The House of Weird. Watching the Coronation

It sure was a big day for the House of Weird that is our royal family. My own family were decidedly unbothered. “Are you going to watch it?” I asked my daughters on the group chat. One said, “No but I might turn it on”. My youngest who lives in a fully functioning Republic (Ireland) replied “Truly dunno what ur all on about”.

The manufacture of consent has some holes in it all right. I decided to spend Saturday morning coronating. Yes, this is a word and yes, I am appropriating it for my own use as I was not actually wearing a crown or crowning anyone, just watching.  Appropriating words and making them mean what I want them to mean seems very much in the spirit of the occasion. The whole service was pick n’ mix symbolism dressed up as unchanging tradition. It was deeply odd and made no sense. But then a load of priests imbuing a grumpy septuagenarian with mystical and God-given power does not make sense in 2023 does it?

There were three nations this weekend: those who cheered this on and were happy to go along with the make-believe. Those who profoundly disagree with the institution: republicans and then the indifferent, those who simply were disinterested in the whole event.

Sadly, for me it is the third group who are more of a threat to the monarchy than any organised republican movement whose dry treatises on the constitution never hit the sweet spot. Republicanism depends on reason and a basic belief in equality. Monarchism depends on faith and is the very embodiment of hierarchy.  The coronation was in every way, a spectacle of irrationality. A lot of it was quite bonkers in the nut.

Charles looked thoroughly miserable throughout. Camilla would clearly have preferred to be elsewhere. We saw what we saw, and we probably saw more through TV close ups than most in the abbey saw, though all the commentary had it that Charles was ‘reflective’ while Camilla was more nervous.

There were so many incongruous bits. The special spoon, the bracelets of protection, the supposedly mystical woo behind the screen. Very Wizard of Oz. Star Fleet Commander Mordaunt won the day by holding a sword for a very long time. Princess Anne was starring in an epic movie of her own making with a fantastic plumed hat and was on a horse quicker than Harry was in his car to the airport. Ordinary people stood outside in the rain because that is what is means to be British. None of them knew the words to the controversial oath.

Sky reported on the outrageous arrests of protestors that happened before they had started protesting, the other channels not so much on the day. Pre-emptive strikes like this from the Met are deeply disturbing. The predominant media narrative of a nation unified in homage to the king casts protestors as dispensable irritants to the body politic. But these people are citizens, not scum to be tidied away when the world is watching. A display of the police using unnecessary force hardly fits the image that all were so keen to put across.

For all the talk of this spectacle being about soft power, a big part of it was a display of military might or rather nostalgia for it. This peculiar combination of sacrament and earthly power is held together by this ritual.

Those who see no point in the monarchy would do well to pay attention to the ritual. We are told that republicans could never conjure a ritual that was so mysterious and moving to which I have to say, we certainly could have a bash as it is all made up. Much of the time Charles looked glum while being manhandled by a gaggle of priests who dressed and undressed him as if prepping him for a human sacrifice.

Justin Welby became increasingly bossy and emphatic about upholding the Protestant succession to the throne. Charles may be hippyish in his embrace of all the faiths but the Church certainly isn’t because it can’t be can it? Charles is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. There was more welcome for a Hindu than a Catholic because let us not actually forget our history here. Or reality. We are a largely secular society. The power of the church is waning.

We worship elsewhere these days and the strange guest list of celebrities invited, reflected that. Acting royalty, Ant and Dec, Katy Perry and him off Repair Shop. It was all a bit ‘whatevs’. The effort made into making it all more diverse with prominence given to black and female church leaders and lords and a gospel choir was surely a good thing until you remember that this family could not countenance a mixed-race woman – Meghan – in their midst. Her absence was significant. So was the erasure of Diana that continues in order for the new love story to be constructed: that of an everlasting love between Charles and Camilla that has overcome a series of obstacles.  I don’t think anyone resents these two people being together now, but we are not stupid or entirely forgetful. Charles’ weakness in agreeing to marry Diana caused a trail of devastation.  Harry is part of that.

Forgetting, though is what we are being encouraged to do. We kept being told we would forget all the nasty things in life: the elections, the cost of living crisis etc and we could just bathe in the glory of this historic occasion. I don’t know which “we” this is because I have seen only one side street with some scrappy bunting near where I live. The gulf between the coercive media coverage and reality looms large.

Still, it all made me think about the importance of ritual and how we might make new ones. If what we saw yesterday was a hodgepodge of medieval stuff with innumerable add ons then anyone can do it. The anthropologist Levi-Strauss studied myth and used the term bricolage to describe the skill of using whatever is at hand to recombine them and make something new. Signs are used in ways they were not originally meant for. This is how mythological thought works. It is constructed.

So much of the coronation was to show that the English are unusually good at constructing myths. The stuff about being anointed in holy oil from Jerusalem is but one example of it. When the Queen was crowned, the oil used was consecrated by the Bishop of Gloucester.  Apparently because of the King’s personal connection to Israel, his oil was made holy by a Blessed Patriarch from the Greek Orthodox church from there and an Anglican Archbishop.

When I become Queen then, though I would keep the gold coach and the music, we could just get some old white musk oil from the Body Shop and find some freelance Wiccan to bless it. All of this stuff is intended to convey that Charles is not king because of hereditary privilege but it is his divine destiny, that this is God’s wish. I don’t know how many people believe this. It’s a stretch for most of us is all I would say.

If anything, far from being a divine god-king, Charles looked grouchy, human, old and ground down by it all.  All the burbling commentators were cheer-leading like mad but all they could say is that nothing went wrong. No one fell over I guess and there were no terrorist attacks.

The whole thing was fundamentally weird. And pointless as Charles is already king. If you like that sort of thing, then this was the sort of thing you would very much like and Christ knows, a huge effort has been made to tell us that we DO indeed like this sort of thing.

 For a country going down the tubes, it is important to market ourselves as being very good at something I suppose.An old king for an old country.

That, this ‘something’ happens to be imaginary rather than real does sum up the state of the nation. For a day or so we were encouraged to enter the House of Weird and pretend it was normal. And pay for the privilege.

My window .

Art by Sarah Maples from

https://www.flyingleaps.co.uk/