Amid the pomp and pageantry, coronations court controversy, too

In the run-up to Saturday's coronation of King Charles and Camilla, the Queen Consort, controversy has surrounded everything from who will attend to just what jewel will — or won't — feature in her crown.

The last time there was a coronation — for Charles's mother Queen Elizabeth on a rainy day in London in June of 1953 — the elaborate ceremony became an iconic representation of royal pageantry and precision.

But other efforts to put British sovereigns on their thrones have not been so smooth. Crown jewels have been lost in bogs, the coronation ring was painfully jammed onto one monarch's finger and a disgruntled, estranged Queen Consort ended up banging at the doors of Westminster Abbey to get into her husband's ceremony.

Such spectacles are unlikely this time around — Charles will, for example, acknowledge the ring but not have it placed upon his finger by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But some of what has transpired in recent months does have precedent. 

Take, for example, the attention that focused on whether Charles's younger son, Prince Harry, and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, would attend, given their strained relationship with the Royal Family, particularly in the wake of their Netflix docuseries and the publication of his memoir, Spare, in January.

It was an issue many observers saw as potentially overshadowning the coronation. However, the media focus has abated somewhat since it was announced Harry will attend on his own, as Meghan remains with their children at their home in California.

WATCH | Speculation swirls over Prince Harry and Meghan's attendance at the coronation:

Will Harry and Meghan attend King Charles's coronation?

2 years ago

Duration 1:56

Speculation around whether or not Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, will attend his father's coronation is growing. Royal watchers say the prince not showing up could overshadow King Charles's big day.

But it's hardly the first time there has been such interest in whether some members of the Royal Family would attend a coronation.

"There's a lot of scrutiny of Harry and Meghan as if previously there have not been conflicts within the Royal Family," Carolyn Harris, a Toronto-based royal author and historian, said in an interview.

"But there very much have been discussions and disputes about who will attend."

Not at his brother's coronation

Take, for example, the coronation of King George VI in 1937, a ceremony that came about because of the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, later known as the Duke of Windsor.

"The Duke of Windsor not only wasn't there, but isn't mentioned anywhere in the program, even under his new title, the Duke of Windsor," said Harris. "It was as though he no longer existed."

As much as royal ceremonies — weddings, funerals and coronations — have come to be known for their elaborate planning and focus on precise execution, it wasn't always that way.

"Often the change in reign took place in periods of political upheaval and this had a very strong impact on how coronation ceremonies unfolded," said Harris, pointing to the experience when William the Conqueror was crowned on Christmas Day in 1066 and a riot broke out between his guards and the public.

A particularly unseemly spectacle as a monarch was crowned played out in 1821.

"One of the most embarrassing coronations in many ways was the coronation of George IV," Judith Rowbotham, a social and cultural scholar and visiting research professor at the University of Plymouth in southwestern England, said in an interview.

"The real issue besides his unpopularity was the relative popularity …. of his estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick…. The king had already tried to divorce her, had tried to get rid of her titles, tried to get rid of her income, various other things like that."

At the same time, George IV had been planning a lavish coronation and was determined to keep Caroline out of the festivities, instructing the guards not to let her into Westminster Abbey.

In the end, she arrived to bang on the doors, but was ultimately turned away.

Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838 had its own share of troubles, many attributed to a lack of rehearsal. Some had a direct impact on the young monarch.

"The Archbishop of Canterbury was elderly and somewhat blind, so he put the coronation ring on the wrong finger, didn't see that he'd put it on the wrong finger and rammed it home," said Rowbotham. 

"By all accounts, Victoria's finger started swelling around it. She certainly said in her diary [that] when she got home … getting it off had been extremely difficult and caused her much pain."

The next two coronations — for King Edward VII in 1902 and King George V in 1911 — are considered to have unfolded with relative smoothness, although Edward's was postponed for three months after he came down with appendicitis.

When it came time for the next coronation, that of George VI, Rowbotham said there were some "real fears" because of the new King's stammer, but the speech training he had been receiving came through. 

"So there again … there was no visible chaos."

For Queen Elizabeth in 1953, the decision to televise the proceedings caused consternation and worry for some.

"There were a lot of concerns about something going wrong in front of the cameras," said Harris, who noted that in fact everything ended up going relatively smoothly on camera, "though certainly there are accounts of some of the people present feeling quite nervous."

Protocol for that ceremony was followed down to the second.

'A genius for pageantry'

"The English have a genius for pageantry, and I mean genius," Beverley Baxter wrote in CBC's guide to coronation broadcasts in the CBC Times for May 31-June 6, 1953. "When the ceremony takes place in the abbey, everything will go like clockwork, yet there will be no sign of anyone directing it."

Of course, there were a few less-scripted moments.

Prince Charles, as a restless 4½-year-old, attracted some attention in an abbey gallery as he rummaged through the purse of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Now, 70 years later, some of the public discourse and controversy ahead of his own coronation has turned to a broader question.

"What's emerging here is discussion and debate about whether a coronation is relevant in the 21st century," said Harris, noting other European monarchies do not hold coronation ceremonies anymore. 

Those monarchs, she said, "experience something similar to a secular inauguration of a head of state" with old coronation regalia sometimes on display, but no crowning or anointing. 

Will the public engage?

There has also been, Harris noted, some discussion and debate regarding whether a coronation is "still a ceremony that the public is going to engage with in the 21st century," along with debates and discussions in some of the 14 Commonwealth realms over whether they will transition to republics.

A recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that while a majority of those Canadians who responded to the survey (59 per cent) said they'll pay some attention to the coronation, only nine per cent said they're really looking forward to it. One in five (20 per cent) said they might tune in for some of it, while 29 per cent said they may read about it, but really aren't that interested. 

More broadly, there is also discussion around what kinds of royal ceremonies will continue to take place in the future. 

"Prince William so far has not had an investiture as Prince of Wales," said Harris. "So William V, perhaps ... may not be particularly interested in a lavish coronation ceremony when he succeeds to the throne."