Last time King and Queen were crowned together
THE last time a Queen Consort was crowned alongside a King was during the 1937 Coronation of George VI.
The King had acceded the Throne the previous year upon the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. A Coronation date of May 12, 1937 had already been put in place for Edward but when he stepped down to marry Wallis Simpson, the new King kept the same date.
One major change was required, however – to crown his Queen Consort beside him. As Edward was unmarried, the original plans had made no provision for the crowning of a Queen.
During the Coronation, which wasn’t televised, the King was anointed and crowned, then peers paid homage to him before a shorter and simpler ceremony for his wife’s Coronation.
Both were seen sitting side-by-side at Westminster Abbey and later appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace with their daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret both wearing little coronets.
It is King George VI’s Coronation which will now provide the blueprint for Charles and Camilla.
When Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, Prince Philip – as a male Consort – was not entitled to be crowned.
Instead, he kneeled down and pledged to be her ‘liege man of life and limb’.
It was only later, in 1957, that the Queen used Letters Patent to change her husband’s title from Prince Philip of Greece to ‘the style and titular dignity of a Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’.