Two very personal coronations

COUNTDOWN TO CROWNING OF KING CHARLES

- Catherine Pepinster

TAKE TWO monarchs. One, a 25-year-old woman with two small children, was deeply shocked by the untimely death of her 56-year-old father and overwhelmed by the heavy burden of office placed on her young shoulders. The other, a 74-year-old man, bereaved by the passing of his 96-year-old mother, finally embracing his destiny.

The reigns of Elizabeth II and Charles III could not have started more differently. No wonder, then, that their response to planning their coronations have been so different.

The country realised how traumatic it was for Elizabeth to become Queen in 1952 when she flew back from Kenya after George VI died in his sleep and told her Accession Council that “my heart is too full” for her to say very much.

The young Queen then focused on learning her new role and left organising her coronation, 16 months later in June 1953, to church and government experts. And given her own father’s coronation had been just 16 years earlier, there were plenty of people with actual experience of the ceremony at Westminster Abbey.

Today, it is King Charles who is in the driving seat.

While he has a team responsible for the May 6 ceremony – Westminster Abbey, Lambeth Palace, Government and Buckingham Palace officials – he is very much in charge.

The King, of course, has personal memories of his mother’s coronation. But it is not so much these but his lengthy experience, his wait for this moment and his character that mean he is so engaged with the planning. One adviser to the team involved in organising the coronation reportedly explained that the King is, unlike the sovereign in 1953, very much older and more experienced with firmer views.