Tessa Dunlop guides you through the highs – and lows – of previous coronations
Charles III, at 74 the oldest British King to ever be crowned, has his plate full on Saturday.
But the sagas and the angst are nothing new. Just look at the ups and downs of previous coronations.
Edward VII, August 9th, 1902
Edward VII, renowned as Britain’s best-dressed ‘fat man,’ was keen to rebrand monarchy for the modern age.
Cue pre-Coronation London: according to a contemporary account, it was full of ‘fairy palaces and balconies resplendent in draperies of many colours, brilliant with flags and flowers, gorgeous with trophies in gold and silver.’
Unlike his reclusive mother, Queen Victoria, Edward VII understood the power of pomp and circumstance – if only he wasn’t so old. Or unhealthy. 60-year-old Bertie had a 48-inch girth, he self-medicated with alcohol and, as one observer said, he had the ‘hunger of a dyspeptic’. By June 1902, Edward was also a man in pain. Sir Frederick Treves, Bt, a leading stomach surgeon, was even summoned to the Palace.
Bertie was adamant: ‘The coronation cannot be postponed... I will go to the Abbey on Thursday if I die there.’
The surgeon’s reply was unequivocal: ‘If Your Majesty did go on the Thursday to the Abbey, in all human probability you would die there.’
The coronation was postponed. Bertie had an abscess. The subsequent operation was unedifying: when the surgeon ‘drove in the blade, a pint of pus escaped with a violent gush’. By August, many VIP guests had gone home. Edward VII made it through the service but the coronation was not what it should have been.
George V – June 22nd, 1911
In 1911, Imperial Britain desperately needed a convincing figurehead. Instead, they got little George, a second son who liked shooting peasants and collecting stamps. Here was an accidental king and, worse, a dull one.
Thank God, his wife, Queen Mary was a study in established security and calm assurance.
The brand new Daily Mirror approved of her: ‘What other words, better than those, could express the sense of goodwill her people feel towards their Queen.’
George VI – May 12, 1937
Edward VIII is the King who was never crowned. He abdicated and his gauche brother George VI was seamlessly installed on the throne. Even the coronation date remained the same – 12 May 1937 – but the royal family had lost their most celebrated member from the fold.
The crowds on London’s streets were thinner than expected. A disappointed onlooker said, ‘My mother would have been more interested had it been Edward VIII who was crowned.’
Millions heard the King’s unsteady voice – ‘I do promise’ – on the wireless. Everyone was listening – even his exiled brother: ‘While rain beat against the window panes, the Duke of Windsor sat silently by a log fire today – his dog in his lap – and heard the broadcast of the crowning of his brother...The Duke looked pale.’ It required a sherry before Edward could summon the courage to send a message of congratulations.
Beware the phantom spirits of exiled relations.
1953 Elizabeth II
Young nervous Elizabeth did not want television cameras in the Abbey. But it was 1953 and the people expected to see their peaches-and-cream Queen. The monarch capitulated and on the big day there was press everywhere, and not all of it focused on Elizabeth and her dashing Duke.
The inauguration, parts of which were hidden from view, dragged on for three hours. Thankfully the press pack had plenty to distract them including the ‘superb, sparkling, ravishing’ Margaret as she flirted and removed the fluff from the lapel of dangerous divorcee Captain Townsend. Of all the action the Great Hall has seen, this was petty stuff but what the royals failed to take into account in 1953 was the significance ‘petty stuff’ took on under the penetrating gaze of the mass media.
Seventy years on, in a new high definition world, let’s hope they’ve learnt that lesson.
Tessa Dunlop is the author of Elizabeth and Philip, the story of young love, marriage and monarchy, Headline Press, out now in paperback
