Patriotic glory
John Martin Robinson traces the history of the coronation ceremony
The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953 was an amazing achievement. It is possible to speculate about what might have happened if Clement Attlee rather than Winston Churchill had still been prime minister at the time. As it was, everything came together to make it possible for a full-blooded occasion. Churchill with his romantic view of British history. David Eccles, a cultivated Wykehamist as the minister of works responsible for the structural preparation of Westminster Abbey, Geoffrey Fisher as Archbishop of Canterbury at the height of the Church of England's short-lived post-war revival of confidence, and, not least, Bernard Duke of Norfolk as Earl Marshal with an unswerving belief in the importance of the coronation ceremonial. The timing was also perfect, eight years after the end of the second world war when the economy was beginning to recover, but there was still an aura of patriotic glory and victory in the air.
The survival of the English coronation ceremony is nothing short of miraculous. It could easily have succumbed to the Reformation like most of the mediaeval liturgy, or not been revived after the Commonwealth, or fallen foul of the 18thcentury Enlightenment or 19th-century Utilitarianism, let alone withstood the chill climate of 20th-century socialism and capitalist philistinism.
The survival of the coronation ceremonial at the Reformation — with just the substitution of the Anglican Communion service for the Catholic Mass — may have owed much to its biblical antecedents. These made it consonant with the Protestant emphasis on 'the Word' and Scripture as well as expressing the Tudors' and Stuarts' personal vision of the monarchy. The Bible shows that crowning, anointing and acclamation were established customs in Palestine and Syria from very early times. The first mention of crowning a monarch is in the Second Book of Kings when the priest Jehoiada brought
out the King's son Joash and put a crown upon him, anointing him while the people clapped their hands and shouted 'God Save the King'. That was circa 900 BC but is basically what happened in Westminster Abbey in June 1953,
There is a prevalent fallacy that all British royal ceremonial and religious liturgy is a 'modern' invention or fake and if not directly invented by Lord Esher in 1900 was of the Gothic Revival. This is what might be called the Cannadine Heresy (if it were to be denounced by a Council of Universal Church). Many of the important English State ceremonies, however, are not 'invented traditions' but continuous, developing cultural and religious manifestations.
This is true above all of the coronation, the origins of which go back to the introduction of Christianity to England in the Saxon period. The King of Mercia, for instance, was anointed with Holy Oil in the presence of the Papal Legate in 787. The Saxon Pontifical of Egbert records the earliest English coronation liturgy. The Norman and Plantagenet kings elaborated the ceremonies on the model of Charlemagne's and the Frankish kings, which in turn were derived from those of the Byzantine emperors.
Every English monarch since William the Conqueror in 1067 (with two exceptions) has been crowned in Westminster Abbey. The Liber Regalis, compiled for Richard II in the 14th century and still preserved in the Abbey library, contained the full codification of the mediaeval coronation service, a model which has been continuously followed ever since. There have been some changes, such as the substitution of English for Latin at James I's coronation, for instance, or additional sections and trappings reflecting contemporary culture and political arrangements, but the principal components are unchanging.
The English coronation has six essential parts, all of great antiquity: the Recognition of the monarch by the people; the Oath whereby the monarch swears to grant, keep and confirm to the people of England their laws and customs and to protect religion; the Anointing with Holy Oil as in the ordination of a priest; the Investiture with robes, sword, orb etc.; the Crowning with St Edward's Crown (remade for Charles II at the Restoration after the mediaeval original was destroyed during the Commonwealth); the Enthroning and Homage. The origins of all these rites are traceable. Anointing is the oldest and can be traced back to the Syrians. (The earliest reference to anointing a king is in the Tell el Arnarna cuneiform inscriptions.) Crowning and anointing, like much of the Christian liturgy, came from Jewish practice. The Roman Emperors, by contrast, were recognised by a non-religious ceremony including acclamation. The earliest imperial crowning was that of the Eastern Emperor Leo the Butcher in 457 AD, who sought the additional authority of the Christian service to bolster his position. This was developed by subsequent Byzantine Emperors. The coronation of Charlemagne in Rome on Christmas Day 800 copied their model, but also included the Roman imperial acclamation which thus survives in the opening part of the English coronation service, the Recognition, and in the Homage, though the latter and the presentations of regalia and various investitures are of mediaeval feudal origin.
The coronation is primarily a sacred religious service, but is also of considerable cultural importance. State ceremonial should surely be treated like a great historic building with respect for elements of different dates and significance. It is to be hoped that when plans are made for future coronations they will be informed by historical scholarship as well as contemporary exigencies in the same way that William Morris advocated that an old building is carefully conserved and not subjected to ill-informed alteration.
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