2023-05-07 10:41:15
- William Marquez
- BBC News World
image source, Getty Images
The coronation ceremony has changed very little in the last thousand years.
This May 6, London was the scene of a coronation ceremony following 70 years.
After the death of Elizabeth II on September 8, her eldest son, Carlos III, was formally invested as head of state and head of the Anglican Church. Camila, his wife, was crowned with him as queen.
Crowning kings and queens at Westminster Abbey has been a tradition since the days of William the Conqueror in 1066. Since then, 39 coronations of British monarchs have taken place at this historic venue.
It is a ceremony full of pomp, glory and symbology, that little has changed in the last thousand yearsand includes the presentation of the ceremonial objects of royalty, the crown, jewels and clothing.
But not all coronations have gone as planned.
Here’s a sampling of five times coronations have floundered, some disastrously.
Flammable Coronation: William I (The Conqueror)
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William I was crowned just two months following invading England and defeating the previous King Harold II.
Norman King William I, known as William the Conqueror, mightn’t have been more nervous the day he was crowned in Westminster Abbey on December 25, 1066.
A little over two months ago, he had invaded England and defeated the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II in the bloody battle of Hastings, who died in combat.
At the head of his invading army, William rushed towards London, ruthlessly wiping out any resistance he encountered along the way.
Queria sooner reassert his legitimacy to the throne and to be invested in the historic abbey that had been built by the admired King Edward the Confessor who, according to William, had explicitly promised him the crown.
But the atmosphere was tense, so he surrounded the temple with his troops. However, in a gesture to demonstrate the new relationship with the conquered people, the ceremony was held in French and English.
French-speaking Normans and English-speaking Anglo-Saxons present in the hall cheered in approval of the new king with great din.
Norman soldiers standing guard outside they thought it was an assassination attempt and started burning down the houses around the abbey. a common strategy of the time to suppress uprisings.
The congregation fled the smoke in a panic, there was confusion, fighting and looting. Amidst the chaos, the bishops who remained with the king in the abbey quickly concluded the sanctification ritual.
According to Orderic Vitalis, a historian who lived a few years following the events, “the new king trembled from head to foot”.
Mutinous Coronation: George I
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George I did not speak a word of English when he succeeded to the British crown.
George was a German sovereign, Elector of Hanover, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, who did not speak a word of English and had never lived in Great Britain.
A new law, known as the Settlement Act of 1701, stipulated that the British throne might only be held by Protestantsthus thwarting attempts by dissident factions seeking to proclaim a Catholic king.
It was then that, in 1714, Jorge inherited the British crown as the closest Protestant relative of Queen Anne, who had died childless.
But his selection did not calm the divisions. 56 Catholic candidates with greater hereditary rights than Jorge were ignored.
George I was crowned on October 20 at Westminster Abbey, in a ceremony in Latin because the new king did not understand English and his ministers did not understand German.
Anti-Protestant factions and the Tory aristocracy absented themselves from the event and riots broke out in more than 20 towns around England.
When the king’s supporters celebrated the coronation with parties and bonfires and drinking in taverns in different parts of the country, they were attacked by rioters chanting slogans such as “Damn foreigners!” and “Kill King George!”.
There were injuries and at least one death as a result of these riots.
George I always felt uncomfortable with his British heritage and incompatible with his people. During his reign, he spent as much time as he might in Hanover.
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King George V came to be despised by his people for his excesses and dissolute life.
Before he ascended the throne in 1820, George Augustus Frederick, the fourth king in a row of the House of Hanover, had already served as Prince Regent for almost nine years, due to the mental illness that had disabled his father, King George III.
Despite being a cultured and charming person, a promoter of the arts and fashion, his dissolute behavior earned him the scorn of his people.
As regent and later as king, George IV was known for his extravagant lifestyle. He was a drinker, a libertine and accumulated painful debts.
The rent he received from his father and other subsidies from Parliament (equivalent to almost US$15 million today) were not enough for his extraordinary expenses.
This exaggeration was reflected in a magnificent and expensive coronation that surpassed US$25 million today and it took place on July 19, 1821.
Jorge ordered a new crown made with more than 12,000 diamonds for a ceremony that included a large banquet for 2,000 guests and various shows. Thousands more watched the actions from the stands.
However, his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, had been excluded from the ceremony by order of the king, although she tried unsuccessfully to break the security cordon and enter the abbey.
The king, by then obese, advanced in years and addicted to laudanum, he sweated profusely in his heavy velvet garmentslong curly wig and feathered hat.
When, at the end of a long day, the king got up and left the place with part of his retinue, the nobles who had not participated in the banquet rushed to the tables to carry off the leftovers and some of the lavish decorations, crockery and covered.
It was the last time a banquet was held inside Westminster Abbey.
Canceled Coronation: Edward VII
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Days before the coronation of Edward VII and his queen consort Alexandra of Denmark, the king was attacked by peritonitis.
Only the current King Carlos III had to wait longer behind the scenes to be crowned than Alberto Eduardo, Queen Victoria’s eldest son.
Perhaps for this reason, as a prince without a defined role, he devoted himself to fine dining, wine, horse racing, elegant suits, gambling, and women.
“I can never look at him, nor will I look at him, without shuddering,” Queen Victoria once remarked of her son.
After inheriting the throne in November 1901, Edward VII’s coronation was scheduled for June 26, 1902, with guests coming from all over the world.
However, a few days before, the king suffered an appendicitis that evolved into peritonitis. He was in danger of dying if he didn’t cancel the event and undergo immediate surgery.
He had waited so long for this moment that he repeatedly refused to postpone the ceremony, but finally gave in to postpone the event was scheduled for the following August 9.
Although by then the Eduardo VII was already quite recovered, the solemn service was not free of mishaps.
The elderly and almost blind Archbishop of Canterbury might barely read the prayers and misrecited some passages. Furthermore, the crown slipped from his hands and he placed it upside down on the king’s head.
But it’s not all bad memories. The new headdresses for the clergy, specially designed for this ceremony, made of velvet printed with flowers and crowns, continue to be used to this day.
Coronations That Never Happened: Edward V and Edward VIII
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The famous painting by John Everett Millais captures the moment when Edward V (right) and his brother the Prince of York have a doomed premonition in the Tower of London.
Anyone who has visited the imposing Tower of London will surely have heard the sad story of the “Princes of the Tower”, whose spirits are said to haunt the cold and hazardous corridors of this medieval fort.
They are Edward V -the new King of England following the death of his father Edward IV in 1483- and his brother, the Duke of York, who they were housed in the Tower in the custody of their uncle Richard of Gloucester.
After a long and bloody dynastic dispute between the different factions of the Plantagenet House known as the “War of the Roses”, in which several suitors lost their lives, Edward V ascended the throne when he was barely 12 years old.
Because he was not of legal age, his uncle Ricardo was appointed Lord Protector, a position that gave him great influence over the actions and destiny of the young monarch.
But it was never crowned. After only 86 days as king, Edward V and his brother mysteriously disappeared from the Tower, supposedly murdered.
Historical data is not reliable enough to hold Ricardo exclusively responsible. In addition, there are theories that point to other interested parties such as the perpetrators of the assassination.
However, following her disappearance, Richard declared that Edward and his brother really were bastards, and had himself crowned Richard III.
Some 450 years later, another King Edward missed out on being crowned.although on that occasion it was not for violent reasons, but rather scandalous.
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Edward VIII announced to the nation via the BBC his decision to marry Wallis Simpson and abdicate the crown.
Edward VIII he did not have much will to assume the responsibilities of royalty.
Prior to his accession, as Prince of Wales he served in the British Army during World War I and was the first monarch to be a licensed pilot.
But he was also known as a “playboy”, with little interest in court etiquette and traditional conventions, preferring the company of his friends from bourgeois society.
That’s how he met and sand fell in love with Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American and a few months following being proclaimed king, he proposed to her.
The engagement created a constitutional crisis, with strong political opposition to a woman with two living ex-husbands serving as queen consort.
Besides, the king is the head of the Anglican Church, which at the time was opposed to marriage of a monarchcon a divorced person.
Thus, on December 11, 1936, Edward VIII addressed the nation through the BBC to announce his decision to abdicate the crown and marry the woman he loved. Rreigned for 325 days.
His brother, the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne as George VI. Edward received the title of Duke of Windsor, married Wallis Simpson, and lived virtually the rest of his life abroad, until his death in 1972.
Read more regarding the British monarchy and King Charles III
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