Vivat Carolus Rex

I must say, I thought the Coronation was marvellous.  The service in Westminster Abbey was a feast of uplifting splendour, rich in mystery and poetry, and shot through with that serious joy that characterises all the most meaningful occasions.  Careful thought had clearly gone into every aspect of the ceremony; the symbols were deep and rich, he prayers weighty and resonant and the music absolutely magnificent.  

Several things particularly moved me, often moments of simplicity: the chorister’s fearless opening greeting to the King, recalling the ‘boy bishops’ of the Middle Ages, and not without the hint of a challenge — “Your Majesty, as children of the the Kingdom of God, we welcome you in the name of the King of Kings” — and the King’s simple, correct reply, correct because it echoed Christ, “I come not to be served but to serve.”  Later, just before the anointing, there was the sight of His Majesty in a simple white shirt — for a moment visibly a man like any other.  Then the veiling by the embroidered screen, so as show that some things are still too sacred even for television’s eye.  There was also the Byzantine chanting which accompanied the presentation of the Sword of Offering and the Spurs and the Orb — a remarkable combination which opened up an especially startling glimpse into the depths of time. 

Some criticism of the service has been made even by sympathetic commentators, lamenting the absence of certain traditions, or finding the mystery diminished by the zoomed-in, high-definition television pictures.  But I must say I found myself decidedly heartened by it all, above all by its explicitly Christian nature.  I know that we in England are very good at pretending to say one thing and then actually doing something quite different, but in times like these, when so many ancient things are simply being openly jettisoned or reinterpreted to suit our modern whims, it means a great deal that such serious prayers were still said, that our country was still committed, at its heart, to God, and that an ancient covenant was sealed afresh.

Decorations in Cowley Street behind Westminster Abbey (whose towers are just visible in the background), 7th May, 2023.  The house in the foreground was formerly the residence of Lord John Reith, first Director General of the BBC.

Those of us who are in favour of all this — who believe in the quiet wisdom of constitutional monarchy, in its gentle ceremony and stateliness, and in the particular way of loving Britain that it gives us — are well aware that we are keeping a flame alight in an age when many people miss its purpose.  The Coronation gives strength to this flame.  It seems to me that it matters less whether we matched the full splendour of Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation in 1953 than that a moment of this kind should have happened at all.   The outward form of Coronations is bound to change over time; the important thing is to make sure it is done, to maintain the links in the chain, to keep faith with our forebears and hand on our society intact to our descendants.  That the Coronation was so resplendent, should have remained so untainted by plastic secular modernity, and been enjoyed by so many is, in some ways, secondary, though I did savour every minute.  Given the kinds of outrages against our culture that seem to have become a matter of course in public life, I think it was a moment of hope, and a great counter-witness to the irony and cynicism with which so many shut their hearts against the the sacred or mysterious.  It was also a highly intelligent blend of our ancient inheritance and the reality of modern Britain: for instance, I thought the contribution of the other Christian leaders (including our own Cardinal Vincent Nichols) and the leaders from other religions was handled with great dignity and respect.  All people of good will should have been able to find some encouragement in the Coronation: an opportunity for national unity and strength in troubling and confusing times, a chance to step outside our own age for a moment, and an affirmation of higher ideals.  The memory is a treasure to which I will return in the months and years to come.

And not only to the service itself but to everything that surrounded it: it was wonderful to see the flags on the Mall on Sunday, and also for our parish Youth Choir to sing at a special Mass on the Bank Holiday Monday, an occasion for which our auxiliary bishop joined us.  This is no coincidence, but part of the ripples of goodwill that radiate from events like this, quietly building up ‘bonds of connexion between persons’, as St. John Henry Newman put it.

The Mall looking splendid

“It is deep within our Catholic spirit to love our country and to pray for our Sovereign,” said my Archbishop John Wilson at a Solemn Mass at the Cathedral on Sunday. “King Charles and Queen Camilla have set themselves to be servants after the heart and mind and example of the Lord Jesus.  We seek to do the same and to pray for Their Majesties and for our lands.” There is a strong sense, expressed not least in Cardinal Vincent’s excellent loyal address, that the Church is behind the King; and that the King knows this.  There is a hard road ahead for our nation, and much cause for concern in the increasing violence and the sense of a weakening of civil society — but last weekend a clear sign of the attitude with which to overcome these problems, in both the short term and the long.

Forgive the repetition: I cannot resist posting Saturday’s rendition of William Walton’s Coronation Te Deum…  Andrew Nethsinga conducts choristers from Westminster Abbey, the Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace, Truro Cathedral, and the Methodist College in Belfast, with Sir Antonio Pappano directing the orchestra in the organ-loft. 

God Save the King!

And so we come to Coronationtide, as the great Eleanor Parker reminds us to call it — though no wonder we had forgotten, as this is the first for seventy years.  It is quite something to sense once again, as we did at the death of the late Queen, the heavy mechanisms of state and of history swinging into motion, though this time to music in a major, not a minor key.  Again I sense, and savour, an older, deeper Britain rising almost to the surface.  I expect this sensation will only intensify as we approach Saturday, and that during the ceremony itself we will feel very close indeed to high voltage — as if we need only reach out to touch the charged cable of history, leading all the way back through the centuries, to the very beginnings of our nation.  

It is strangely ironic that the remarkable gift of the late Queen’s long reign — her very longevity and personal constancy — may have distracted us from the even greater length of the thread of historical continuity to which she belonged and of which even she represented only the final stretch.  Now that her son is King, there is a curious change of perspective: where until last year we might have marvelled that the Queen had been reigning since 1953, now it is easier to notice again the remarkable truth that our monarchy itself goes back — well, all the way to Alfred (let us not dwell on Cromwell), and English Coronations to King Edgar in the year 973.  Our perspective suddenly broadens out from beyond the lifetime of a single individual, remarkable though she was, and recognise that even she (as she knew quite well, and often implied) was only a part of something far older, far richer, far deeper.

Now Charles is to be crowned King, and with his crowning a new chapter opens in our national story.  It is not like 1953, when the young Queen Elizabeth shone with gem-bright optimism amid war-weary and soot-bleared, though dignified, Fifties London.  It was a brightness she kept till the very end, so, without at all making a criticism of her, it is an interesting and by no means unpleasant change to look now to the more pensive, even melancholy figure of Charles in her place.  He is a philosopher king, a man who seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, and in that sense he is the man of the moment.  These are troubled times — troubled spiritually, as we are beginning to realise; a time of uncertainty and fear in which so many are struggling to find their bearings, and in which there is a great, yet widely unanswered thirst for the eternal consolations of goodness, truth and beauty.  Judging by the manner and aesthetics of his reign so far, Charles seems to understand these things.

Not that those aesthetics are at all gloomy or pessimistic — their dignity and beauty and confidence have lifted my spirits considerably.  The Coronation emblem (above), which I think is simply magnificent, is the work of Sir Jony Ive, who previously designed iPhones for Apple.  Everything from the King’s own dress-sense to the new commemorative stamps (also splendid), from the splendid programme of music for Saturday’s service and the newly-embroidered screen which will veil the moment of his anointing from the prying cameras — all doubtless done with the King’s own close involvement — communicates the prizing of slow craftsmanship and care, as well as a deliberate combination of rootedness and inventiveness: just the kind of the old-fashioned modernism, or futuristic traditionalism, to which I would willingly subscribe.  Some commentators have been excitedly wondering aloud if a ‘New Carolean aesthetic’ is on the cards in art and design; I for one hope it takes off.

Finally, in this era of rapacious and often vindictively revolutionary change, it is a deeper consolation to me than I can express to find that the Coronation service itself remains consciously and explicitly a ceremony carried out before God.  In recent days I have read some online comments, albeit favourable to the Coronation, along the lines that ‘the ceremony is bizarre, but it does our society good’.  But why must everything be ironic and detached?  What if it is serious; what if God might actually hear the prayers addressed to Him in His house built for that same purpose?  What if He takes our Coronations seriously because He takes us seriously —  and the health of nations, and the welfare of His people — and will, in truth, help the King to fulfil his promise to uphold this country as a place of peace and justice?  Then Coronations matter very much indeed.  That is why on Saturday I shall not only sing, but pray quite sincerely —

Thy choicest gifts in store

On him be pleased to pour,

Long may he reign.

May he defend our laws,

And ever give us cause,

To sing with heart and voice,

God save the King!

William Walton’s ‘Coronation Te Deum’, written for the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.  Sung here by the Wayneflete Singers and Winchester Cathedral choirs with the organist Timothy Byram-Wigfield and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Hill.

It is Meet and Right

Herbert Howells’ anthem for the late Queen’s Coronation in 1953: music that has been much in mind these past few days.  ‘Behold, O God, our defender, and look upon the face of thine anointed.  For one day in thy courts is better than a thousand.’  (Psalm 84)

It is remarkable: Britain has rediscovered solemnity.  Amid my grief — and it certainly has been grief, with the immovable knot of dread in the gut, the catch in the heart, the oblique recurring waves of disbelief — there is a deep well of consolation in seeing the dignified, fond farewell that we are giving our beloved Queen.

Of course, plenty of people are carrying on more or less as normal — loud phone conversations on trains, and so on — and conversations with friends and colleagues have revealed that not everyone is feeling particularly bereaved — several have admitted as much.  Some try to find something humorous to say, while others, perhaps wary of the ambush of sorrow, say breezily, ‘Well, it’s all part of history.’  Maybe at moments like these it has always been so: not everyone sees things in the same way and, after all, feelings cannot be forced.  But to me there is a real change in the air.

For instance, there was the sight of the flowers in Green Park on Sunday, the aisles and aisles of them under the September-heavy trees.  At first, as I wandered up and down them, my thoughts snagged on a mild anxiety that this might all be a little too sentimental, a little too much about us and not enough about the Queen, but then I saw the volunteers, going steadily through the flowers to remove the plastic wrapping — the sort of unglamorous but necessary task that the Queen herself would have noticed and admired — and was reassured.  I made my way up the Mall, past St. James’ Palace from whose window-sills the new King had been proclaimed the previous day, caught the conclusion of the Changing of the Guard at Horse Guards Parade, cut through into Whitehall, went on across Parliament Square and down Millbank, over the Thames at Lambeth Bridge, and ultimately to a beautifully said and sung Requiem Mass at St. George’s Cathedral.  I signed the condolence book there which had been carefully laid out.

This change in the air is a reassurance and a consolation.  Whereas normally, and above all in the pandemic ‘lockdowns’, we have had row after row of identical days like the cells of a blank spreadsheet, these days are heavy with meaning.  That weight tells us that we are right to mourn and to grieve, and to miss the Queen; that we are not being silly or over-sensitive in our sorrow.  Dignity and reverence and solemnity have returned, and for the right reasons.  (The sole mistake so far has been the decision to bring the Queen’s coffin to London by air, rather than by rail as was the original plan.)  Even the screens that usually flicker their deranging advertisements at us now display still pictures of the late Queen with a sober message of condolence.

And then there was yesterday’s cortège, the slow drum-beat, the polished sombre brass, the thud of the guns and Big Ben tolling once every minute.  We of the smartphone generation, the children of the Internet Age, saw the coffin borne in sorrowful dutiful stateliness to the Palace of Westminster.  And  in Westminster Hall, where for now she lies in state, how fitting it all is, how right.  How rich all the colours are, so deep that they can be felt imbuing themselves into the memory.  They are as rich and deep as our grief: the thick warm yellow translucence of the candle-wax, the scarlet and gold of the furled standard, the clean stone, the purple-shrouded catafalque.

The BBC’s live stream of the vigil in Westminster Hall is, though a little intrusively zoomed-in on occasions, very moving to watch.  How strangely beautiful is the grief in the faces of the mourner-pilgrims who have waited many hours to pause, or to bow, or to make the sign of the Cross, or to salute, or even to blow a kiss.

The Queen has ‘surprised a hunger in ourselves to be more serious’ — and this, I think, is the first, immediate example of the way in which her life continues, and will continue, to bear fruit for us.  This is how it works, the life of faith: light catches light, heart speaks unto heart.  Those of us who shared or sympathised with her hopes and beliefs now feel the burden of responsibility falling on us, the duty to be little bolder in standing up for those beliefs, and living by them.

Part of our duty to the late Queen is, of course, giving the new King the acclamation he deserves.  And so we have, with such wonderful sonorous language — ‘Whereas it has pleased God to call to Himself our late Sovereign Lady Elizabeth of happy memory…’

I feel strangely at home in these otherworldly days of sorrow.  This is a deeply sad parting, a real wrench, and it is hard not to worry about the future — I am trying not to think about the loneliness which may well sweep in again after the funeral, that sense of an autumn of many things — but, as Joanna Bogle has pointed out, this is fundamentally not a horrible grief, as one feels after an outrage or a tragedy — it is a gentle farewell, mingled with deep gratitude and with confidence that the Lord whom our Queen served so well will say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ and receive her at last into Heaven.  And since, after all, as Her late Majesty herself told us, ‘grief is the price we pay for love’, it is only fair that I should settle my account.  So, strange to say, thanks be to God for this moment of togetherness in grief and love, and for all His bittersweet blessings.