Poor King Charles. He can’t do right for doing wrong and he can’t do wrong without making everything worse — but he can’t have it both ways.
He wants a slimmed-down monarchy but he wants his wife to be crowned Queen, he wants a right-on realm alongside his personal fortune of £1.8 billion and, worst of all, he wants a Coronation-lite; a diminished spectacle shaved of excess ermine, pomp, circumstance, dukes, nobles, foibles, wombles and Fergie.
He wants everyone to understand that he understands that this is not 1950s Britain any more — but what is the point of a Coronation if not to make it a glorious, once-in-our-lifetime spectacular; a ceremony that will wow the watching world? A ceremony that underlines that the monarchy actually means something, and in many cases something quite profound, to a great number of British people?
Then-Prince Charles attends a Service of Installation of Knights Grand Cross of the Honourable Order of the Bath at Westminster Abbey on May 24, 2022 in London, England
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall attend the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords, at the Palace of Westminster on May 27, 2015 in London
The Imperial State Crown which will feature during the Coronation of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey in London on May 6
That is why I want a Coronation with bells on, the kind of razzle-dazzle show that only Britain can produce. I want it loud and proud; marching bands and golden trumpeters, jewels as big as clenched fists alongside miles of bunting and national exuberance.
Most of all, I want a King who is happy to ride to Westminster Abbey in a golden pumpkin coach, thrilled to stagger around under a crown the size of a bucket, a priceless symbol weighed down by rubies and diamonds and a thousand years of ritual and tradition.
What I don’t want is a hand-wringing monarch who seems to be a bit embarrassed about the whole bliddy thing.
Because so far, the Coronation forecasts seem to suggest we can expect a grey-tinged day of pared-down pageantry, something that sounds as if it were organised by a committee of lemon-sucking Lib Dems chaired by Mr J. Corbyn and his friend, St Alin Pomp without the oomph.
What is the point? For the Coronation to be a success, Charles must embrace the bling and welcome the preposterousness of his destiny like, well, a man born to it.
On this day of days, he simply cannot be the woke bloke whom he fondly imagines himself to be, not when he is holding a sovereign’s sceptre while being anointed with holy oil and invested with temporal powers in an ancient ceremony that invokes the chivalric essence of kingship. Dude, it’s not like getting a loyalty card from Starbucks. This stuff is for real.
But Charles seems to be doing his best to pretend that it isn’t quite real, and certainly not grand nor exclusive nor the utter, absolute boiled essence of hereditary privilege that it actually is. Dear me, no. Nothing to see here! Move along, lovely urchins. Nothing special nor elitist going on behind this velvet rope, thanks all the same.
I mean, the QCQ (Quotidian Coronation Quiche) is bad enough, but cutting the guest list from 8,000 to 2,000? What does that actually achieve, except a saving on the luncheon catering costs? What is the point of having dukes, except to invite them to your Coronation? And not inviting Lady Pamela Hicks? That seems like a folly too far.
The 94-year-old member of the Mountbatten family was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Charles’s parents, attended his mother’s 1953 Coronation and the 1937 Coronation of his grandfather, King George VI.
Apart from being a close family friend, she is an indomitable piece of living history, testament to the fact that the Mountbattens and the Windsors are the Morecambe & Wise of royal circles; allies and families deeply entwined for decades.
And now she has been struck off the guest list in what seems to be a cost-cutting, face-saving, wokeist whim. To be replaced by whom? Perhaps by campaigner Ngozi Fulani, who was embroiled in a ‘race row’ at Buckingham Palace recently. Or by someone else whose value to the Crown lies in what they symbolise to the outside world, rather than their service and loyalty.
The Queen’s 1953 Coronation was the first ever to be televised, restored with colour here for the ITV documentary ‘A Queen Is Crowned’
Queen Elizabeth II in the ‘A Queen is Crowned’ documentary film, during the 1953 coronation
You know, his reign has hardly begun, but there are already uncomfortable moments when King Charles exhibits the tin-eared instincts of a self-interested small town mayor rather than a royal highness. And I think you can bet your last golden guinea that his mother would never have forgotten those who were steadfast friends in their support to the Crown and to her family.
She would have made sure Lady P was front and centre on the guest list. For Queen Elizabeth II understood the folly of throwing old friends under the bus in the rush to seek the modish approval of new ones.
Also, that the monarchy is not a meritocracy — and only a very foolish man would pretend otherwise.