2023-05-06 10:31:00
Curious incidents in coronation ceremonies that King Carlos III will want to avoid
arson. clumsy bishops. A jilted wife pounding on the abbey door. They may seem like fiction, but in reality they are situations that marked British coronations throughout history.
Coronations at Westminster Abbey date back nearly 1,000 years. They have become a fine-tuned machine that works well. Yet for all the pomp and ceremony, there have been times when they have gone disastrously wrong.
George Gross, visiting scholar at King’s College London and co-founder of the British Coronations Project, tells CNN that William the Conqueror’s coronation on Christmas Day 1066 “sets the standard” for coronations since then.
Arson
According to Gross, William united the Saxon traditions of the nation he had conquered with the Norman ones of his homeland, and his firm grip on power cemented them in English culture.
But even if his reign was a success, the coronation itself was a disaster. Like Charles III, William had his coronation in Westminster Abbey. There he had also been crowned months before his defeated enemy, Harold Godwinson, killed in the battle of Hastings.
The atmosphere inside and outside the chapel was tense and shortly after Guillermo had earned the nickname of conqueror. When those inside the abbey enthusiastically proclaimed “God save the King”, the noise reached such a level that William’s guards believed an assassination attempt was in progress. So, they proceeded to take the only rational measure: quickly burn several buildings in the area.
A coronation without the queen
George IV’s coronation in 1821 was a drama that would make the writers of most soap operas blush. The king had decided to exclude his wife, Queen Caroline, from the service. According to Gross, the reason for this royal snub was simple: “I wanted nothing to do with her.”
In 1795, Parliament had forced George to marry his German cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, in exchange for settling his large debts. He had already married another woman, Maria Fitzherbert, but that union was considered illegal because he did not have the consent of his father.
Apparently, Jorge arrived drunk at their wedding, and it is believed that the couple only spent two nights together, during which they conceived an heir. He refused to live in the same place as her and the couple quickly grew apart. In the years preceding his coronation, George tried to obtain a divorce from Parliament. Caroline was even subjected to a parliamentary trial in which her alleged adultery was investigated and during which she was not allowed to speak. But partly because Carolina was popular with the public, Jorge’s search was thwarted.
The hostilities within the marriage were so great that George did not even want his wife to be crowned, and ordered those who guarded the entrances to Westminster Abbey during her coronation in 1821 to deny her entry. Despite trying for all the innings, he couldn’t get through and had to walk away. He died after a month. According to Gross, the public had come to sympathize deeply with Caroline, and her death shortly after her coronation may have limited the negative impact this public slight had on George’s reign.
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