ANDREW BROWN
The coronation ceremony is more than a piece of antique flummery. It is an enactment of the kind of nation we think we are. Getting the performance right is also the most important way the next king can secure legitimacy, something which is going to be especially important during the next transition, which could be—as Emily Andrews argues on p20—uniquely risky for the monarchy. The public is not in love with the idea of King Charles (see our polling on p29); he cannot afford another televised disaster like the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. So what should he do?
The first thing is to know your country—and know your history. That sounds easy enough, but the two halves of that don’t combine smoothly. If you watch the ceremony from 1953, then it’s obvious that we’re not that nation any more: the past is another country indeed. The Queen’s coronation was a profoundly Christian assertion of the feudal order of the British state, centred on the aristocracy paying homage as they kneeled—in order of precedence— in front of the new monarch.