Preview of King Charles’ Coronation: Traditions, Challenges, and Progress

• Fleur Launspach

  UK and Ireland correspondent

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, wrote William Shakespeare in the late 16th century.

A heavy responsibility rests on the head of the new British King Charles, who will be crowned tomorrow. He inherits a different country from his mother, Queen Elizabeth, when she began her reign 70 years ago.

The shoes 74-year-old Charles has to fill are big. Elizabeth held the United Kingdom and the constitutional monarchy together, or so it was long thought. But the national nervous breakdown feared after her death has not materialized.

Charles’s popularity has risen since last year; some 62 percent of Britons believe he will be good for the monarchy. In his first speech in September, he immediately hit the right note: with warm words and sincere emotion in his face, he said goodbye to the beloved queen and embraced the country in mourning.

Charles has been able to prepare for his role as king for a long time. His mother lasted longer than any British monarch, with fifteen prime ministers, fourteen American presidents and seven popes. But that fact also made Charles heir to the throne for the rest of his life.

The world watched: how he grew up as a boy, played theater at the university, married and also divorced the immensely popular Princess Diana. The cameras focused nonstop on the crumbling marriage, the scandals, and ultimately the tragedy surrounding Diana’s death. This was followed by the marriage to Camilla and the controversies surrounding the two sons William and Harry, who were now at odds with each other.

And so a familiar face to the British tomorrow will take place on the ancient coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. Surrounded by the ghosts of Darwin, Newton and thirty ancient English monarchs buried there, Charles will be the fortieth king to be crowned on the site since 1066.

While Elizabeth as a young woman at her coronation in 1953 symbolized hope and improvement, Charles is now an elderly man, of whom we know a lot. He does not have the unparalleled admiration and respect that Elizabeth enjoyed worldwide after seventy years of reign. Although he could prepare himself for a lifetime, as king he will have less time to give color to his reign.

Charles knows that the country has changed in the meantime. And that he will have to work harder to maintain popular support, which has steadily declined over the past few decades. He will choose that tone right from the coronation. “I come to serve, not to be served” are the words with which he will soon enter the Abbey. He wants to show that he has progressive plans: not only nobility is present at the coronation, but ‘ordinary’ people are also invited. In addition, female bishops and religious leaders from Hinduism and Islam, among others, will be involved in the centuries-old coronation ceremony for the first time.

Yet Charles cannot escape the rituals and traditions that make the British royal family so British. To the pomp and pageantry: the historical spectacle for which millions of people worldwide will turn on the television. Parades, elite troops, golden carriages and shiny medals. Relics of a thousand years of royal family, connected to countless myths and legends. Like the ancient ‘Stone of Scone’ that is placed in the coronation chair.

There are also magnificent crown jewels worth around 5 billion euros, which the British royal family is the only one in the world to still use in this way on ceremonial occasions. And of course the Imperial Crownwhich is not called that for nothing: it is an object from the British Empire. At the peak of that British Empire, the British ruled over a quarter of the world, both in area and population.

In today’s modern world, these relics and traditions from the distant past also raise difficult questions. Questions about oppression and the monarchy’s historical role in it. Unlike his predecessors, Charles wants to confront that past: he has literally referred to “the atrocities of British slavery” in speeches and opens the royal archives to scientific research into the slavery past.

The Republican movement has definitely sensed that now is the time to make more noise. But they are in the minority: only a quarter of Britons would like to abolish the royal family and install an elected head of state, say a president, in its place. The big specter for many remains: what if the voters put forward a kind of Boris Johnson or Donald Trump as head of state? Then rather someone who has not been elected, but who radiates unity, says many Britons.

According to historians, the power of the monarchy lies precisely in its continuity. A connection to the past, a foothold in a rapidly changing world. Of course, there are also those who see the monarchy as a symbol of inequality. The coronation of Charles will cost around £100 million, while many parts of the country are suffering from high inflation and a lack of investment. Here too, a balancing act awaits Charles: he will have to make it clear, from his palace, that the royal family is there to serve the country, and not to maintain an extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the taxpayer.

What kind of king will soon take place on that ancient throne? A man who wants to be king of all Britons, whatever their class or creed. An intellectual and warmer king. And a early adopter of the green agenda. Thirty years ago Charles’s passion for the environment was still snickered (he would talk to plants), but now it has grown into great appreciation for someone who put the climate at the center before it was fashionable.

Charles will be less able to speak out on political issues in his role as king than when he was a prince. His personal opinion will henceforth have to be sought in silent details. An example of this: last week it was announced that the environmentally conscious king declined the offer from Heathrow Airport to name a new hall after him.