King Charles will be glad when May 6 is behind him as factors combine to make the coronation a shambles. Photo / AP
OPINION:
What do you think is the ultimate status symbol in London right now among the aristocratic set? Those sorts whose families have been collecting wheezing labradors, old masters and stonking inheritance tax bills since the Kaiser was in short pants? An actually watertight roof? Access to “It” gal the Marchioness of Bath’s private Insta? Decent teeth?
Nope. A parking permit.
Well, a parking permit for the coronation, that is, with the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden reporting those select few who already have their soft hands on one of the prized, rare passes for May 6 have been busily showing them off.
The countdown is on and the clock will only start to tick louder with the big day now just a month away. However, while those toffs wave around their permits and Kate, the Princess of Wales ums and ahs about her tiara choice, inside King Charles’ Buckingham Palace nerve centre things would seem to be going from complicated to downright shambolic.
Over the weekend, the Telegraph reported that United States President and the world’s number one mint choc chip lover Joe Biden would likely not be making the trip to attend Charles’ big day. According to a source close to transatlantic discussions, the reason for Biden ticking the “can’t make it” box on the e-vite is supposedly because he is “too old to travel”. (And not because he was stuck in the 14th row, behind the Polish and Czech leaders at the late Queen’s funeral last year.)
While President Eisenhower didn’t front up to Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, the symbolism in this instance is not exactly great for a King who is clearly keen to step on to the world stage and do lots of glad-handing, backslapping and climate crisis-saving.
As of today, the news coming out of London suggests that the big coronation spreadsheet that Charles, Queen Camilla, their courtiers, and the jack russells are working from is full of question marks as His Majesty does some incredibly high-level dithering over major decisions.
Coronation plan under the microscope
Even though planning for Charles’ crowning began 20 years ago, according to well-sourced biographer Tom Bower writing in the Sun, he “has repeatedly changed details which were agreed long ago”.
“Cultivating the perfect image across the globe has provoked Charles to rescrutinise every detail of the ancient ritual,” Bower wrote.
Take such a simple thing as what he will wear. Sure, Camilla will probably remember at some point to send his best morning suit out to the dry cleaners, merlot and black pudding being bloody hard to get out of wool, but traditionally Kings don silk stockings and breeches for their big day.
However, for a King busy trying to project an image of a monarchy in touch with modern life, prancing about the place in silk stockings like something out of a BBC adaptation of Tom Jones would run decidedly counter to that. What next? He comes out and does a lengthy YouTube explainer about how he can trace his lineage back to the Dark Ages? He decides to hit up royal parks to remind the public he owns all of the country’s swans?
However, nor would he be in any rush to chuck out, holus-bolus, all of the pageantry and pomp of the event. Reducing the coronation to something much more mundane and no-frills carries a hell of a lot of risk too.
It is thought increasingly likely His Majesty may choose military uniform instead, but nothing is reportedly locked in.
This clothing situation perfectly exemplifies the hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing challenge that lies at the heart of all of this coronation planning. Charles has to find some way to strike the right balance between serving up enough pomp and ceremony to make Brits’ chests puff up with pride and not letting the whole event tip over into the totally ridiculous. There needs to be enough theatricality to sate the glued-to-their-TVs masses, given the fastest way to keep the public on side are well-judged, thrilling displays of regal grandeur.
But go too far down this road, edge into the distinctly campy and overblown, and there is serious danger in that as well. The coronation could, without careful organising, come across as a horribly wasteful display of ermine and questionably acquired diamonds the size of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, all of which would just drive home what an absurd thing a hereditary monarchy is in the 21st century.
Is it any wonder then that it sounds like One’s nerves are jangling.
There is every chance the coronation might end up being one of the most watched live TV broadcasts in history, which perfectly explains why Charles is reportedly suffering from a bad case of the butterflies. His Majesty is feeling “vulnerable”, Bower wrote, adding he “fears the slightest mishap could overshadow his reign”.
A right royal rehearsal
To try to stave off a prime-time disaster, last month a scale replica of the inside of Westminster Abbey was built in the Buckingham Palace ballroom, meaning the King and Queen can practise not wobbling while done up in ornate and cumbersome robes. (One item His Majesty will wear is called the Supertunica which sounds like the name of a German electronic music duo.)
Charles and Camilla are not the only ones who will be put through their paces in the ballroom in preparation. William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Anne and Prince Edward are all “expected to go through gruelling practice sessions, joined by bishops and choirboys,” the Sun’s Matt Wilkinson reported.
There are other very conspicuous gaps in the coronation planning too.
For example, on May 7, there will be a concert at Windsor Castle but at this stage it looks like the night will be headlined by a Pussycat Dolls cover band and the birthday clown Kate hires for her kids’ parties. That’s because so far Adele, Harry Styles, the Spice Girls, Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams have all turned down the palace’s invitation to perform.
This rash of embarrassing “nos” to Charles would have nothing to do with how fraught and politicised associating with the royal family has become thanks to those ducal disrupters from Montecito now would it?
And thus we get to Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and the looming question of whether the pariah pair will turn up for his father’s anointing.
All eyes turn to the California clan
For His Majesty, he is damned if the Sussexes do come, and equally damned if they don’t.
Should Harry and Meghan front up in their best bib and tucker and with their bravest faces plastered on, their presence back in the royal midst will be the only story people really care about.
Sure, Charles’ official crowning is a historic moment, but of the billions of eyes likely to tune in to watch the ceremony, how many will be on the septuagenarian reciting some old oath and how many busy watching out for any Sussex/Wales drama? Every blink, twitch and cough from the Sussexes and the Prince and Princess of Wales will be scrutinised and dissected like satellite photos of Russian troop movements.
Which is to say, Charles will be in obvious danger of having his august moment overshadowed by his pouty, lip-jutting son and his couture-clad daughter-in-law.
But … he is equally stuffed if they don’t turn up in London. Their absence inside Westminster Abbey would only really drive home how badly broken things are inside the House of Windsor.
The sovereign is meant to be a unifying figure. How can His Majesty try to bring a divided Britain still smarting from Brexit together when he can’t even get his younger child to turn up for the most important day of his life? It would make the whole thing ring distinctly hollow.
There have also been reports suggesting two major US TV networks are angling for Harry to anchor their coronation coverage. Perhaps the only thing worse for the King than his wife tripping over and accidentally flashing her knickers at the Archbishop of Canterbury would be Harry turning up on screens to offer his take on things.
Another King Charles facing anti-monarchist rebellion
If it sounds like Charles is facing a charged situation inside the Abbey, then outside, the picture could be much worse.
In recent months, the anti-monarchy group Republic has hugely stepped up its activism with the now familiar yellow-shirted members bearing signs that read “Not My King” turning up at nearly all of the King’s events. In March, when Charles entered the Abbey for the Commonwealth Day service, it was with the prominent presence of a group of Republic members chanting loudly outside.
Right now, the group is running a campaign to get people to sign up to attend protests around the country and in the capital on the coronation day.
While the numbers of protesters we have seen so far could fit inside a minibus, these sorts of visible outings never happened during the late Queen’s reign and are the most high-profile and loudest show of republican sentiment in modern history. (If we are talking in all history, then the top spot has to go to King Charles I, who was executed by Parliament in 1649 during the English Civil War.)
Noses out of joint among the British elite
Last but not least, having slashed the guest list from the 8000 members of the great and good that were invited to his mother’s coronation, Charles will be asking only about 2000 people, thus leaving a great many upper-crust noses out of joint.
In the Daily Mail, Eden revealed in March that some of the King and Queen’s chums are “furious” at having not yet received their save-the-date.
“They’re finding the wait excruciating. And, for some, it’s going to end in humiliation,” an “amused grandee” told Eden.
So too, the 800 members of the House of Lords are in “uproar”, reports the Telegraph, with the vast majority not expected make the cut for the coronation either. (Nor will most of Britain’s 650 MPs.)
Annoyed friends, his recalcitrant son and daughter-in-law who could very well steal his thunder, petulant peers, and the weight of the future of the monarchy on his shoulders: Just what is a freshman King to do?
He had better take a leaf out of her late majesty’s book and soldier on. History – and the palace car park – are waiting.
Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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