Coronations used to be about the future. It was a political event, not a cultural one. The ceremonies themselves gave a beguiling foretaste of the reign to come. Here’s what Gilbert Burnet, a prelate specially chosen by William III and Mary II, preached at their coronation in 1689:
Here are the true measures of Government; it is a Rule, and not an Absolute Dominion; it is a Rule over men, and not a Power, like that which we have over Beasts. In a word, it is the Conduct of free and reasonable Beings, who need indeed to be governed, but ought not to be broken by the force and weight of Power.
This was a promise to abide by the Bill of Rights, recently drawn up, and to resist impulses to absolutism – then in vogue in the rest of Europe. Even the coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth II promised a new Elizabethan age. Its ceremonies, its meanings, had not yet been consigned to historical curiosity. Aristocracy and the ancien regime were still just about extant in the Britain of 1953, and would only disappear for good in the high tragedy of Suez a few years later.
In the run-up to Charles III’s own coronation, royal publicists have made much of the ideas of ‘old’ and ‘new’. But this is absurd. Some of the more jangling features of the old ceremony are to be discarded. We learn that Charles will not wear knee-breeches, the style of the 18th century, and will instead appear in modern military uniform, as if the latter – a creation of the Napoleonic Wars – is somehow new.
In fact, Charles III’s coronation will be the first to look explicitly backwards. It will be the first coronation with its own idea of Britain. It has been said that the ceremony will reflect modern Britain, but its components – or shibboleths – precede Charles’s reign by several decades. It belongs firmly to the mid-20th century. One planned fixture, the NHS, is a health bureaucracy, founded four months before Charles’s birth. Another, immigration, begins with the landing of the HMT Windrush that same year.
The question for this coronation is not the past versus the present, but whose past? Charles’s coronation will look backwards, but not very far. This was a tone set by his mother. We are reminded by David Starkey that for Elizabeth II the succession of her grandfather George V is a Year Zero: everything before the turn of the century may as well not have existed.
Britain’s public doctrine in 2023 has no idea of the future, or the past, or even the present. It can only celebrate the recent past, that which is old enough to be tired but not old enough to be an artefact, or a legend. It’s stuck in a rut, and is too incurious to think of something else. It isn’t surprising then that Boris Johnson, ever promiscuous with metaphor, chose to describe the Windrush as Britain’s Mayflower.
An apt symbol of this can be found on the invitation to the ceremony. At the bottom of the card is a green face, beautifully drawn. As many have identified, this is the Green Man. He is something of a historical punchline. In a famous article in 1939 the antiquarian enthusiast Baron Raglan wrote that those who carved leafy faces into buildings over the centuries were in fact carving the same fertility god, which was evidence of a low-level paganism. The idea rested on the dubious assumption that different artists couldn’t have arrived at the notion of a fantastical face independently. In fact, it soon emerged that most of the Green Men on churches and houses did not enjoy a storied antiquity, but were more or less fresh from the kiln.
The default to ahistorical kitsch is telling. Slav nationalists in the 19th century used to scrape together these kinds of knick-knacks to prove they had a history of their own. Britain never had much of a mystical folk tradition. There are no Black Forests here for wood elves, sprites, or wolves dressed as grandmothers to dwell in. We chopped them all down for firewood centuries ago. We blew railway lines through the ancient hills. We filled the magical lakes with molten slag. The island of Great Britain, and its history, is a testament to man’s mastery over nature. We created meaning for ourselves. We didn’t look for it under stones.
The alternative offered here is singularly unappealing. Look at the rest of the invitation. There is too much going on. It is overripe and fetid. None of it seems healthy. It looks like a swarm of gnats. It is rich enough to be mimetic. It doesn’t remind us of an open English field, but a walled garden, overgrown and stuffy. You scratch. You feel like you’re being bitten by something. It doesn’t imply a mastery over our surroundings, but a passive awe for its mysteries.
This is the governing spirit of modern Britain, which refuses to build any roads, or railways, or power stations, and which has artificially squeezed the city of Cambridge – which should be a science centre on par with Silicon Valley – into a sleepy East Anglian market town. It substitutes theme park kitsch for the real thing. It makes more of Morris dancing than Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It is of a piece with Harold Macmillan’s remark that post-war Britain was now a Greece to America’s Rome, and should behave as such – this being the country that had just invented radar and computers, and built just under half the world’s ships. We are never more Americanised than when we consent to play the role of a quaint garden centre.
Judging by the then-Prince of Wales’s obscure croakings about the primacy of the spiritual over the material, this coronation will not announce any new course. Those who would prefer something different should look elsewhere.
J. Sorel is a pseudonym.
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Well said.
The UK as a ginormous Heritage Park.
But only a strange sort of “Heritage” bearing as little resemblance to the past reality as a wind turbine does to Drax (before its conversion to a forest burner).
All very much up His Royal Highness’ street. He must laugh himself to sleep every night.
I doubt if he laughs. I suspect he looks in the mirror and tells himself what a genius and wonderful gift to the world he is.
And his subjects love him dearly too. He knows all this because the acolytes he’s gathered around him tell him so. Jug Ears is the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ made life.
..in the early 80’s I read Julian Barnes book….England,England…I can recommend it…….the protagonist builds an England theme park on the Isle of Wight..and as the fortunes of the actual England fall…the theme park grows in success…..its very funny, and now in these weird times it seems very sad and prescient….
I won’t be watching the hoopla……Charles has very definitely set himself up as the enemy of the people in my opinion….pro-WEF, pro-green nonsense..he’s pampered, entitled, and has no empathy with real ordinary people….
…he does not represent anything that I believe or understand in relation to the UK.
You have nailed it ebg.
I have met Charles on a number of occasions both publicly and privately and my view is that he is a decent man who has been brought up for one job and I am pretty sure that he would have preferred not to have been. He is kind, intelligent and thoughtful with a strong Christian faith but he is also weak, too open to the likes of Attenborough and a poor judge of character in some of those around him.
he will make a decent fist of being King and his saving grace is Camilla who is very down to earth and a good counter influence. My worry is Prince William – he has all the makings of a prize prat but I will be long gone as Charles is one year younger than me.
I still think it a great pity that we couldn’t have had Anne II rather than Charles III.
Anne reflects the best of both her parents and has always worked hard. She might well have been a unifying Monarch. The opposite of Charles who will no doubt be spouting GangGreen nonsense even as they box him up and carry him off.
She is an adult
I see nothing to celebrate in the coronation of this left-wing, virtue-signalling, WEF acolyte.
I won’t be watching. I hope his reign is very, very short.
Not sure his son would be much better sadly.
Sadly no. But there’s a hope Catherine will stop him becoming quite as loopy as Charlie-Boy.
I know very little about her. I’m not aware she’s made any ridiculous pronouncements though, so hopefully you are right.
Hear hear
It appears that the primacy of Christianity over other religions might be controversial, if you look at the GBN stories about KC3’s dispute with the church about what can take place in the Abbey of Westminster during the service! https://www.gbnews.com/royal/king-charles-coronation-order-of-service-row-diverse
Whilst declaring an interest in one of the contractors involved in the HS2 project, I have to say that it’s not true that “modern Britain” refuses to build….., but there is no shortage of negative campaigns – as there always was, in the past. They often have a big influence on the detail in one way or another – not necessarily in the public interest overall. Anyway, it hasn’t refused to build a new line from London (alright, Old Oak Common) to Birmingham, or Hinkley Point C power station, and perhaps a few more large projects.
As far as I’m concerned, Majesty died with the Queen!
…yes, I agree…I think that is true for many of us…
I am surprised that the Ukrainian flag has not been worked into the design of the invitation.
I’m surprised he won’t be crowned by Schwab.
…or the gay pride flag…I’m sure they will have been discussed though!…
Ha! I certainly hope to see Zelensky twerking to Zadok the Priest or something equally fitting.
Jimmy Savile’s mate.
King Sausage fingers and Queen Camila, no thanks.
Big ears – alleged Defender of the Faith – issuing pagan-like invitations to the Coronation. Sheesh. Gawd preserve us.
“alleged Defender of the Faith”
Which is to become ‘defender of faith.’
How very inclusive but given the Indian continent’s refusal to allow women in temples I don’t suppose there will be many saris on display. That would be just too inclusive.
It might even spark a backlash Charlie.
So an anachronistic jug eared over privileged WEF eugenicist (that no one voted into power) is going to waste millions on a MSM theme park side show for Americans and other fully “vaccine” damaged NPC “normies”.
Sorry but I will not be watching, I have better things to do with my time.
I hope to be out of the country.
Brian’ was forever in the sights of Private Eye for his association with the inveterate liar, fantasist and child rapist Sir Laurens Van der Post.
“A man is known by the company he keeps.” Aesop.
I seem to recall Brian viewing VdP as a substitute father as his real one was otherwise engaged
Easter Greetings folks
, The Queen was a stoic link to the past & I preferred the Royalty to Blair’s vision for us all ! Charles I’m afraid is a human non entity confirmed when I saw his eldest at the WEF CONvention welcoming Shergars toothy lookalike to his own Climate jamboree ! God help us ! Nothing makes sense anyway since 3 weeks to flatten the curve ! My days of respect for any governing apparatus are over I’m afraid !
The Green Man is King Charles’ unsubtle projection of his eco credentials, plus an attempt to elevate himself into the pagan pantheon, to pitch his coronation / origin story into the realm of the Gaia-Druidical-Babylonian Maw Gaping idols via a Sweetcorn logo.
Rather pitiful really – an attempt to DC-ify or Marvel-ify himself into a superhero on a twee Liberty print produced by an AI graphics program. Too late.
Feed me, Jane Seymour.
Don’t know what he’s talking about, no building being done. My whole sodding county in the South West is turning into a massive housing estate with mile upon mile of cookie cutter housing destroying once productive farmland, plus surveillance cameras on every lamppost, traffic light and street corner. That’s KC3’s England for you – Wimpey Homes as far as the eye can see and the security state to go with it.
You’ll never walk alone.
Wouldn’t it be marvellous gesture if KCIII gave away at least one Royal palace and estate/grounds for the perpetual use of his subjects?
In this somewhat crowded isle what a great gesture of solidarity that would be?
Or at least a Duchy Original Cricket Protein Water Biscuit per pleb?
C’mon: we had Silver Jubilee mugs for free at school. What are the freebies for a coronation?
£0.50 off ground source heat pumps for the prole.
For a coronation to be about the future, it’s necessary that the monarch-to-be-crowned still has one. Charles can hardly celebrate his own headstone, hence, he’s obviously looking backwards. That’s what people of his age who don’t have much – if anything – to worry about usually do.
Two historical remarks.
the high tragedy of Suez a few years later. The high tragedy of Britain in the early 20th century was that it was ruled by someone who was so obsessed with destroying the German empire at any cost that he refused all offers for a negotiated peace to end the so-called Great War and instead piled up a mountain of war debt in the USA, (and proximately caused the second world war in the process). Suez was just someone tucking on the leash he had been holding quietly for quite a while already.
Harold Macmillan’s remark that post-war Britain was now a Greece to America’s Rome
Ahistorical self-glorification (Greece came to an end when the Macedons conquered it) of the guy whose real thinking was very likely much more along the lines of This empire is really not worth the money we have to put into it. Let the ‘muricans build ships instead while we manage our inherited fortunes. This combined with the recognition that really nobody needs a functioning adminstration anywhere in Africa. It’s sufficient to arm some local gang of thugs with assault rifles and machine guns to ensure that they keep enough of a public order that resource extraction can continue.
I see people – including Jordan Peterson – beginning to suggest that the monarchy may not survive KC3.
That’s good news
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
The green man says it all, absolutely epitomises why I can never look on C3 with respect (though I will try, as commanded by the Bible, to pray for him). William would be more of the same.
The best thing Charles can do is to educate himself about real climate science and thus stop spouting endless rubbish about net-zero and Climate catastrophe. While he continues to support that inaccurate aim, he is contributing to his citizen’s poverty and our industrial failure. From what I’ve heard from him recently, our country would be far better off without him.