To put it another way, says George Gross, a historian at King’s College London and the co-founder of the British Coronations Project, the moment the previous ruler dies and the new one ascends to the throne is like their engagement to the state, while the coronation is a wedding solidifying that union.Īhead of the coronation of Charles III on May 6, here’s what you need to know about the tradition’s origins and evolution, the most memorable ceremonies in British history, and what to expect from the first coronation to take place in the United Kingdom since 1953.īuy Tickets Now What is a coronation, and how did the tradition begin?ĭefined simply, the word “ coronation” refers to a ceremony in which a king or a queen is crowned. “The ceremony is no longer understood to make the king, but is really to make visible and make legitimate the fact that he is king,” says Alice Hunt, a historian at the University of Southampton in England and an expert on coronations. When Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022, at age 96, her eldest son, Prince Charles, immediately became king of England. They don’t signal the beginning of a monarch’s reign. Held at Westminster Abbey since 1066, coronations are largely symbolic formalities. The ceremony marked the last time a banquet and an appearance by the king’s champion formed part of the day’s festivities. It was one of the more notable in the thousand-year history of British coronations-George’s estranged wife, Queen Caroline, tried to crash the occasion. The highlight of the feast was the ceremonial arrival of the king’s champion, a nobleman who rode into the hall in full armor and threw down his gauntlet as a challenge to anyone who might object to George’s rule. After the British king was crowned, a select group of attendees moved to Westminster Hall for a banquet featuring 160 dishes of fish, 480 sauce boats, 80 savory pies and 100 gallons of iced punch. An estimated 4,656 guests flocked to Westminster Abbey in London, many of them dressed in costumes inspired by fashions of centuries past. George IV’s 1821 coronation was a lavish affair, costing upwards of $26 million in today’s dollars.
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