THE CORONATION By Peter Longley

The coronation plate shown in this photograph is from the coronation that never happened, that of King Edward VIII. He abdicated the British throne before he was to be crowned and on the day that would have been his coronation, his younger brother, King George VI was crowned in May 1937. I was born seven years later.

I can remember, along with those who are left of my generation, the tremendous excitement in post-war Britain over the coronation of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I remember my anguish when another boy at my boarding school stole my coronation 'transfers' book (for those of us who might remember the art of 'transfers' by peeling pictures onto a page). I may say that I did get my book back, although in the ethos of the times I was chastised by my headmaster for being a 'sneak' more than the boy was chastised for being a 'thief'. We were both only nine years old.

Like many others, too, I remember my father driving us up to London before the great day to drive along the royal procession route so that we could see all the wonderful decorations. With today's traffic that would be near impossible. Then, like so many, I remember all my family gathered in my grandmother's curtained Morning Room to watch the great day in black and white on her television set, bought especially for the event. I also remember how wonderful it was a week or two later, back at boarding school, to be taken on a school outing to the local cinema to see the whole thing again in glorious technicolor on the big screen. And like most people of that era, I certainly remember the tall figure of Queen Salote of Tonga in all her Pacific finery riding in an open carriage soaked in the pouring rain.

It saddens me somewhat that in the run-up to King Charles III's coronation there has been so much critical comment about the subject, including why a day in May was chosen when it could have been in 'glorious' June. In 1953, however, 2 June was not a glorious sunny day and for most of the late Queen's coronation procession it did indeed pour with rain. But it is the whole discussion that this coronation has brought about regarding the future of the monarchy that saddens me most.

We have an hereditary constitutional monarch as our head of state. With what would we replace it? It is worth looking at what constitutes heads of state in our world today. If we do, I think we will conclude that our system has much going for it.

There are only a handful of hereditary constitution monarchies in the world now, notably the Scandinavian heads of state and the emperors of Japan, but there is absolutely no doubt that ours is the best known and most respected as was firmly attested at the global reverence shown to her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at the time of her passing last year. Many of them also share our Royal family like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a number of other past British dependencies that chose to remain constitutional monarchies after independence. There are rumblings of republicanism from some of them as there is even in our own country, but what are the alternatives?

There are still absolute monarchies in our world today mostly found in the sheikdoms and sultanates of Islamic states. Such monarchies, however, are not 'above politics.' At the whim of popular or military revolt they could find themselves toppled, as did the old European monarchies in 1789, 1815, 1830, 1848, 1917 and 1918. Our absolute monarchy was one of the first to fall, not once, but twice during the seventeenth century, but after the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 and the resulting 'Bill of Rights' in 1689, our hereditary constitutional monarchy was established. It was later strengthened in 1701 by the Hanoverian settlement, ensuring that the constitutional monarchy in a parliamentary system would pass on to the protestant Hanoverian descendants of Sophia Stuart on the death of Queen Anne, which occurred in 1714.

A curious form of monarchy is found today in places like Malaysia, where individual hereditary constitutional monarchies of states form one nation whereby they rotate responsibility to be the Malaysian head of state for a given term.

The alternative to an absolute monarch is an absolute dictator. We saw that with the rise of fascism in the mid-twentieth century in Europe and with military dictatorships that formed in South America and Africa in a post-imperial world.

There are one-party presidents who are also virtually absolute autocratic rulers that we find in places like Russia, China and Iran. They are efficient, but they are not democratic and are also subject to dangers from populist movements challenging their one-party rule. They have power but they lack stability.

Alternatively, there are democratic parliamentary presidents who are elected for a term, such as we find in the USA and many other 'Western' democratic countries, but in today's world where parliamentary democracy is often pitched against populist democracy, they tend to become polarising.

Finally, there are constitutional presidents, who like a constitutional monarch are 'above politics', their prime ministers holding all the political power. They might be considered the best solution, but are they known? They are usually elected on the basis of some worthy contribution that they might have made to their nations, and therefore, although honorable, they are usually elderly. Do they really represent their modern nations? At least an hereditary constitutional monarchy includes a Royal family of mixed generations that might be a better representation of the nation. Can you name who is the president of Germany or the president of Ireland or Italy, and yet these are significant nations? It is their prime ministers, chancellors ot taoiseachs of whom we know, the political leaders, but the whole world knows of established constitutional monarchs like the emperors of Japan or the kings of Thailand, and assuredly most of all, our own British monarchs. Indeed, during her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's reign, when foreigners referred to the British monarch they nearly always said 'The Queen', not Queen Elizabeth II or the Queen of Great Britain, but universally 'The Queen'.

The coronation of King Charles III with all its pomp and circumstance is a momentous reminder of our stability in an ever-changing world. However chaotic our government might seem at times, there is still something above it in which we all have a stake whatever our political persuasion. We truly do have a head of state rooted in our history, but one giving us continuity for our future.

Finally, for those who might decry the financial extravagance of it all, let us remember that our monarchy as an institution is big business. The money generated by its mere existence is equal to and surpasses that of most major corporations within our network. The monarchy is one of our greatest assets. God save King Charles III and long may he reign, and assuredly so long as we survive he will be followed by his son, HRH The Prince William, Prince of Wales.

Changes in attitudes towards the British monarchy from the 1930s to the present day are a consistent pattern explored in the social history revealed in the background to my newly published novel 'The Cedars of Beckenham'.

5 May 2023

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