A living fossil, on TV today

No doubt the coronation of King Charles III has enduring cultural heritage, but when state rituals are divorced from private beliefs, can they retain their public character for long?

It is objectively strange that, in the third decade of the 21st century, a modern liberal democracy is staging a medieval, religious event to announce that its currently serving head of state is in fact its head of state. The coronation today of Charles III — who was already proclaimed king of the United Kingdom in September, and has carried out official duties since then — is unquestionably something of an anachronism.

It is an anachronism, in fact, even by the standards of anachronistic monarchies. No Danish monarch, for example, has been crowned since 1840, and there has been no coronation in Sweden since 1873. The Dutch monarchs have never been crowned; since 1814, when the Netherlands regained its independence after Napoleon’s occupation, they have been given a presidential-style inauguration in front of a joint session of parliament. No northern European monarch has ever worn a crown in public, state occasions included, for over a century — which is a bit of a pity, since the Swedish crowns for example are genuinely old and, unlike the overdecorated British versions, look like they have sprung straight out of fairy-tale illustrations.

Much has been written about how today’s coronation of the former Prince Charles is out of place or time, unlike his mother’s coronation in 1953. But, in fact, Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation was already an anachronism seven decades ago. The British monarchy has not just been an outlier in terms of its refusal to alter tradition, in recent decades; it has been for generations.

It is this anachronistic element that will no doubt irritate many in Britain as much as it will interest and entertain the rest of us. To live in the middle of, and to be expected to identify with, archaic ritual may be a substantively different thing from being able to observe it with relish from afar.

This is not to say that nothing about the ceremonies and the general vibe of British royal tradition has changed since 1953. Videos of the last coronation — which is available on YouTube, though even the most determined historians will have some trouble trudging through its three hours — show that Westminster Abbey was crowded with various members of the British peerage, dressed in scarlet and ermine and all the trimming. These trimmings included coronets, which they put on in carefully choreographed simultaneity at the moment the crown was put on 26-year-old Elizabeth’s head. But, back then, this class — through the House of Lords — was still hanging on to real power. This year, there will be a couple of dozen of the old aristocracy at best, in keeping with their sharply reduced status; instead, the majority of the audience, if foreign guests and diplomats are excluded, will be charity workers and volunteers for various charities, especially those in which the new king has an interest. When the cameras pan out across the Abbey floor, it will be a noticeably different crowd than in previous coronations. And present in the ceremony will be representatives of many of the religions practised in the UK today, including Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism.

But, even so, the coronation as a whole underlines what the British monarchy really is: A living fossil, an archaic set of traditions that has somehow endured by reinventing itself as little as possible to survive centuries of cultural shifts. One way to think of it is as part of the world’s common, intangible, cultural heritage — like some religious ceremonies in our own country, or musical traditions and rituals in central Asia and elsewhere.

But, of course, it isn’t that simple for the British themselves. Only 1.7 per cent of England regularly attend Anglican church services, but the coronation very clearly remains a Protestant Christian ceremony. The number of Britons who even identify themselves with the country’s established church is only 14 per cent, less than half of the number just 15 years ago. When state rituals are so divorced from private beliefs and identification, how long can they retain their public character? Republicanism in the UK was long a marginal belief because of the personality of —and general affection for — the last monarch. That will likely change in coming years as well. As of last year, two-thirds of the country was still OK with remaining a monarchy, but only a third of young Britons were. It may well be possible, therefore, that this instance of the coronation will also be the last instalment in one of the world’s most interesting (and televised) living rituals. For those of us with no stake in Britain’s internal debates over its identity, that’s enough reason to take a look.