London.- Adjusted the size of the crown. Soldiers are ready for the biggest military parade in Britain in 70 years. The golden royal carriage is ready to roll.
The time for the show has arrived.
King Charles III will be crowned at Westminster Abbey on Saturday in an event filled with all the pomp Britain can muster.
The clerics will present you with the medieval symbols of power: the rod, scepter, and orb. Brass bands and soldiers in bearskin hats will parade through the streets. And presumably the new king and queen will end the day on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to greet the cheering crowd.
But don’t be too dazzled. There is a purpose behind the pageantry: to strengthen the foundation of the crown and show that the people of Great Britain still support their monarch.
Robert Lacey, royal historian, likens the event to a US presidential election and inauguration ceremony rolled into one: a celebration and a test of how the public sees the new sovereign.
“Obviously, the king is not up to a vote, so these big public rituals are the closest people to royalty get to that kind of test,” said Lacey, author of “Battle of Brothers: William & Harry.” and the Inside Story of Family in Tumult.” “Its fundamental purpose is to attract the loyalty and interest of the British people so that they show it by crowding outside Buckingham Palace and waving to the balcony.”
Yet while TV screens around the world will be filled with flag-waving supporters, Charles’ coronation comes at a difficult time for the royals.
Opinion polls show that support for the monarchy has weakened over time. Britain is gripped by double-digit inflation that is eroding living standards and causing some to question the cost of the coronation. And the royal family is torn by controversy over Charles’s youngest son, Prince Harry, who is making claims from his Southern California home.
Most importantly, some in Britain’s increasingly diverse society want a reexamination of the monarchy’s links to the African enslaved trade and its role in the former British Empire, which ruled over vast swathes of Asia, Africa and Caribbean.
Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, questions whether the people of Great Britain and the Empire’s successor, the Commonwealth, really want a 74-year-old white man as their representative.
“If that’s not the biggest celebration of white supremacy, I can’t think of what is, especially when you think about the length and the pomp and the jewelry and all that, right?” Andrews said of the coronation. “So if you were really serious about saying, ‘hey, we want an anti-racist future,’ there is absolutely no place for this terrible institution.”
The king has tried to address some of those concerns by promising to open up the royal archives to researchers studying the family’s links to slavery.
But the coronation will be a larger and more symbolic attempt to show that the monarchy still has a role to play.
The coronation of Carlos and Camila, the queen consort, will feature many elements from past coronations—the hymns, the prayers, the anointing with oils—all designed to remind the world of the history, tradition, and mystery embodied by the monarchy. .
But the festivities have been adjusted to better reflect modern Britain, where about 18% of the population say they belong to an ethnic minority. When Charles’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, was crowned in 1953, that number was less than 1%.
For the first time, religious leaders representing Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh traditions will play an active role in the ceremony. The music will include pieces written and performed by artists from each of the four nations of the UK and from across the Commonwealth.
Symbolically, Carlos will begin the service in front of a choirboy pledging to serve—not be served—and he has done away with the centuries-old tradition of making top members of the aristocracy pledge allegiance to him. Instead, the congregation and those watching the coronation from home will be invited to pledge allegiance to the king.
The ceremony will also be shorter, about two hours instead of three.
“The coronation is about different people celebrating together,” said Aliya Azam, an interfaith leader who will represent Muslims when religious leaders greet the king after his coronation. “I think what is very important is that cohesion triumphs over division, like light triumphs over darkness.”
Sylius Toussaint and his wife, Bridgette, will watch it on television. The couple celebrated Elizabeth’s coronation as children on the island of Dominica and moved to England in 1960 to find work. A corner of her home in Preston, in north-west England, is adorned with photos and memorabilia of the royals, including a tin of coronation shortbread.
Toussaint likes Carlos’ efforts to protect the environment and is willing to overlook the breakup of his first marriage to the late Princess Diana. He blames the government, not the monarchy, for the immigration crackdown unfairly directed at him and thousands of other Caribbean immigrants in recent years.
“It may be that like the rest of us he has his faults … but he is forgiven,” Toussaint said. “I think he will do a good job and we like him.”
The question is whether that loyalty is being passed down to the younger generations.
While support for the monarchy has softened in the past 30 years, it is much weaker among young people, according to surveys by Ipsos pollster.
One of the strengths of the monarchy is that many see a benefit in having a neutral head of state in times of instability, said Kelly Beaver, the firm’s UK chief executive. At a time when Britain is facing various pressures, from inflation to climate change to the war in Ukraine, the king has “a real opportunity to step up and show leadership,” she said.
“Thus, I think Carlos really has a lot to gain,” he added.
Unfortunately for the king, the coronation will also spotlight the family dramas that have rocked the House of Windsor. The one that stands out the most is Carlos’s strained relationship with Harry and his wife Meghan, a biracial American who experts once thought would help the royal family connect with multicultural Britain.
But those hopes were dashed when the couple stepped down from their royal duties and moved to California three years ago. They have since voiced a number of claims, including accusations that palace officials were insensitive to Meghan’s mental health issues as she adjusted to life as a royal, that the Windsors are guilty of unconscious bias in their attitudes. towards the breed, and that Camilla leaked unflattering stories about the couple in order to gain more favorable coverage towards her.
After months of speculation about whether they would be invited to the coronation, the palace announced that Harry would attend, but Meghan would stay in California with her two children.
If recent royal gatherings are any indication, the focus will now be on seating assignments inside the abbey, and whether Harry speaks to his father and Prince William, the heir to the throne.
“Where Enrique sits in relation to the rest of his family will certainly be of great importance to the international media,” said Joe Little, editorial director of Majesty magazine. “But Buckingham Palace and the organizers will be aware of that, and I am sure they will find the best possible solution under the circumstances.”
All of this – the history of the monarchy, the changes in British society and even the family drama – will be on people’s minds as they watch the coronation unfold.
For Lacey, this is how it should be. In a way, people will process all of these things when deciding whether to cheer or stay away altogether, just like voters do on Election Day.
“One of the interesting things about the coronation and its symbolism is that it is not just a celebration,” he said. “It gives the British a chance to look and think what matters to us.”
