The King’s decision to cut his 2023 workload by two hours has met with controversy. You can see why people mind. It’s like an actor who’s been waiting months for a job and, when he finally lands one, arrives at the first rehearsal asking: “When’s lunch?”
But it turns out that His Majesty wants to save us time too. The proposed knocking off two hours early is to occur at Charles’s coronation, a ceremony being variously described as “smaller and simpler”, “slimmed-down”, “cut-price” and “shit”. That last description comes from me and was motivated by a desire to give a sentence a rude ending.
The idea is that the service will last about an hour, rather than the three hours his dutiful mother and a pre-Netflix nation sat through 70 years ago. In this hectic age, who wants to watch something three hours long that, however spectacular, is devoid of suspense because everyone knows precisely what is going to happen? And yet James Cameron’s Titanic has now grossed more than $2bn.
It’s not just the length of the event that’s going to be cut. Some old traditions are likely to be removed from the process: for example, the “court of claims” where it is decided which peer does what in the ceremony – or presumably where it is pretended that those decisions are made, because surely the reality is that it’s already been determined by ancient precedent? It’s no good Lord Botham asking if he can be the one who actually pops the crown on the King’s head on the basis that he’s got great hand-eye coordination. Also the presentation of gold ingots to the new monarch is likely to be cut. Personally, I was not aware of either of those bits, so they don’t seem like a massive loss to me, but I suppose it’s a shame for anyone who was looking forward to them.
The guest list is also probably going to be reduced, from the 8,000 who were crammed into Westminster Abbey last time, with the help of huge creaking wooden gantries that current health and safety laws must surely prohibit, to a piffling 2,000, which is all you can fit in if you limit it to chairs that go on the floor.
Also under consideration is excusing peers from wearing coronation robes and making the dress code “lounge suits”. This feels like a shame, as mad clothing does seem to be an important pleasure at this sort of event: everyone in uniform, but no uniformity of uniform. Uniforms in enormous variety: that’s a key paradox and one that feels fitting to circumstances where the figurehead of a G7 economy must first be drizzled with sacred goo and fitted with a metal hat before we can all relax into bowing whenever he walks into a room.
Obviously it’s all a bit bonkers, but it seems relatively harmless and it can be fun. The living archaeology of it is interesting, like finding an old Bakelite socket in a unrenovated house, and the visuals are great. Highlights of the Queen’s funeral for me included the members of the Household Cavalry standing at various points in the abbey, in red coats and plumed helmets, while every other man in the building sat hatless in a sombre suit.
Why were they allowed to wear bright colours and keep their extremely jazzy hats on? Were they there to represent the tiny minority who rejoiced in Her Majesty’s death? In any other context, a man dressed so strangely, standing in the middle of a room, would provoke a phone call to social services. But, amid pageantry, any sort of apparently aberrant craziness can be acknowledged with a sage nod. It’s all part of it. All must sit, unless they must stand. All must wear black, unless they must wear red. All must be quiet except one man who shouts incredibly loudly. The monarch’s body, solemnly dragged around London by a bunch of sailors, as is fitting.
The Daily Mail balked at the idea that the 2023 coronation would be denied any of the bells and whistles of its predecessors and orchestrated a poll to show how much a self-selecting section of the public agrees. Seventy per cent of respondents declared that “pomp and pageantry is what Britain does best”, which is talking Britain down, if you ask me. It may be argued that no country does pomp and pageantry better than Britain, but the notion that this country’s primary claim to excellence centres on arcane military choreography is rather a snub to the home of the world’s second-highest number of Nobel laureates. Typical unpatriotic sneering from the Mail.
It seems to me that shortening the coronation and losing a few bits no one has heard of is fine as long as it’s still a big do with everyone dressed amusingly. It doesn’t have to be coronation robes - it could be fancy dress. Or themed fancy dress! The movies! Famous villains! Pretty in pink! Vicars and tarts! Space coronation! Choosing the theme could be a new tradition. It just needs to look insane and be presented as if it’s the most unsurprising thing in the world.
It’s sensible of the monarchy to acknowledge these straitened times by not shoving too many ingots down Charles III’s impecunious subjects’ hire-purchase widescreens. The economy is tanking, millions are frightened, poor and getting poorer and the King is showing that he gives a damn, something the government seems startlingly unable to do.
It makes me suspect that our situation might improve if we restored absolute monarchy. On current evidence, it’s a more functional arm of the state than parliamentary government. At the last election, our flailing voting system gave the public a choice between a promiscuous liar and an extreme socialist, both of whom split their parties, and we’ve ended up being governed by neither of them anyway. Instead, we’ve got a leader voted for only by a handful of rightwing club members, who manifestly lacks the confidence of the public.
Democracy and meritocracy are of course far preferable to royal autocracy, but Truss’s administration has no democratic mandate and displays no merit. Charles III seems to have just as much right to tell us what to do and could scarcely screw things up any worse.
