A coronation is pure theater. And the coronation of Carlos III was immaculately rehearsed as a show. And there was a lot of Shakespearean, both in the service at Westminster Abbey and in the marches that encircled the return to Windsor afterwards. A mixture of pomp, procession, music and mystery.
Carlos knew how to manage the balance between the solemnity of the coronation and the deconstruction of the new times, and the royal patina with a high share of austerity, in the face of a United Kingdom that suffers the long economic effects of Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine.
Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury in charge of the coronation, said in a later interview that “the biggest challenge was to make the whole ceremony not look like Gilbert and Sullivan,” referring to the authors of Victorian-era comic operettas. And the goal was achieved, albeit with a tragic clean sweep: the politicians proved better at organizing public spectacles than at running the country, and staunch Republicans unanimously insisted that the whole thing is irrelevant nonsense.
Pomp
More than 200 million people watched the coronation show around the world. And the show, the celebrity parade, and the royal red carpet lived up to it. Princess Anne in her crimson-plumed bicorne hat, parading through Westminster Abbey in a Napoleonic velvet cape, Penny Mordaunt, Speaker of the House of Commons, in a teal two-piece, and Prince George as a toy soldier from Nutcracker, turned heads.
Buckingham Palace had suggested that Charles III wanted a modern, minimalist event. But the costume parade provided the eccentric share. An exaltation of the Britain of Mary Poppins to Hogwarts instead of the gray home of umbrellas and bowlers. Although Charles swapped out traditional silk trousers for the navy blue of his military uniform, Camilla wore diamonds around her neck, and the Princess of Wales wore an ivory silk cape dress designed by Sarah Burton (Princess Charlotte also wore an ivory design). by Alexander McQueen).
Wild
Now-Queen Camilla’s dress, by Bruce Oldfield, echoed that of her daughter-in-law: made of Suffolk-woven silk, it was embroidered with bouquets of wildflowers entwined with tiny pennant ribbons, a reflection of “the British countryside.” .
The cheerful aesthetic of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (by Shakespeare) was also reflected in the invitations for the coronation, with a folkloric green, bees and beetles, a radical change for the crown that seeks to show simplicity and leave behind the tantrums from Prince Harry (who went solo, without his wife Meghan Markle), who made a low-key appearance with military medals pinned to his dark suit.
Most of the audience dressed however, and despite the gloomy weather, as for a summer wedding: lipstick for Samantha Cameron (wife of the former prime minister), coral for Sophie Grégoire Trudeau (wife of the Canadian prime minister), Cherie Blair, US First Lady Jill Biden and Pippa Middleton wore pastel outfits.
Katy Perry (who sang in the aftershow) wore a lilac faux leather Vivienne Westwood, teamed with a hat with a veil. And actresses Maggie Smith and Judi Dench rocked wool ensembles with trilby hats in blue and oatmeal.
rejections
The crowds gathered in the London drizzle presumably got what they came for. But behind the flashy coronation costumes, impenetrable rituals, and synchronized salutes and processions, lurks an inevitable sense of anticlimax. The coronation served its purpose spectacularly, presenting nostalgia, continuity, and deference as virtues rather than vices.
But the events of the last few days in the UK have provided reminders that this may not be the conservative country that its elites still imagine it to be. By their very nature, societies are always changing, and after the outer patina of stagnation, the realm seems to be entering a phase of rupture.
Among young people aged 18 to 24, only 36% want to maintain the monarchy, compared to more than 70% 10 years ago. Nearly 60% of Britons are “not very interested” or “not at all interested” in the royal family. According to the National Center for Social Research, the belief that the monarchy is “very important” has reached its lowest levels since data collection began 40 years ago.
Changes
The most telling signs of change are expressed in the growing independence movements in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, hand in hand with a drastic fall in the incidence of the Tory party. The recent victory of Labor was accompanied, in emblematic places like Swindon, by anti-Tory riots. In traditionalist districts the largest party is now the Greens.
The Conservatives lost to the Liberal Democrats in Windsor and Maidenhead, Stratford-upon-Avon and Surrey Heath. There is a backlash against Brexit and the Tory drive to the far right, with its culture war and anti-immigration rhetoric. The monocultural England that no longer exists.
But the royal family, and Carlos III specifically, have an idea of how to ensure their own survival. The vision of a retrograde and deferential country is fading fast, and it feels like a real ray of hope for many Britons looking forward to the dawn of a new era, beyond the new reign.
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