Enjoying the pageantry and history

Columnist Anne Crossman was one of the people who stopped Saturday to watch the coronation

“Wake me up at 6 in the morning, please,” I said on Friday night as I headed off to bed.

And he did.

I was just in time to see all the dignitaries with all their finery get ushered into that absolutely, staggeringly, beautiful edifice.

The cathedral alone played its part in the historical ceremony as much as the people, the words and the various accoutrements.

After about an hour I noticed there was no traffic going by my door. And then one vehicle went past about two hours later just as the London people were filing out of the cathedral doors. It was as if everyone in Annapolis Royal was drinking their coffee or tea in their jammies watching the TV and decided things outside could wait.

The pageantry and the history and the music were what drew me in. To think that pieces of this ceremony in 2023 went back more than 1,000 years in the making of the various monarchs on that island just off Europe.

I was mesmerized by the coronation chair. I kept wondering who had carved their initials in it over the centuries and really marring a royal antique with great meaning. It turns out tourists and very naughty choirboys scratched their names in it.

It was made in 1296 by King Edward I (the Hammer of the Scots). Tourists in the 1700s paid to sit in the chair and carve their mark on it. And there was the Stone of Destiny, which was underneath the seat for the ceremony. It has its own story of intrigue – remember the Stone of Scone being stolen/returned to Scotland?

When the first notes of Handel’s Zadok the Priest started, I was spellbound. Handel would have loved to hear the wonderful Westminster Choir and that orchestra perform his work after all these years in the cathedral. It really was glorious.

Seeing Charles in his undershirt and remembering seeing Elizabeth in hers before going behind the screens to be anointed with oil was still moving.

Many people have chimed in with their thoughts on this event. There are those who want the monarchy to go away. There are those who don’t want Canada to be beholden to a monarchy. And there are those like my mother and grandmothers who couldn’t imagine the monarchical situation being any other way.

I loved the pageantry of it all – the colours, the beautiful singing, the music, the cathedral, and above all, the history. To think that many parts of this ceremony have been around for hundreds of years in one form or another is wondrous. The fact that people cared enough to preserve the clothing and the ceremony and all it entails is enough for me.

Anne Crossman is a former journalist and media manager. She now does volunteer work in her community of Annapolis Royal.