Friday 5th May 2023

Back in February at a luncheon, somebody said, ‘Who’s looking forward to the Coronation?’ There was a silence. Although a tiny handful of Guardian reading mask-wearers were present, overwhelmingly it was brigadiers, retired Eton schoolmasters and business people. Lilibet left such a gap, there were two huge Royal events last year – could one wind up for another momentous occasion?

But just this morning, without warning, the distant rumble of impending greatness could be heard. The last Coronation is emblazoned on the mind of everyone over 50 or even 40. You didn’t have to be born at the time to have been there. Now we have glimpsed the next one – that photo of the Gold Coach going down the Mall, rehearsing in the middle of the night, hints at the splendour to come.

How could another equal it? I’m hurt by people calling themselves ‘Republicans’ but it is their right. It would be comforting to know that they really understood history and the part the Monarchy has played, a continuous line of descent for 1000 years, nowhere more inescapable than in the Abbey, in making our Country what it is – almost unique in having a functioning political system so early whose beginnings were established by Henry V11 and which has evolved successfully ever since. With the exception of the Civil War, of course. We tried a Presidential system and didn’t like it. A Monarch turned out to be easier to manage. Thus it is that Great Britain has not been a Police State, way in advance of most other countries, since 1688. Competing factions found a way to co-exist. Change has happened but no upheaval of revolution. Our Nation became a powerhouse of enterprise, thought and culture, under the glorious panoply of constitutional Monarchy.

An alternative would either be less democratic or would diminish our Nation. Some ‘Republicans’ appear to think a Head of State whom nobody has heard of (as in Germany) is a good idea!  But I don’t mind admitting, I have approached the Coronation, or rather evaded it, with dread. What if something should go wrong? The horrible protesters.. The King and Queen not young. What if they self-wet? Or worse. Soil their thrones? Or drop dead at the vital moment? Let’s hope and pray their attendants have provided adequate reinforcement. Last night a huge figure from the museum world was at an Opening, often grilled by Royston King at Academy breakfasts; he is to be in the Nave tomorrow but his toilet worries were overwhelming. How to get through from 8.30, when to be seated, until 1.30 when released.

Transition is jeopardy. But now I hear clearly from afar who our King will be. A King of Suffering, different from his mother who manifested a disembodied ideal of duty and service. The new King has done things. Whoever he was, his achievements in life would be notable. Royalties were simultaneously human and not human. His suffering and endurance, his tremulous, unconfident personality, yet strengthened in a furnace of pain and scorn, embed a powerful human story at the heart of the life of the Nation. Aside from that, or even in spite of it, has been the consistent determination to have an impact on those less fortunate, on society as a whole.

I cannot believe that in my time, tomorrow, all being well, the King and Queen will enter the Abbey in the fullest State. Once again, ‘I was Glad’ will be played. Then and only then, will we begin to see this Reign for what it is.