The Daily Telegraph - Features
The service deftly proved the King’s power to unite ‘neighbours in faith’
Expressions of respect for all religions did not compromise the Coronation ceremony’s deep, ancient Christianity, says Charles Moore
The thing was so subtly negotiated that few will have noticed, but Saturday’s Coronation was strongly different from its predecessors in its attitude to other faiths. Indeed, previous coronations had no attitude to other faiths at all. They simply did not feature. The tension, in the past, was denominational, not inter-faith. Anxiety was directed chiefly at Roman Catholics and, secondarily, at “Dissenters” (non-Anglican Protestants).
In the 1953 coronation, for the first time, the Church of Scotland got a small look-in by being allowed to co-present the Bible to Elizabeth II. With that small exception, everything about the service has always been, for more than 400 years until last Saturday, Anglican. And since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Coronation Oath – the only part of the service laid down by statute – has explicitly committed the monarch to maintain “the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law”.
As plans were made for this Coronation, there was some official embarrassment about the oath. The very word “Protestant” is now falling into disuse. It sounds almost antagonistic. It certainly does not embrace Catholics or show the slightest interest in wider religious belief. For the Church of England hierarchy, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the oath felt too assertive. For the King, who is a naturally religious Christian but not a naturally denominational one, the oath made no acknowledgment of the need for mutual respect and understanding between religions which has always been dear to his heart.
Church and state were nervous, however, about formal change. The oath can be altered only by full parliamentary process. Such delicate matters could not be settled in the few months available. Any rush would excite suspicion. New wording might easily stir up new rows.
The eventual compromise was: keep the oath, but surround it with the church equivalent of small print tactfully hinting it is not as bad as it sounds. A preamble to the oath was therefore devised. Before the congregation and the wider world, Archbishop Welby explained to the King that the established Church is committed to the “true profession of the Gospel”, and “in so doing” that same Church (and/or the King – the grammar of the sentence is not quite clear) “will seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely”.
This was a depressingly bureaucratic phrase which jarred with the beauty of the traditional language, but it served its purpose. With its suggestion of something wider and kinder, Charles III could
Alertness to the needs of the age was combined with medieval symbolism
duly declare, as the law insists, that “I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will… secure the Protestant succession to the throne”, and yet offer more.
This change of atmosphere, though not of law, gave the context for the ceremonies in the Abbey, which involved a Hindu (the Prime Minister) reading from Scripture, and representatives of many faiths and denominations assisting with the traditional elements, chiefly the regalia. A Muslim peer brought up the Armills, which represent sincerity and wisdom. A Jewish peeress helped clothe the King in the Robe. Lord Singh of Wimbledon, a Sikh, presented the Glove. Lord Patel, a Scottish
Hindu, produced the ring. The Archbishop spoke the accompanying prayers, so that no non-Christian would have to utter any words that might compromise his own beliefs and no Christian could be offended.
The blessing was divided up between the two Anglican archbishops, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop, the moderator of the Free Churches, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the secretary general of Churches Together in England. (The Scottish Presbyterians had earlier had their moment with the Bible, as in 1953.) A piece of the True Cross, donated by the Pope, was incorporated in the Cross of Wales for the service.
None of this could have happened between the 16th century and last week.
At the end of the service, just before leaving, the King stopped to talk to more faith leaders, who addressed him with one voice “as neighbours in faith”. They said they were united with all faiths and beliefs “in service with you [the King] for the common good”.
All this was an adroit and inspiring achievement. Its expressions of respect for all faiths did not compromise the deep, ancient – in parts, mysterious – Christianity of the service. The chair on which the King sat faced the altar of God, not the hundreds in the body of the church. The beautiful screens that were brought out concealed from the congregation and the world the act of anointing, comparable to priestly ordination, and administered at the coronation of King David in Israel nearly 3,000 years ago.
The anointing was no assertion of the divine right of kings, but it certainly did assert the special duty of a king to follow the example of the King of Kings. “With the anointing of the Holy Spirit,” said the Archbishop in his sermon, “the King is given freely what no ruler can ever attain through will, or politics, or war, or tyranny: the Holy Spirit draws us to love in action.”
If I were an old-school Low Churchman, annoyed by this mysticism, I think I might have shouted out “Just Stop Oil!”
All this was properly ceremonious. It was not mere “pageantry”, which is simply about putting on a show: it was the thing itself, expressible only partly in words. In no other 21st-century nation could such alertness to the needs of the age have been combined with such medieval (and pre-medieval) symbolism. As TS Eliot put it, writing about a secluded chapel in which the first King Charles took refuge: “History is now, and England.”
The idea animating these changes is to make our Christian heritage the best way of reconciling and managing a multi-faith society, with our head of state as its protector. The late Queen laid the ground for this by her concept of the “Holy hospitality” which the Church of England should afford to all. Now her eldest son is giving her inheritance a new shape. One could almost describe it as a spiritual version of the Commonwealth.
Could it go wrong? Yes, perhaps, in that it might not amount to much. Yes, perhaps, if too much emphasis on faiths and their representatives puts off the modern majority – agnostics, atheists and doubters, some of whom will be hostile and many of whom will be indifferent. And yes, certainly, if it tempts faith leaders who, after all, do not necessarily speak for their followers in all matters of modern life, into fighting one another for the spoils of their growing influence, abusing state patronage and royal blessing to advance sectarian causes. I would say this is a real danger, but it is undoubtedly a risk worth taking. The King’s personal combination of good faith and faith itself will surely bring more success than failure.
There was something else, though, about the Coronation. Perhaps because the multi-faith society got so much thought and attention, the constitutional side may have been given too little.
The Coronation is supposed to reflect, after all, not only the call of God and the demands of the Church, but also a political settlement. It is not by chance that the oath is its only statutory part. After 1688, Parliament wished to avoid a repeat of the Civil War 40 years earlier. It had deposed King
James because it feared this might happen if he tried to make the nation Catholic. It wished to secure the monarchy, but to confine it within certain bounds – the doctrine of “The Crown in Parliament”, rather than the Crown floating free to claim arbitrary power.
At the time, this required the king to be a Protestant. Today that matters less, but the essential point still holds: Parliament is, rightly, in charge. It has the King at its head, but is not under his command. This is essential to the monarchy’s legitimacy.
The Coronation showed inadequate attention to this fact. Those organising it wanted to get rid of the homage paid by peers which had always featured in the past. They decided that, in an era where the hereditary peerage is only vestigial, all those coronets were things of the past. They may have been right. But what was missing from Saturday’s arrangements was the formal recognition that both Houses of Parliament should be a serious part of all this. Some organised homage by representatives of both Houses – by which
I do not mean just Government ministers – would have been better.
The faith leaders have their flocks, which must be tended, but political leaders have their constituents, who must never be forgotten. The reputation of politicians is currently at such a low ebb that it is tempting to see the monarchy as a more attractive alternative. Tempting, but wrong. It is essential that each should complement the other. Ultimately, you won’t have a Coronation if you have a hostile Parliament. We certainly haven’t got there yet, but we might. We did, once.
Charles III’s personal combination of good faith and faith itself will surely bring success
“It is rather historic, isn’t it? And she looked lovely,” reflects designer Bruce Oldfield on how it felt to attend the Coronation and watch Queen Camilla being crowned in Westminster Abbey, before a global audience of billions, wearing the sleekly elegant Coronation dress he designed: an ivory peau de soie floor-length gown that flattered her figure to perfection, embellished with swathes of shimmering silver and gold embroideries, including delicate wildflowers found in hedgerows.
“I wish I’d been in the front row, because we’d spent so much time on the fit and the way the thing reacted with her body, and what she had to do – she had to kneel, and curtsey to the King – I probably knew more about how the dress was going to work and how it was going to behave than the Queen, because she has never done that before, and I have made a lot of wedding dresses!” The British couturier, who is looking exceedingly dapper in his trusty Edward Sexton suit when I meet him following Saturday’s ceremony, is chatting to me at Brown’s hotel, where he has been enjoying a post-Coronation celebratory lunch.
The story of the dress, which the 72-year-old describes as “the ultimate commission of my career”, began last September. “It started off with Her Majesty just saying, ‘Bruce, I’d like you to do my Coronation dress. Are you up for that?’ And, of course, I was. I just did a number of really rough drawings. They weren’t beautiful drawings, they were just sort of sketched ideas that I showed her,” he says, with a smile. “It was that easy, I promise.”
But why Oldfield? As exquisite as the dress was, there will be people who may be intrigued by her choice. Back in the day, he was the designer du jour, but it was to be Oldfield’s decade-long close connection with Diana, Princess of Wales, for whom he designed clothes (elevating her from a Peter Pan collar, Laura Ashley-wearing Sloane Ranger to an international fashion icon), which saw his own superstar designer status truly cemented. He was the designer behind Diana in the art-deco-style silver pleated gown she wore to a Barnardo’s fundraiser in 1985 (so va-va-voom, she out Dynasty-ed Joan Collins).
Oldfield certainly knows a thing or two about old-school glamour, not to mention how to make women look stunning. Of Camilla’s gown, he says, “I think she wanted what every woman wants in a dress, that is allure... I design in quite a classical way. I design to flatter the body.” He has made some neatly-tailored formal suits and splendid dresses for Queen Camilla over the years, starting with the super-chic, long-sleeved, powder blue A-line gown she wore to attend King Willem-Alexander’s investiture ceremony in the Netherlands in 2013. “The great thing about this particular commission was that we do have a great knowledge of her figure and her body. And also I can tell when she doesn’t like something!”
From rough sketch to a shimmering, ingeniously-tailored “coat dress” silhouette – which allowed Her Majesty to move freely as well as sit during the rituals of the ceremony – is a supreme example of the British couturier’s prowess as a master of structure (the architectural panelling in the back of the gown is a signature). The embroidered embellishments are a tour de force of craftsmanship.
On the cuffs of each sleeve are the flower emblems of the four nations of the United Kingdom – rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock – recalling the 1953 Norman Hartnell-designed coronation gown of Queen Elizabeth II, which was strewn with these national floral symbols.
Much more personal are the embroideries of rambling wildflowers – depicting sprigs of forget-me-nots, celandine, scarlet pimpernel and daisy chains – developed by Oldfield, with artist David Reeson and textile designer Sophie Rushton: “First and foremost, this was a state occasion. She was becoming queen of this great nation, so it couldn’t be too frivolous, it had to have some kind of gravitas. But you know both [the King and Queen] love the country and they love gardening and they love walking… and I do, too. So, for me, it was the perfect way to represent that; not with formal cultivated flowers, but just swathes of wildflowers.”
Oldfield also loved the idea of adding bunting into the design, to thread through the free-flowing floral embroideries, though there was some slight naysaying on this (“it is for me a quintessentially English thing”). The most eagleeyed among you might also have noticed the names of Queen Camilla’s children and grandchildren discreetly inscribed around the swirling florals, and two little golden dogs, embroidered on the hem of the gown (a tribute to the royal Jack Russell rescue terriers, Beth and Bluebell). This is not something Oldfield is able to discuss, but both Their Majesties are, like Oldfield himself, avowedly “dog people”.
Oldfield admits that for the past six weeks he has woken himself every morning, mentally churning over this or that technical detail of the gown. “We had a lot of problems attaching the robes,” he explains. Two embroidered straps to hold the heavy ceremonial robes in place were devised as the solution, albeit one that “we started just 15 days ago”, he gasps.
He attributes this fastidious need to be hyperprepared as a character trait that goes back to his childhood spent in care. “Being a good Barnardo’s boy, I work out what I’m going to wear the next day and it’s laid out, down to my pants. Not that anybody’s going to see my pants,” he says with a chuckle.
Born in 1950 to an Irish mother and a Jamaican father, who had a fleeting relationship, Oldfield grew up in care from his birth, firstly in a Dr Barnardo’s home, before being fostered by a single white woman called Violet Masters, with whom he lived from the age of three to 11, in the village of Hett, County Durham. Miss Masters was a seamstress, who taught Oldfield to sew: “I mean, we couldn’t escape it. Money was very, very scarce.”
Miss Masters did encourage her clever foster son to achieve and he went on to gain a place at Ripon Grammar School. And there was a mentor figure who identified his soaring potential and had the energy and vision to back him: “There was a head woman at
Barnardo’s called Edith Blair, and I don’t know whether she did it every year, but every period, she would choose a child and become their legal guardian. She just saw something there.”
Edith Blair was not wrong. The young Oldfield was an exceptional talent, who went on to study at Ravensbourne College, later St Martin’s School of Art. And in 1973 he landed a plum job designing a collection at Henri Bendel, the prestigious department store in New York, when he was just 23.
This year, Oldfield – who has designed Samantha Cameron’s wedding dress, Jemima Khan’s exquisite bridal suit, and too many couture gowns to mention – marks 50 years of his career as a fashion designer. At the heart of his design process remains his mission to make women of all ages and figures look their best. “There’s a tendency for the pundits to only really consider skinny, tall girls. They are easy to dress,” he says. “I do have quite a lot of techniques and dresses that I go back to all the time, because I love getting the design to follow the shape of the body.” He adds, with a twinkling smile: “There’s that joy of [clients] seeing themselves and going, ‘that’s not bad’.”
Oldfield’s is undoubtedly a story of the power of talent to rise, despite the barriers that his early life presented. Charity work is at the heart of his relationship with the Queen, of course. And again, Barnardo’s is the common thread (the Queen was Barnardo’s president from October 2007 until December 2016, when she became patron).
Oldfield is a man who is humorous, humane, straighttalking and a doughty survivor, and I am not surprised that he and Her Majesty get on so well. “We do... We get on very well,” he says. What is his favourite dress from his 50-year career? “I have to say, this one today,” he bats back without hesitation. “It’s kind of unbelievable, really. It crosses a lot of boundaries. From where I came from and where the Queen came from. Where I am now and where she is now…
“You know, people have been saying to me for 20 or 30 years maybe, ‘Don’t you ever pinch yourself ? Say, how has this happened?’ I always said, ‘No, I don’t’, because I’ve been on a trajectory all this time. And, you know, there are times when it’s been a bit tricky. There are times when I’ve had to do things that I would rather not have done. But there was always this confidence, this sort of sureness that I was on the right path.” He pauses for a moment. “To do the Coronation dress for Her Majesty. I didn’t see that one coming. I really didn’t!”
Oldfield certainly knows a thing or two about old-school glamour, and how to make women look stunning