You have to accept that this is the moment of his life. When King Charles III, who had already sworn the royal oath on the Bible, took off the magnificent ermine cloak with which he had entered Westminster Abbey and also lifted the golden “supertunica” from his shoulders, that’s what it looks like all of a sudden , as if Charles were now stepping before his creator in his last shirt.
He takes a seat on the somewhat worn coronation chair made of 700-year-old oak. And then? – Once he disappears behind a screen, also called the “anointing screen”, which is built around him on three sides. After that there should be a personal moment just for Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury and God. There he is drizzled with holy olive oil from Jerusalem, “not by a waiter, like a salad, but by an archbishop, like a demigod,” the Scottish writer AL Kennedy blasphemed.
Charles had to be 74 years old for this coronation day, for which he had been preparing his whole life. He had just entered the church with his Camilla in the asparagus-colored ermine, the clearest voices sounded from the choir stalls, freshly composed music could be heard.
2300 people with the highest dignities, titles and merits sit in the benches. Nick Cave surrounded by Adel, Stephen Fry, Lionel Ritchie, Ursula von der Leyen, several ex-Prime Ministers, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jill Biden and Kate Perry. The close family is there, and in row three even Prince Harry of California.
A prop storm is this day, which also features multiple crowns, including Charles’s Edwards crown, which had to be expanded for his stubbornness. Also the Queen Mary crown for Camilla, from which the diamond Koh-i-noor was discreetly removed because three countries are reclaiming it.
I come not to be served, but to serve.”
King Charles III
“I do not come to be served, but to serve,” King Charles reads from the sheet at the beginning. “We crown a king to serve,” affirms the Archbishop of Canterbury in his homily. “Just as Jesus was anointed, not to be served, but to serve.” Only “with the Spirit of God” is the weight of the task that Charles is given today bearable.
None of this is new to the king. His motto as Prince of Wales was “I serve”. Here it comes across as an incantation of modesty at a time when the royal family is being accused of being kleptocrats out there. The old, valuable robes would be “applied”, it was said in advance. It is also a sign of sustainability if the old things are used again. And that, of course, was a proper euphemism.
Aura is created, said Walter Benjamin, through the impression of distance, and that obviously has to be produced here, in Westminster Abbey. And it’s a bit strange: Someone invited 2,300 guests, TV crews broadcast the whole thing in far more than the 56 countries of the Commonwealth, only to take a moment of privacy when it becomes important. But then the anointed king reappears behind the screen on which the 56 countries of the Commonwealth are embroidered.
Charles now has to touch some things: golden spurs that were made in the 17th century. A sword. bangles. Charles puts on his grandfather’s white leather coronation gauntlet, it fits like a glove, touch two more scepters and then: the crown. The Bishop of Canterbury circles them over his head. For a moment it looks as if the archbishop has to screw it firmly onto the royal head, but then: “God save the king!” the archbishop and 2000 guests shout. The choir sings.
The ceremony sometimes feels more like a reward for a life’s work than a promise of a future reign, as Charles gropes his way into his seat. You have to help the no longer young king out of his chair and hold out his text. Vincent Nichols, the Catholic Cardinal of Westminster, wishes him a happy eternity, and of course that’s really a bit prescient.
Charles sits there, breathing heavily, serious, possibly dead serious. Does he feel the weight of everything? Over two kilos of crown, the so-called “supertunica”, then a seven-kilo cloak full of metal with threads interwoven with gold, the scepters, grandfather’s glove, the past, the future. Something like that weighs on you.
In the present, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury comes to the most controversial part of the ceremony. As a “modern element” it was said that a public oath of allegiance to the king should be introduced. Not only the gathered community, but also the people in front of their screens should have had a say in it.
But that seemed so outdated and caused so much opposition that the bishop now merely invites the guests to an oath in the Abbey. And they don’t seem to have anything against it, because the assembled congregation, also staffed by heads of independent democracies, who have traveled from all over the world, speaks loudly and clearly: “I swear loyal allegiance to His Majesty, as well as to his heirs and heirs to the throne, as required by law. So help me God.” Britain is an amazing country.
Ratzfatz is then also crowned Camilla, in three minutes: touch the ring, the crown, done. If Charles had a holy seriousness on his face most of the time, Camilla couldn’t help but smile. It keeps breaking out of her.
The fact that she is crowned together with Charles in a white dress like his bride, that from now on she is also allowed to bear the title “Queen”, as the first woman after Elizabeth II, is the true revolution in this story. Together they climb into the ancient, golden carriage, whose uncomfortable rocking they never tire of emphasizing. Even Elizabeth II cursed in 1953 after her coronation. And then, raindrops on the lenses of the television cameras, nothing else would suit Charles and his melancholic temperament, it doesn’t go into a sunset at all, but into the cool, drizzly, British. Into the future.
