SYMBOL AND PRIVILEGE: THE RITUAL CONTEXT OF BRITISH ROYALTY
by Ilse Hayden
The Coronation
The Queen is crowned in Westminster Abbey, the ritual center of Great Britain where Sovereigns have been consecrated for nearly a thousand years. Kings or queens cannot be crowned without the participation of their nobles. Nor may they even accede to the throne without that participation. The Accession of the Sovereign, supposedly automatic, must first be proclaimed by the Accession Council, an elite group composed of the Privy Council, the Princes of the Blood, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and "other principal gentlemen of quality."
Some eighteen months after the Accession, the Coronation takes place with a similarly elite group in attendance. The roles that aristocrats play on this most solemn occasion literally entitle them to their social privilege. The moment the Sovereign is crowned, the peers and peeresses in the Abbey lower their coronets upon their own heads. The Sovereign is the Fountain of Honour after all. The Coronation consecrates both the Queen's sovereignty and the Court's privilege. It underscores the interdependence of Sovereign and nobility.
The Order of Service
Within the Abbey, the Sovereign is crowned in what is called the Coronation Theatre. This carefully delineated ritual space is bounded on the east by the Altar and on the west by the Throne placed on a raised dais. The Royal Gallery and peers are on the south with the peeresses and bishops on the north. St. Edward's Chair, where the Queen is actually crowned, is between Altar and Throne, emblems of heavenly and earthly power. The Coronation Theatre is more than merely an area of the Abbey set apart for the service. It is a highly condensed microcosm of the world oriented along an east-west axis with its connotations of life and death. The placement of Altar and Throne implies that this world is bounded by spiritual and temporal powers that act in harmony to consecrate the Queen. Significantly this microcosm is itself enclosed within a gathering of the most socially distinct of the land. ...
The people signal their recognition of their "undoubted Queen" by shouting, "God Save Queen Elizabeth!" After the Queen has made her Coronation Oath, the Archbishop intones, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," and the Queen is stripped of her earthly finery. Elizabeth enters the Abbey in "Her Royal Robes of Crimson Velvet, hemmed with ermine and bordered with gold lace, wearing the Collar of the Garter; on her head a Diadem of Precious Stones" (Barker 1976:164). One by one these are removed by the Mistress of the Robes and the highborn Maids of Honour. A simple white tunic is placed over the gown richly embroidered with symbols of Great Britain and the Commonwealth (the Thistle of Scotland, the Maple Leaf of Canada, etc.). Thus stripped, the Queen is anointed with holy oil which prepares her for the investment. She stands and is dressed by the Mistress of the Robes and the Dean of Westminster. First comes the "Colobium Sindonis," a muslin undergarment worn by the Byzantine emperors for their Coronations. Over this is placed the cloth of gold "Supertunica," made fast by a golden girdle. From the Altar are brought the Spurs, the Sword for the Offering (a Queen Regnant merely touches the sword that would be attached to the girdle of a King), the Armills or Bracelets, the Stole Royal, the Pallium, or Robe Royal, and then the Regalia proper: the Orb, the Ring, the Glove, the Sceptres, and finally the Crown of St. Edward. ...
The Queen mounts the five steps to the dais, the western boundary of the Theatre, where she sits on the Throne to receive the Homage of her Lords Spiritual and Temporal. The first to swear fealty is the Archbishop of Canterbury, who kneels before her, placing his hands between hers, saying,
As he makes this pledge, all the bishops kneel and do likewise. The first Temporal Lord to pay homage is the Duke of Edinburgh, his oath a slight variation of the Archbishop's.I Geoffrey, Archbishop of Canterbury, will be faithful and true, and faith and truth will bear unto you, our Sovereign Lady, Queen of this realm and Defender of the Faith, and unto your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.
And so through all the ranks of peerage, the senior in each rank actually swearing fealty, "while the peers of the same degree knelt in their places to repeat the words" (Barker 1976:186).I Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, do become your liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folk. So help me God.
The ceremony concludes with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh taking Communion. After the Communion, the Queen, carrying the two sceptres, returns briefly to the raised Throne, before retiring to St. Edward's Chapel to exchange the very heavy (five pounds) St. Edward's Crown for the lighter Imperial Crown. Emerging from the Chapel she wears the Robe of Purple Velvet and carries the Sceptre with the Cross, and the Orb. The golden vestments, however, have also been put aside so that the embroidered Coronation dress can once again be seen. And so the Queen progresses out of the Abbey and through the streets of London to Buckingham Palace.
Betwixt and Between
A coronation is a rite of passage. It is a ceremony that marks the transformation of the social person from one status to another. One emphasis of the Coronation was the progression from Princess to Queen of the realm.
Legally, Princess Elizabeth automatically became Queen the instant her father died. In the interim between his death and her Coronation there was, however, a certain amount of ambiguity. For example, in November 1952 Elizabeth opened Parliament as Sovereign but did not actually wear the Crown. The Crown was instead displayed on a cushion near the Throne where the Queen sat. ...
Rites of passage draw heavily upon images of liminality which enhance the sense of being on the threshold. Evidence of liminality abounded at the Coronation of Elizabeth II. Like initiates everywhere the Queen was set apart from her family who watched from the Royal Gallery. The white tunic she wore resembled both a winding sheet that binds the dead and a swaddling cloth that wraps the newborn. The Queen was crowned on St. Edward's Chair suspended between heaven and earth. ...
The Regalia as Sacra
The Regalia are "sacra," a means of communicating "gnosis," the wisdom essential to transform the Queen's body natural into the body politic. Like most "sacra" the Regalia are essentially simple items -- a glove, a spur, a crown, a sword; the meanings associated with them are complex. They are "the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace" that comes from God. They are signs of God's election. They are encrusted with history -- the Black Prince's Ruby, Elizabeth l's earrings, St. Edward's Sapphire. Thus, in the Regalia are fused the past and the present, the temporal and the eternal. Furthermore, each piece is an abstraction of an aspect of kingliness. The Armills are symbols of sincerity and wisdom; the Spurs symbolize the ideals of Christian chivalry. As the Queen is invested with each of these Regalia, she absorbs the powers with which they are imbued.
On Coronation Day, the Regalia were brought to the Abbey and kept in a room called the Jerusalem Chamber. Before the Queen arrived, the Dean and Prebendaries carried them to the entrance where the Regalia were handed over to the Peers to be carried before the Queen to the Theatre. The Peers were entrusted with (if not invested with) the Regalia before the Queen. ...
The peers carried the Regalia into the Abbey. They also assisted the clergy in the investment of the Sovereign, affirming the interdependence of the spiritual and temporal in the order of things. After the Anointing, the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Marquess of Cholmondely (pronounced "Chumly") was given the Spurs by the Dean of Westminster. He held these while the Queen touched them. The Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Scarbrough, gave the Sword for the Offering to the Archbishop, who placed it in the Queen's right hand. The Queen brought the Sword to the Altar, dedicating it to the service of God. The Marquess of Salisbury redeemed it and carried it before the Queen for the rest of the ceremony. When the Armills were placed on the Queen's wrists by the Archbishop, the Lord Great Chamberlain, in accordance with his traditional duties of the Wardrobe, assisted the Mistress of the Robes in dressing the Queen in the Robes Royal. The Lord Great Chamberlain even fastened the clasps, an intimate act for a man to perform.
Once the Queen had been adorned with the symbols of majesty, she was ready to be transfigured by the Regalia. The Orb, Sceptres, and Crown were handed to the Archbishop by another clergyman, the Dean of Westminster. But two pieces were handled by peers. The Keeper of the Jewel House brought the Coronation Ring to the Archbishop, who placed the "wedding ring of England" on the Queen's finger. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Woolton, brought the Glove to the Queen, who put it on her right hand. The investiture was complete when St. Edward's Crown was placed on the Queen's head as she held the Sceptres of Mercy and Justice.
The Regalia Absorb Their Lord Bearers
The Regalia, like all "sacra," were potent, infused as they were with a force powerful enough to transform the person of Princess Elizabeth into the Queen of England. They also had an effect on the Lord Bearers. Even though they were insulated on scarlet cushions, the inanimate pieces of the Regalia "absorbed" the identities of their Bearers. The peers who carried the Regalia "became" the Regalia, so to speak. ... The Lord Bearers were as instrumental in transforming the Queen as were the Clergy.
The Lord Bearers were also courtiers "par excellence." They participated in the Coronation because they had the hereditary right to do so. That right was earned by personal service to, or attendance upon, the Sovereign by one of their forebears. But the Lord Bearers were not just attendants; they were also symbols in the ritual. Their participation revealed certain truths even while it camouflaged others. This is not a peculiarity of English royal ritual. It is a constant of belief systems of all people. ...
The Anointing
The Coronation was preeminently a religious ceremony. It was conducted in a church by an Archbishop, and it incorporated the sacrament of communion. The form of the modern Coronation can be traced to the tenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, who set it down for the crowning of Edgar in 973 (Tanner 1952:15). Although the service has become identified with the "coronating" of the Sovereign, the most sacred moment is not the crowning but the Anointing. "Throughout the centuries the Anointing has been regarded by the Church as the central act and purpose of the ceremony" (Barker 1976:126). "Nothing which goes before and nothing which follows can approach the anointing in significance. Without it the King cannot receive the royal ornaments, without it, in a word, he is not King" (Barker 1976:126). So solemn was this moment that the Queen was hidden even from the elite assemblage in the Abbey. To this end, four Knights of the Garter held a canopy made of cloth of gold over her.
The Queen was sprinkled with holy oil by the Archbishop on her hands, breast, and head. ... Once anointed, the Queen could receive the vestments of majesty and the symbols of sovereignty.
The raising of the canopy (and the turning away of the cameras) signaled the importance of the moment. But more importantly, the canopy held by the knights was a potent tableau of the social relations that exist between royal and aristocrat, a world within that world bounded by the Coronation Theatre. A sign of their trustworthiness was their being made privy to the Queen's nakedness. So sacred and secret was this Anointing that none could see it except the Knights and Clergy. ...
Rituals present highly condensed visions of the social relations that inform the societies in which they are found; no less so the Coronation. The image presented on that occasion resembled a series of Chinese boxes within boxes. The smallest and thus most exclusive was the golden canopy whose treasure was the Queen. This canopy was a chrysalis of sorts out of which the unformed Queen emerged to assume all the glorious ornaments of Kingship. ...
Excerpt from SYMBOL AND PRIVILEGE: THE RITUAL CONTEXT OF BRITISH ROYALTY by Ilse Hayden. © 1987 The Arizona Board of Regents. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.
