Oh, well looking like Kate might have to face the second most difficult day of her life. How on earth will she cope ...
I hate to have any common ground with the hateful Allison Pearson but she's onto something. When you try to be all things to all men you end up pleasing nobody.
As a monarchist, I want to be excited about the Coronation. But it’s proving a struggleA number of devout Elizabethans I know are also experiencing the first stirrings of anti-Royalist sentiment
However low this column may occasionally stoop, I can assure you I will not be calling the Coronation by the name I was sent yesterday morning. The Cozza. Eeuw!
Attempts to make the enthronement of King Charles III more “diverse” and accessible are depressing to those of us who cling to the clearly antiquated view that the Coronation should be a solemn if uplifting state occasion with Christianity at its mysterious heart.
And by mysterious I don’t mean recruiting celebs like Amanda Holden to mentor the choir. That’s not mysterious, it’s plain baffling. The Britain’s Got Talent judge should be saluted for services to Botox; Handel not so much.
At least the inclusive (sigh) choir in question, to be conducted by Gareth Malone, won’t be bumping the sublime choristers of Westminster Abbey off the order of service. Always a danger given the contemporary fear among the self-loathing woke classes (many of them the guilty posh) of anything English and overwhelmingly white that we do matchlessly well. Sadly, too often inclusive turns out to mean exclusive of the vast majority of British people.
The alternative choir, composed of singers including an all-deaf sign performance group, a traditional Welsh male voice choir, Yorkshire’s only female South Asian choir, the London Fire Brigade and a troupe of RNLI sea shanty singers will be appearing at the Coronation Concert at Windsor on the Sunday night. (Good luck blending that lot, Gareth!) I’m pleasantly surprised to see that a male-voice choir made the cut, although you can bet the search was on to find some non-binary tenors and baritones. Possibly a stretch in Caerphilly.
As a monarchist, I really want to be excited about the Coronation, but it’s proving a struggle. Perhaps it’s because we pushed the boat out, not all that long ago, for the Platinum Jubilee and because we are not quite reconciled to having lost our beloved Queen.
The curtailed route of King Charles III – Elizabeth II travelled five miles but her son will cover only 1.3 miles, taking about half an hour – is said to be a cost-cutting measure but you do wonder whether the Palace is concerned about a low turn-out.
Certainly, a number of devout Elizabethans I know, who always stood along the Mall waving Union flags for the big occasions, are experiencing the first stirrings of anti-Royalist sentiment as our new King diverges from his mother who, with unimpeachable discretion, managed to be a symbol of unity and stability for 70 years. Whether it’s unwisely tethering himself to an increasingly contentious net zero cause (never put the planet before your subjects’ right to keep warm, Sir!) or trying to switch titles from Defender of the Faith to Defender of Faiths, while inserting other religious texts into the ancient ceremony (the clue is in the word Protestant, Sir!), every other day seems to bring some fresh insult to the national sense of self.
Nor are his previously loyal subjects impressed by Charles signalling his support for research into the British monarchy’s historical links with the slave trade and the inevitable reparations demanded for the same. There is no appeasing these self-styled victims. “You offer us Kensington Palace, Your Majesty, and we’ll take Balmoral and Windsor Castle plus the Aston Martin.”
If I were the King’s adviser, I’d be alarmed by a praising piece in this week’s Left-wing New Statesman with the enthusiastic headline, “Charles is proving a political king – and we should be grateful”. The author says, “I am not a monarchist.” Ay, there’s the rub. Our monarch is a fool if he plays to those who will never love him and neglects those who long to love him.