The Coronation of a monarch is one of the most important events a country can have, the most formal ceremony in existence. Naturally, the British, and especially the English, have treated the event with the proper amount of gravity, hence the title of this post. This is just a few incidents, I’m sure I’ve left out many.
During the coronation banquet of King Eadwig, the king himself disappeared from the banquet. The Archbishop of Canterbury went to track him down, and found him in his chambers,the crown on the floor, with his betrothed and her mother. The archbishop told him off, accused the noblewomen of acting like harlots ,put the crown back on the king’s head and physically dragged him back to the banquet. The Archbishop was exiled to France soon after. People still disagree about what he was actually doing there, with most thinking the archbishop had over reacted, since Eadwig married his betrothed soon after and she was generally respected as queen.
During the coronation of William the Conqueror, the soldiers stationed outside heard the cheers from the abbey, assumed it was the newly conquered people of England revolting against their Norman overlords, and set fire to the neighboring houses, apparently thinking that was the best way to deal with a riot.
During the coronation of George I, when the Archbishop formally asked if anyone contests George’s right to the throne,Catherine Sedly,former mistress to James II, nodded at all the armed soldiers in the abbey and asked “Does the old fool think that anyone will say No?” Since George could not speak more than a few words of English, and the bishops did not speak German, the ceremony was mostly in Latin.
Rumor has it that during the coronation of George III, a jewel fell from his crown.
During the coronation of George IV, his estranged wife showed up dressed in royal robes, ready to be crowned. She ordered the guards to open the doors for their queen. The guards told her she was not permitted to enter. Contrary to legend, she did not hammer at the doors, but tried to argue with them and then went home crying.
During the traditional processional walk to back to Westminster Hall after the coronation, (a tradition that has been abolished) the king was to walk under a canopy held by the Barons of the Cinque Ports, who were all rather old. Since the canopy blocked many people’s view of the king, he tried to walk ahead of it.The barons, wanting to hold the canopy over the king, walked faster so as to keep pace with him. The king, seeing the canopy wobbling and held by four elderly men, decided he did not want to be under it and so walked even faster. The barons hurried up. Everyone behind them didn’t want to be left behind. The end result was that the entire royal procession jogged back to Westminster Hall. Even when there, they had issues. The candles in the chandeliers were melting from the heat, which resulted in globs of wax falling on people.
During the coronation of Queen Victoria the coronation ring had been sized for the wrong finger, and the Archbishop insisted on forcing it onto the correct finger, causing the queen a lot of agony, and making it very difficult to remove after. The whole coronation was badly planned, no one had told the queen what to do before, and she kept asking the archbishop for instructions.
The main event of the coronation was during the homage, then paid by all peers. Lord Rolle, an elderly baron, fell and roll down the steps leading to the throne when he was trying to kiss the queen’s hand. Foreigners were convinced that this was an essential part of the coronation, and that Lord Rolle’s title came from the fact that the holder of the title was expected to roll down the steps at every coronation. Victoria won an extreme amount of popularity when she instinctively broke protocol, stood up, came to the edges of the dais, and held out her hand so he could kiss it without trying to go up the steps again.
Before the coronation of Edward VII, many of the peeresses realized that there was a long ceremony ahead of them and went to use a lavatory that had been installed for them.Soon a large amount of them were waiting, and the queue did not seem to be moving. Then the Marchioness of Londonderry poked her head out, looking very distressed, and insisted someone go get her some forceps. Her tiara had fallen in to the toilet, and she felt forceps were needed to save it. A doctor was found, forceps provided,and the Marchioness wore her tiara to the coronation. Why the forceps were in Westminster Abbey during the coronation has never been satisfactorily explained.The incident caused trouble for quite a few, with one elderly peeress who had been prevented from using the lavatory because of it almost knocking someone over in her rush to leave as soon as the coronation was over and the royal procession had gone.
That wasn’t the only issue. Some peers hadn’t bothered to try on the coronets they had inherited,and when they put them on once the king was crowned,during the coronation, they were too big to sit on their heads, but slid down to their chins, covering their faces.
There was also the Archbishop of York using too much oil when anointing the queen’s forehead, so that it slid down onto her nose and dropped off. The queen said that she really wanted to wipe it off, but thought it might be irreverent.
The Archbishop of Canterbury,who was very old but insisted on doing every single job he was entitled to do, caused more issues. He was too old to walk on his own and had to be supported by two bishops, his eyesight wasn’t good enough to read the service so it was printed on big cards that were held up for him to read off, he couldn’t stand up after kneeling to pay homage and had to be helped up by the King himself and several bishops, he placed the crown back-to-front on the King’s head, and a colleague who asked if he was all right,was told to “go away!” in a loud voice that was plainly heard by the congregation.
There was also Princess Beatrice dropping her prayer book,which had been presented to her by a patronage and which she was very proud of,during the ceremony, onto a table full of plate, and causing a very large clang.
During the coronation procession of George V, two of his sons got into a fistfight as they were riding through the streets of London in a carriage. It took a while before their sister, Princess Mary, was able to separate them.
During the coronation of George VI, a piece of thread was used to mark the front of St.Edward’s crown,in order to avoid at least one of the mistakes made during Edward VII’s coronation. However,someone removed the thread, which meant that the archbishop stood there for a while turning the crown around, trying to figure out which was the front,and then just putting the crown on the king once he gave up. George VI said that he never found out if he had been crowned the right way. He got annoyed again when one of the bishops stood on the king’s robe when the king was switching thrones, and George VI later said that “I had to tell him pretty sharply to move”.
During the coronation of Elizabeth II, some peers smuggled sandwiches into the abbey by putting them in their coronets. Princess Marie Louise brought a flask of gin. She enjoyed it enough that she was half hanging out of her carriage window during the ride back to Buckingham Palace.
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