London was the scene of a coronation ceremony after 70 years. After the death of Elizabeth IIon September 8, his eldest son, Charles III, was formally invested this Saturday May 6 as head of state and head of the Anglican Church. With him, she was also crowned Camillahis wife, as queen consort.
The coronation of kings and queens in the westminster abbey has been a tradition since the days of William the Conqueror in 1066. Since then, there have been 39 coronations of British monarchs at this historic site.
It is a ceremony full of pomp, glory and symbology, which has changed little in the last thousand years, and includes the presentation of the ceremonial objects of royalty, the crown, jewels and garments. But not all coronations have gone as planned. Here’s a sampling of five occasions when coronations floundered, some disastrously..
The Norman King William I, known as William the ConquerorI couldn’t be more nervous the day that he was crowned in Westminster Abbey on December 25, 1066. Little more than two months ago he had invaded England and defeated the Anglo-Saxon king Harold II in the bloody battle of Hastings, who died in combat.
At the head of his invading army, William rushed towards London, ruthlessly crushing any resistance he encountered along the way.
He wanted as soon as possible to reaffirm his legitimacy to the throne and be invested in the historic abbey that had been built by the admired King Edward the Confessor who, according to William, had explicitly promised him the crown. But the atmosphere was tense, so he surrounded the temple with his troops. However, in a gesture to demonstrate the new relationship with the conquered people, the ceremony was held in French and English.
French-speaking Normans and English-speaking Anglo-Saxons present in the hall cheered in approval of the new king with great din. The Norman soldiers standing guard outside thought it an assassination attempt and they started burning down the houses around the abbey. a common strategy of the time to suppress uprisings.
The congregation fled the smoke in a panic, there was confusion, fighting and looting. Amidst the chaos, the bishops who remained with the king in the abbey they quickly concluded the sanctification ritual. According to Orderic Vitalis, a historian who lived a few years after the events, “the new king trembled from head to toe.”
George was a German sovereign, Elector of Hanover, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, which did not speak a word of English and had never lived in Britain. But he was a Protestant.
a new law, known as the Act of Settlement of 1701, it stipulated that the British throne could only be held by Protestantsthus thwarting attempts by dissident factions seeking to proclaim a Catholic king.
It was then that, in 1714, George inherited the British crown as the closest Protestant relative of Queen Anne, who had died childless. But his selection did not calm the divisions. 56 Catholic candidates with greater hereditary rights than Jorge were ignored.
George I was crowned on October 20 in Westminster Abbey. in a ceremony in Latin because the new king did not understand English and his ministers did not understand German. Anti-Protestant factions and the Tory aristocracy absented themselves from the event and riots broke out in more than 20 towns around England.
When the king’s supporters celebrated the coronation with parties and bonfires and drinking in taverns in different parts of the country, they were attacked by rioters who shouted slogans such as “Damn strangers!” and “Kill King George!”. There were injuries and at least one death as a result of these riots. George I always felt uncomfortable with his British heritage and incompatible with his people. During his reign, he spent as much time as he could in Hanover.
Before he ascended the throne in 1820, George Augustus Frederick, the fourth king in a row of the House of Hanover, had already served as Prince Regent for almost nine years, due to the mental illness that had disabled his father, King George III. Although being a cultured and charming person, promoter of the arts and fashion, his dissolute behavior earned him the scorn of his people.
As regent and later as king, George IV was known for his extravagant lifestyle. He was a drinker, a libertine, and racked up pitiful debts. The income he received from his father and other subsidies from Parliament (equivalent to almost US$15 million today, about 3,510,000,000 Argentine pesos at the official exchange rate) were not enough for his extraordinary expenses.
This exaggeration was reflected in a magnificent and expensive coronation that sexceeded US$25 million today (equivalent to 5,850,000,000 Argentine pesos) and took place on July 19, 1821. Jorge ordered a new crown made with more than 12,000 diamonds for a ceremony that included a large banquet for 2,000 guests and various shows. Thousands more watched the actions from the stands. However, his wife Carolina of Brunswick, had been excluded from the ceremony by order of the king, although he tried unsuccessfully to break the security cordon and enter the abbey.
The king, by then obese, advanced in years, and addicted to laudanum, was sweating profusely in his heavy velvet robes, long curly wig, and feathered hat. When, at the end of a long day, the king got up and left the place with part of his retinue, the nobles who had not participated in the banquet pounced on the tables to carry off the leftovers and some of the luxurious decorations, crockery and cutlery. It was the last time a banquet was held inside Westminster Abbey.
Only the current King Carlos III had to wait longer behind the scenes to be crowned than Alberto Eduardo, the eldest son of Queen Victoria. Perhaps for this reason, as a prince without a defined role, he devoted himself to fine dining, wine, horse racing, elegant suits, gambling, and women.
“I can never look at it, nor will I look at it, without shuddering”, Queen Victoria commented on her son on one occasion. After inheriting the throne in November 1901, Edward VII’s coronation was scheduled for the June 26, 1902 with guests from all over the world.
However, a few days before, the king suffered an appendicitis that evolved into peritonitis.. He was in danger of dying if he didn’t cancel the event and undergo immediate surgery. He had waited so long for this moment that he repeatedly refused to postpone the ceremony, but he finally relented, postponing the event was scheduled for the following August 9.
Although by then the Eduardo VII was already quite recovered, the solemn service was not free of mishaps. The elderly and almost blind Archbishop of Canterbury could barely read the sentences and misrecited some passages. Besides the crown slipped from his hands and placed it upside down on the king’s head. But it’s not all bad memories. The new headdresses for the clergy, specially designed for this ceremony, made of velvet printed with flowers and crowns, continue to be used to this day.
Anyone who has visited the imposing Tower of London will surely have heard the sad story of the “Princes of the Tower”whose spirits are said to haunt the cold and hazardous corridors of that medieval fort.
Is about Eduardo V -new king of England after the death of his father Edward IV in 1483- and of his brother, the Duke of Yorkwho were housed in the Tower in the custody of their uncle Richard of Gloucester.
After a long and bloody dynastic feud between the different factions of the Plantagenet House known as the “War of the Roses”in which several suitors lost their lives, Edward V ascended the throne when he was barely 12 years old.
Because he was not of legal age, his uncle Richard was made Lord Protector, a position that gave him great influence over the actions and destiny of the young monarch. But he was never crowned. After only 86 days as king, Edward V and his brother mysteriously disappeared from the Towersupposedly murdered.
Historical data is not reliable enough to hold Ricardo exclusively responsible. In addition, there are theories that point to other interested parties such as the perpetrators of the assassination. However, after his disappearance, Richard declared that Edward and his brother were really bastards, and had himself crowned Richard III..
Some 450 years later, another King Edward lost his chance to be crowned, although this time it was not for violent reasons, but rather scandalous. Edward VIII was not very willing to assume the responsibilities of royalty. Before his accession as Prince of Wales he served in the British Army during World War I and was the first monarch to be a licensed pilot.
But he was also known as a “playboy,” with little interest in court etiquette and traditional conventions, preferring the company of his friends from bourgeois society. That’s how he met and fell in love with Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American and a few months after being proclaimed king, he proposed to her.
The engagement created a constitutional crisis, with strong political opposition to a woman with two living ex-husbands serving as queen consort. In addition, the king is the head of the Anglican Church, which at the time was opposed to the marriage of a monarch with a divorced person. It was like the December 11, 1936, Edward VIII addressed the nation via the BBC to announce his decision to abdicate the crown. and marry the woman he loved. He reigned for 325 days.
His brother, the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne as George VI. Eduardo received the title of Duke of Windsor, married Wallis Simpson and he lived practically the rest of his life abroad, until his death in 1972.
BBC Mundo
