At the heart of the coronation of Charles III on Saturday is a very deliberate national deception about religion. In some ways, the deception hides in plain sight, not attracting attention. Pre-coronation speculation has focused instead on more trivial things – Camilla, Harry, Meghan – or on monarchy’s general popularity in the post-Elizabeth era. But when you watch and listen to the coronation itself, the religious deception will be hard to miss – and harder to believe.
Many will instinctively want to be generous about the coronation and will not want to spoil the party. In that spirit, they might call this weekend’s ritual a historical pretence that pleases many and does no particular harm. If they were being stronger-minded, as they ought to be about an event that inevitably says so much about this country to itself and the world, they could instead call the ritual what it is: a lie at the heart of the British state.
The lie is that Britain is a practising Christian nation, and that it is defined and held together by the established Protestant religion, of which the monarch is the embodiment. That claim may have been accurate in the 18th century. It is simply untrue in the Britain of 2023. But the Protestant claim remains inseparable from the modern coronation. Fear of change probably explains why Saturday’s proceedings are taking place at all. Charles III has been king for months now and no coronation is legally required in order to confirm that fact.
Those who planned the coronation had a real choice. They could have been bold reformers. They could have removed the Protestant pre-eminence from the coronation, demystified parts of the ceremony and made clear to the nation that the king stands committed to justice, tolerance and religious freedom. Many years ago, Charles appeared willing to go in that direction.
Instead, the coronation planners have guarded the Protestant claim like the crown jewels. This has ensured that the central deception remains, in spite of some superficial changes in the ceremony that have been made since the last coronation in 1953. The outcome is very conservative. No significant concession has been made to suggestions that the coronation ritual should be diluted, reframed – or even abandoned. It is a foolish error, and a revealing one.
If you doubt any of this, take a careful look at the 42-page authorised liturgy for the coronation rite that was published last week by the Church of England. It is a highly informative document, which sets out precisely what will happen in the abbey from 11am onwards. It does this, word by carefully drafted word, step by step, gesture by gesture, and with useful accompanying explanatory notes.
There will be much said on Saturday about the more pluralistic aspects of the 2023 coronation service, as well as other changes that are more personal to Charles. Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders will have walk-on roles. The nations of the UK will have moments in the spotlight. There will be singing in Welsh and Greek. Non-Christians will have roles in presenting the king’s regalia. Our first British-Asian prime minister will read a lesson. All this sends a welcome message of national inclusivity.
Most of it, though, is well-intentioned window-dressing. In fact, at the two central moments of the coronation, make-believe will take over. The inclusivity of the minor changes may be seriously meant. But it cannot compete with the institutional exclusivity that dominates the rest of the service, including its climactic rituals. In one, the inclusivity hits an Anglican wall. In the second, it disappears into a feudal farrago.
The Anglican wall is the swearing of the coronation oath. In post-civil war coronations, this was the key moment. The oath’s contents were laid down in statute in 1688. There is no ambiguity about what the oath says. Charles must declare himself a faithful Protestant, commit himself to maintain the Protestant succession and swear to uphold the Church of England’s position as the established religion of England.
This made life-and-death sense in 1688. Today it is absurd. Charles’s swearing of his coronation oath flies in the face of the realities of modern Britain. Most Britons are not Christians. Few of those who are Christians are practising Anglicans. We are a more secular and pluralised nation and likely to remain one. In the blunt language of University College London’s Constitution Unit, the coronation oath “reflects a period of history that is now over.”
A similar sense of anachronism applies to the feudal farrago part of the coronation. This comes later, after the oath, with the anointing of Charles with holy oil by the archbishop of Canterbury, behind a screen, while the choir sings Handel’s Zadok the Priest. This sacral part of the coronation has deep historical roots, but then so does witch burning. Today, the anointing of the king sets the British monarch completely apart, not just from the citizenry of Britain, but also from every other crowned head of state in Europe.
The language comes from another era. In a newly written prayer before the anointing, the archbishop will ask that the people should be blessed by “a royal priesthood” and become “a holy nation”. Then, speaking quietly (according to the liturgy), the archbishop addresses Charles III in words that Charles I himself would have appreciated. He is to be “anointed, blessed, and consecrated King over the peoples, whom the Lord your God has given you to rule and govern”.
This is constitutional monarchy at its least modern and its most obdurately feudal. It will be reinforced on Saturday by the proposed homage of the people. Here the archbishop will invite the congregation and those watching at home “to make their homage” to the king.
The liturgy document presents this as a progressive reform, since in previous coronations homage was paid by peers alone. In fact, because it asks the public to assert their subordinate status as subjects rather than equal citizens, it is the reverse.
The decision typifies the failure of the British state, under Charles as under his mother, to find ways of building consent for reform of the monarchy. The upshot is that this coronation does not mark the start of a new era. It is merely the continuation of the old one. A chance to do things more sensibly has been squandered, not just by the king and the archbishop, but by the rest of us too.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
