Late Start
I got up late yesterday. The dogs were “on time”, about 5:30 am, but I was too willing to go back to bed. So we didn’t get up until 7:00, and a few minutes later I remembered: the Coronation. King Charles the III of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth of Nations was officially “crowned” yesterday, and I missed the first two hours. But I got some of the pomp and circumstance at Westminster Abbey, and the glory of parading in the rain with 7000 troops and a golden coach made in the mid-1700’s back to Buckingham Palace.
I can tell you one thing – my Mom would have loved it. As much as a “Democrat” as my mother was in America, when it came to her homeland, she was an absolute “Monarchist”. The King, the Crowns, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Grenadiers in their bearskin hats; I suspect she would have been in tears.
Tow, Row, Row
Some of my earliest memories are from when I was three, and Mom took us to England to see the family. I remember walking down a London street, gaining my “independence” when my “Bampa” let go of my hand as we went opposite sides around the lamp posts. And I remember the trooping of the colors, the daily march of the Palace Guard in their red coats to protect the Queen. My grandfather was once a soldier of Great Britain, fighting in the Boer War in the 1890’s. No bearskin hat though, but he taught me a marching song, “…(W)ith a tow, row, row, row, row, row of the British Grenadiers”. It was 1960, and Mom introduced me to the ancestral ceremonies of her nation.
It’s hard to imagine that a family from Hanover (Germany) somehow ended up on the British throne in 1714. It’s even harder to imagine that an entire Nation and the world celebrates the eldest son of that family ascending to that throne today, three hundred and nine years later. The coronation ceremony itself is a Christian Mass of the Anglican Church, like a wedding or funeral. It underlines the ancient myth, that God Himself has placed this man on the throne to rule.
Out of the Shadow
And I think a lot about King Charles the III, the man who was born to the monarchy, but waited seventy-four years to ascend to the throne. How difficult it must have been to be “second” to his mother for so many decades. When folks spoke of skipping Charles, and his entire “Boomer” generation to raise up Prince William, I get why that wasn’t ever going to happen.
Charles reminds me a lot of Joe Biden. While Charles was meant for the throne literally from birth, Biden first tried to “ascend” to the American Presidency in 1988. That campaign floundered badly, just as Charles “screwed up” in the public mind with his divorce from Diana and her untimely death. And Biden too was a “second”; Vice President to Barack Obama for eight years. It was an important role, but still second, in the very large shadow of the Obama Presidency. No wonder Biden ran once again for the highest office, and now, despite his age, is unwilling to relinquish it.
Old White Men
As I watched the Mass at Westminster, there are some changes in this world. What once was the exclusive “club” of old White men, now includes older women and men of color. The change is subtle, the robes and miters blend everyone into a mass of hues and swish, but their world is still changing. And even the famous boy’s choirs are now boy’s and girl’s choirs, with a mix of races as well of genders.
The United Kingdom is changing, even if the Windsor family continues to maintain the throne. The Prime Minister is Rishi Sunak, a man born of Indian ancestry in Southampton, and raised in the Hindu faith. The Mayor of London is Sadiq Khan, born in London of Pakistani descent and raised in the Muslim faith. So while the Christian Mass of Coronation may have been led mostly by old White men, the Nation is not.
Steady Hand
Mom would have been OK with that too. She saw the monarchy as the historic glue that held her homeland together. Her King, George the VI, grandfather of Charles; helped lead her Nation through the darkness of World War II. And her generation was led by the young Queen Elizabeth, who went from a War duty of fixing engines, to the shock of an early ascent to the throne. But perhaps most of all, Mom admired “her” Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, a man elected by the people to lead the Nation, and her “boss” of the Special Operations Executive in World War II.
So as the United Kingdom changes, the monarchy is the single steadying institution. Even though there is little political power that resides in the throne today, there is the historic momentum, the symbolism of what “England” always was. That’s what this ceremony represents for our twenty-first century.
“Hip, Hip Hooray!!!! God Save the King!!”
