NO ONE UNDER THE AGE OF 75 can have anything but the haziest memory of the last time we did this. Britain has not witnessed a coronation since 1953, and even those who remember the crowning of Elizabeth II will have little to guide them today. It is a different country, and Charles a very different prospective monarch - if only because of one simple, unavoidable fact: he is an old king.
Start not with him, but with the people. The Britain of 1953 would scarcely recognise itself in the Britain of 2023. Obviously the entire world has transformed. Ask someone who recalls the last coronation and they'll soon tell you about the novel thrill of seeing the ceremony on live television, perhaps at the home of a neighbour who was the one person on the street lucky enough to own a "set". Today, almost every one of us has a supercomputer in our pocket, complete with a screen able to carry live colour pictures from anywhere on Earth - or even of a distant planet.
The changes wrought in Britain are especially sharp. Not long before Elizabeth acceded to the throne, she had dedicated herself to a life of service to the "great imperial family to which we all belong". In 1953, India was only six years into its newly won independence and the British empire still reached across the globe. True, the country had been drained by the war against fascism but Britain remained a military power of serious heft. More than 40,000 troops took part in Elizabeth's coronation - drawn from a military that numbered more than 850,000 with 24 military bands, and a naval review at Spithead involving 190 ships.
Today the headcount of the UK armed forces has shrunk to fewer than 150,000. As the Constitution Unit at University College London put it in a recent paper, the UK "still has an international monarchy, with the king being head of state of 14 other countries" but "it is no longer a major international power".
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
