid on the head of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey on May 6th. is set, it will be part of a continuation of the long-standing traditions and pageantry of more than 1,000 years of monarchy.
But his promise that his coronation “will reflect the role of the monarch today” signals a certain departure from the scale and extravagance of the ceremonial accorded to his late mother. How significant these departures will be is not yet known, but they are being dictated by societal changes that have taken place over the 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.
The Queen’s coronation might in retrospect be described as “the last imperial hurrah,” said Dr. Bob Morris, senior researcher at UCL’s Constitution Unit and author of a research paper entitled The Coronation of Charles III.
Back then, reflecting Britain’s high rank as a world power, 8,250 guests crowded into Westminster Abbey, with some grandstands as high as 11 tiers. Outside, grandstands for 96,000 paying guests were erected – an attempt by the government to recoup some of the huge costs – with a covered seat selling for £6 (about £127 today) and an uncovered one for £4.
Peers and their wives, as well as Commonwealth leaders and their entourage, were among the largest groups on the government guest list.
Westminster Abbey’s grand processional route covered about five miles. The procession took 45 minutes to pass a stationary point and included more than 40,000 British and Commonwealth service personnel.
The troops marched 12 abreast to a beat provided by 24 marching military bands. Ten Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth, led by Sir Winston Churchill, were transported in open-top carriages.
It was an unbelievable spectacle for a bomb-ridden post-war Britain, where food rationing and conscription still existed. Such a scale is unlikely today, and not just because the public would likely balk at the cost.
At that time the armed forces numbered more than 850,000. Today it is about a fifth of that number. “There’s just a lack of troops, which calls into question the length of the route and the size of the procession,” Morris said. The security aspects have also changed. Terrorism is now a major concern, rather than public safety, which was the focus of monitoring the event in 1953.
The coronation is essentially a service with the anointing with holy oil and the Lord’s Supper. However, the 2021 census showed that, for the first time, less than half of the population of England and Wales (46.2%) identified as Christian. As the UK becomes increasingly secular, more than a third of English and Welsh people (37.2%) say they have no religion at all. In 1953, not only was going to church much more routine, a third of the people believed that the queen had been chosen by God.
However, this trend will “oddly increase the presence of religion,” Morris said. “Because I think we can count on it still being an Anglican and the Archbishop [of Canterbury] will continue to lead, and we envision that there will be a communion service, that there will be a greater presence of non-Christian religions and perhaps other Christian denominations as well.”
On the most recent occasion the only other denomination invited was the Moderator of the Scottish Church, he said, but he expects the religious cast list to expand, as has happened for Commonwealth Day services in recent years. The fact that the UK is now more of a Union state, with decentralization to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, also makes this more likely.
A shorter coronation – the Queen’s lasted more than three hours – means some of the more archaic elements could be dropped. The lengthy court process, which has historically required nobles to prove their right to render a specific service to the king during the ceremony, could be reduced to “an exchange of letters” and become a “purely administrative procedure,” Morris said.
The role of peers, who formerly paid homage individually to the new sovereign, was restricted in 1902 when a system was introduced whereby only the senior peer paid homage at each gradation. With the abolition of the automatic right of majority hereditary peers in 1999, Morris questioned whether homage could be reduced any further. “Perhaps they would not pursue the homage on this occasion, which is really a feudal relic,” he said.
Overall, Morris said, Charles III’s coronation might be “a humbler affair” than his mother’s, when the Duke of Norfolk, as Earl Marshal in charge of organization, took over Westminster Abbey almost 10 months before the ceremony,
“But that’s just conjecture,” he said. “We don’t know the plans. They didn’t make the kind of announcements that one would have expected at the time.”