The history of the monarchy, the changes in British society and even the family drama will be on people’s minds as they watch the coronation unfold.
LONDON — The crown has been resized. The troops are prepared for the biggest military procession in 70 years. The Gold State Coach is ready to roll. will be crowned Saturday at Westminster Abbey in an event full of all the pageantry Britain can muster.
Royal historian Robert Lacey compares the event to a U.S. presidential election and an inauguration rolled into one — a celebration as well as a test of how the public sees the new sovereign. More fundamentally, some in Britain’s increasingly diverse society want a re-examination of the monarchy’s links to the trade in enslaved Africans and its role in the former British Empire, which ruled over large parts of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
But the coronation will be a broader, more symbolic effort to show the monarchy still has a role to play. Symbolically, Charles will open the service by facing a young choirboy and pledging to serve — not to be served — and he has scrapped the centuries-old tradition of having the most senior members of the aristocracy pledge their loyalty to him. Instead, the congregation and those watching at home will be invited to pledge allegiance to the king.
One of the monarchy’s strengths is that many see the benefit in having a neutral head of state at times of instability, said Kelly Beaver, the firm’s U.K. chief executive. With Britain facing multiple pressures from inflation to climate change and the war in Ukraine, the king has “a real opportunity to step forward and to demonstrate leadership,” she said.Unfortunately for the king, the coronation will also spotlight the family dramas that have rattled the House of Windsor.
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