God save the king
Long live the king
May the king live forever
Amen, amen, alleluia, alleluia, amen, amen
May the king live
May the king live
For ever, for ever, for ever,
Amen, amen, alleluia, alleluia, amen, amen
Alleluia, alleluia, amen, amen, amen
Amen, amen, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, amen
You can see why I didn't.
That most magnificent of Handel's anthems, sung during the Anointing at every Coronation since that of George II, sadly looks decidely mundane when written down, besides which I have just finished my second read (first one in 1996) of Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson and I couldn't resist that first quote.
The book contains the most wonderful tableau as Family Lennox gather around the new TV set, with all the family and neighbours invited to their home, a flat above the shop, to watch the Coronation, and little Ruby Lennox is thoroughly bamboozled by it all, and not least the vast quantities of food when rationing was still the norm. Pork pies and fruit flans, sausage rolls and scones and endless pots of tea. Richard Dimbleby's 'reverent commentary' is being supplemented by sister Patricia's helpful snippets of information, and tension rises amongst the grown-ups over the chronological order of kings...
'George IV's position.. clearly he came after Georges One, Two and Three, but did anyone come before him? Someone proposes Queen Anne as the bolster between Georges Three and Four, but then a fresh argument brews up as to who exactly George IV was 'when he was at home' anyway. Uncle Bill claims he was 'the fat git that built Brighton,' while Uncle Clifford staunchly maintains that 'he was the one who lost America.'
It's all hilarious and I will write more about the book soon, but suffice to say that Patricia's snippets gleaned from the Daily Graphic Coronation Gift Book for Boys and Girls, were all enough to make me read up on it all too. As luck would have it, the bag containing the Radio Times of yesterday's post also held some more Coronation memorabilia including a very similar booklet, The Coronation - Its History and Meaning, published in 1937 for the National Union of Teachers, and therefore, just like Patricia's, our copy is also a Coronation out of date.
It's hard to imagine how important and uniting all this must have been in those austere post-war years, but you only have to look at the pictures of thousands of people camping out and lining the streets in the pouring rain to understand that this was one of the moments in history to 'be there.'
As regards the snippets, I found plenty of my own and didn't know this about the crown for starters...
"The St. Edward's Crown, made in 1661, was the crown placed on the head of The Queen during the Coronation service. It weighs 4 pounds and 12 ounces and is made of solid gold. The crown in its current form was first used by Charles II as it had to be redesigned after the Restoration. It was refurbished from an old crown and there is speculation that the lower part might be from Edward the Confessor's crown."
Nor this about the garments..
"During the investiture, The Queen first put on the newly-made Colobium Sindonis - a loose linen-lawn garment, and then a robe of cloth of gold - the Dalmatic or Supertunica, which was used by King George VI. The Lord Great Chamberlain presented the golden spurs, the symbol of chivalry, after which the Archbishop of Canterbury presented a jewelled sword, and then the armills, the golden bracelets of sincerity and wisdom. Finally, The Queen put on the stole and cloth of gold Robe Royal (Imperial Mantle) and received the orb, the coronation ring, the glove, which was newly made and presented by the Worshipful Company of Glovers, and the sceptre."
And then there was the Anointing for which the Queen is robed in a plain white overdress and the gilded canopy held aloft...
'It's the anointing with holy oil!' Patricia's voice squeals excitedly from upstairs, and Auntie Babs manages to persuade Bunty to leave the sausage rolls unanointed and come upstairs for what is, in the Daily Graphic's words, 'really the most solemn and important part of the ceremony...'
'So solemn and important that the Queen disappears inside a scrum of bishops and her anointing is not witnessed,' says Kate Atkinson, and much to the disappointment of the Lennox family and their neighbours, but here's a little snippet that Patrica may not have been aware of ...
"The recipe for the Anointing Oil contains oils of orange, roses, cinnamon, musk and ambergris. Usually a batch is made to last a few Coronations. In May 1941, a bomb hit the Deanery destroying the phial containing the anointing oil so a new batch had to be made up. The pharmacy that had mixed the last anointing oil had gone out of business but the recipe was found and the oil made."
The loss of the oil in a bombing raid on Westminster Abbery was kept a secret, presumably seen as too much of a threat against the country's very existence to be revealed in such precarious times, but I was intrigued about the Anointing with its Biblical antecedents. Further research reveals that the freshly-made Anointing Oil also contained neroli, civet, jasmine and benzoin in a sesame oil base making a beautiful fragrance. Poor Queen Elizabeth I didn't fare so well, she was done with an ancient old batch which apparently smelt vile, 'the oil smelt ill' she was heard to exclaim afterwards.

It wasn't only Family Lennox who were glued to their TV sets, the viewing figures for the day were staggering...
"An estimated 27 million people in Britain watched the ceremony on TV and 11 million listened on the radio. The Queen agreed that the Coronation be televised so that as many people as possible could observe the ceremony. (The population of Britain at the time was just over 36 million.)"
This and plenty more can all be found on the Official Website of the British Monarchy .
I had never watched the whole ceremony, but I did something quite unexpected yesterday, and my thanks to Hilary for flagging up that the BBC would be broadcasting their original footage and commentary of Coronation Day in real time on iPlayer. I had it running for most of the day so I have finally seen it, and have now seen this moment off the page and for real. The Recognition...
The Archbishop, together with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Great Chamberlain, Lord High Constable, and Earl Marshal (Garter King of Arms preceding them), shall then go to the East side of the Theatre, and after shall go to the other three sides in this order, South, West, and North, and at every of the four sides the Archbishop shall with a loud voice speak to the People: and the Queen in the mean while, standing up by King Edward's Chair, shall turn and show herself unto the People at every of the four sides of the Theatre as the Archbishop is at every of them, the Archbishop saying:
Sirs, I here present unto you
Queen ELIZABETH,
your undoubted Queen:
Wherefore all you who are come this day
to do your homage and service,
Are you willing to do the same?
The People signify their willingness and joy, by loud and repeated acclamations, all with one voice crying out,
GOD SAVE QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Then the trumpets shall sound.
Returning to Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and at the end of a very turbulent Coronation day involving arguments, accidents, the lewd attentions of Uncle Ted and the sight of their mother having drunk a little too deeply from the sherry barrel, Patricia and Ruby's 'blueprint for the future' is held within the pages of the Daily Graphic...
'You will have to grow up and when you have left childhood behind you must behave as a responsible man or woman. This may sound rather frightening, but you know as well as I do that although as a nation we have sometimes made mistakes we have never lacked courage.'
So whilst Zadok the Priest might look a little bland on the page, surely nothing can compare with the splendour of 'I Was Glad', Psalm 122 set to Charles Hubert Parry's music, and sung as the Queen entered Westminster Abbey sixty years ago yesterday, so I'll end today with that..
I was glad when they said unto me:
We will go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet shall stand in thy gates:
O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is built as a city:
that is at unity in itself.
O pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
they shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls:
and plenteousness within thy palaces.
Tomorrow... the Knees-Up.
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