A day for Charles, our mournful monarch: in his pomp but out of his time
Are you all set for the coronation? Whether you plan to pay the “people’s homage” – swearing aloud the newly proposed oath of allegiance to the king while watching it at home – is, of course, a private matter between you and your television set. This morning, Charles’s friend Jonathan Dimbleby suggested that this faintly controversial innovation was some ghastly evangelical idea of the archbishop of Canterbury’s (I paraphrase), and that Charles himself would find it “abhorrent”. Which feels fairly definitive.
Even if the archbish hasn’t made a bish, it must be said that the full-spectrum reverence of the run-up to the coronation can leave one always on the point of collapsing into giggles. I hugely enjoyed a Spectator article this week about the spoon used to anoint the sovereign with holy oil, which was described as a “very special one” (agreed), “one of the most beautiful examples of that humble genus” (OK), and “doubtless the world’s most important spoon” (sorry, I’ve gone).
Royalty remains, with a few notable resignations, a family firm, and Prince William and his wife, Kate, have spent the big game buildup engaged in typical tasks for the royals of our era. They go to a gym, where they must gigglingly ride exercise bikes; they go to a pub, where they must gigglingly pull pints. The giggling is key: the royals must show themselves keen to laugh at their relative ineptitude at these tasks, gamely participating in photographs whose message always seems to be: “We are not skilled enough to be ordinary people such as your good selves – thank you for bearing with us!”
This maladroitness is very bad when politicians do it (see Rishi Sunak at the petrol station) but very good when the royals do it. It is the form of duty on which we have settled for them in the modern age.
The quality of that age is not unalloyed. Talking to Elizabeth II’s bio