Arson. Stupid bishops. A rejected wife knocking on the abbey door. These may sound like soap opera plots, but they are actually moments that have punctuated British coronations throughout history.
Coronations at Westminster Abbey go back nearly a thousand years. and became a well-rehearsed and fine-tuned event. However, despite all the ceremony, there were times when mistakes happened.
But while his reign may have been a success, the coronation itself was a disaster. Like Charles III, William had his coronation at Westminster Abbey. It was also here that his defeated enemy Harold Godwinson, killed at the Battle of Hastings, had been crowned a few months earlier.
The atmosphere inside and outside the abbey was tense, soon after William earned his conqueror nickname. When people inside the abbey proclaimed “God save the king”, the noise reached such a level that William’s guards outside believed an assassination attempt was in progress. They then followed the only rational course of action – promptly burning down several buildings in the local area.
The coronation of George IV in 1821 presented a drama that would be the envy of most soap opera writers. The King decided to exclude his wife Queen Caroline from service. According to Gross, the reason for this royal snub was simple: “He wanted nothing to do with her.”
In 1795, Parliament forced George to marry his German cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, in exchange for clearing his large debts. He had already married another woman, Maria Fitzherbert, but this union was considered illegal as it did not have his father’s consent.
According to the story, George would have arrived at his wedding drunk, and the couple is believed to have spent only two nights together, during which time they conceived an heir. He refused to live in the same place as her and the couple quickly broke up.
In the intervening years before his coronation, George tried to secure a divorce in Parliament. Caroline was even subjected to a trial, investigating her alleged adultery, during which she was not allowed to speak. However, in part because Caroline was popular with the public, George’s attempt was thwarted.
Such were the hostilities within the marriage that George did not want his wife to be crowned, and ordered the guards at the entrances to Westminster Abbey to refuse her entry during her coronation. Despite trying all the entrances to the Abbey, she was unable to get in and had to leave. Caroline died within a month.
Gross said the public had come to deeply sympathize with Caroline, and her death, coming shortly after the coronation, may have limited the negative impact this public scorn had on George’s reign.
Queen Victoria’s 63-year reign helped solidify Britain’s position as the dominant power on the world stage.
She built alliances, marrying her children to monarchies across Europe, oversaw a massive expansion of the British Empire, and was proclaimed Empress of India. Her reign left a legacy that has helped define the UK’s place in the world to this day. Despite this, her coronation was only slightly less chaotic than William’s.
Only 18 when she became queen in 1837, the young monarch was awed by the huge crowds that gathered to catch a glimpse of her procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey, with an estimated 400,000 gathered along the route. .
During the five-hour ceremony, Victoria was left in agony when the Archbishop of Canterbury forced her coronation ring onto the wrong finger. The Queen herself wrote about the incident, saying that she had “the greatest difficulty in pulling it out again, which I finally managed to do, but not without much pain”.
The entire ceremony was also poorly rehearsed, with Victoria writing that the archbishop was “so confused and perplexed, and didn’t know anything”.
Thinking the ordeal was over, she left the ceremony, only to be rushed back to the abbey because the Bishop of Bath and Wells had accidentally omitted the section of the service in which she officially became queen. Later, when the Lords were being introduced to her, the elderly Lord Rolle tripped and fell down a flight of stairs.
The coronation of Victoria’s son Edward in 1902 didn’t exactly go smoothly either.
The ceremony had already been postponed because the king had fallen seriously ill. When the coronation finally took place, it was overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury Frederick Temple, who was in his 80s. After kneeling down to pay homage to the king, he was unable to rise and had to be lifted up by his fellow bishops.
While mistakes are still made, modern royal occasions are often more refined affairs.
Gross says that while previous events were rehearsed to some extent, “there was a general assumption, particularly as coronations were so much more frequent, that people really knew what they were doing.” But what really transformed preparation for coronations was the advent of television.
Prior to the broadcast of coronations and jubilees, errors were still recorded but were not immediately available or accessible to the general population. Gross says television “completely changed things.”
The good news is that coronation mistakes don’t necessarily bode ill for future monarchs. After all, little went right during Queen Victoria’s coronation, but today she is remembered in the UK as one of its most successful monarchs.
In a 2002 poll conducted by the BBC, she was listed as the 18th greatest Briton of all time – the third tallest monarch on the list.
Gross says that coronation mistakes don’t really become significant for monarchs until their reigns start to go awry. The coronation of James II in 1685 was punctuated by a series of mishaps, such as an ill-fitting crown and the Royal Standard being ripped by the wind from the Tower of London during the service.
Despite this, her coronation was seen at the time as a success. It was only later in his reign, when he began to face rebellions, that the mishaps of the coronation came to be seen as omens.
The coronations of some of the UK’s most successful monarchs have been met with challenges, while those of some of its most hated monarchs have gone off without a hitch.
With rehearsals ramping up in London and organizers working around the clock, it seems unlikely that we’ll see a major mistake at Charles III’s coronation, but you’ll have to follow along to find out.
Lionel Richie and Katy Perry will headline the show
Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Take That will headline the coronation show on May 7 as part of the celebrations.
Taking place at Windsor Castle the day after the Westminster Abbey service, the concert will also feature international opera star Andrea Bocelli in a duet with Grammy Award winner Bryn Terfel, as well as singer-songwriter Freya Ridings performing alongside classical composer and pianist Alexis Frances.
In addition to the famous faces, the Coronation Choir, a diverse group made up of community choirs and amateur singers from across the UK, will also perform. The show will be attended by 20,000 people, with millions more expected to watch from their homes.
86 year old beer?
Bottles of beer brewed 86 years ago for Edward VIII’s coronation, but left unopened after the event was cancelled, will be auctioned next month.
Edward VIII ascended the British throne in January 1936 after the death of his father, George V, but abdicated in December of that year, before his coronation, in order to marry the American Wallis Simpson.
The beer made to commemorate his coronation, therefore, was never sold, and was only discovered 75 years later, when work was being carried out in 2011 in the cellars of the Greene King brewery, in the city of Bury St. Edmunds, in the east of England.
Did you know?
A “beautiful and symbolic” silver cross containing a piece of the so-called True Cross will lead the coronation procession of King Charles III in London.
The religious relic, believed by some to be a fragment of the cross on which Christ was crucified, was given to the king by Pope Francis to mark his coronation.
The monarch commissioned the incorporation of the fragment into the newly created Cross of Wales, which he presented to the Church in Wales as a gift to mark its centenary, the Church announced on Wednesday.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
