After 16 months as Queen, Elizabeth II had her Coronation at Westminster Abbey on June 4, 1953.

This colourised version is approximately 90 minutes long and worth every second of viewing. We shall not see its like again:

It was a cold, damp day with temps only reaching the 50s in Fahrenheit. Interestingly, the weather on Sunday, June 5, 2022 — the day of local Platinum Jubilee street parties — was exactly the same. My better half and I walked down our high street, which was full of people, despite the chill, rain and wind.

The Queen’s coronation took a year to plan. Eight thousand people attended. By contrast, Charles III has issued only 2,000 invitations for his coronation on Saturday, May 6, 2023. The King says it is because of the cost of living. However, when his mother was crowned, the UK was still recovering from the Second World War and was in its last year of rationing, even though countries in continental Europe had ended rationing in the late 1940s! The UK still demanded wartime ID be carried at all times. It was around this time that a civilian whom police asked for ID refused to show it and took the Government to court. He won. That was the end of mandatory ID cards in times of emergency.

The Queen’s first year

In anticipation of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, on February 5, 2022, The Telegraph carried a retrospective: ‘The making of our Queen: the untold story of Elizabeth II’s first year on the throne’.

Excerpts follow, emphases mine.

The story begins with her father’s lying in state and funeral:

The King’s lying-in-state at Westminster Hall attracted huge crowds. On the first day, 12 February 1952, close on 80,000 filed past the catafalque. Many had waited in queues the entire night. In the hours before dawn those without blankets stamped on the frosty pavement to keep warm. It was originally intended to close the doors at 10pm but such was the crush, it was 2am before the doors on the northern exit were shut behind the last of the mourners.

In all, over three days, some 300,000 people attended the lying-in-state. For those who were not eyewitnesses, a memorable account was provided by the radio commentary of Richard Dimbleby, an avuncular figure with a seductive delivery of carefully-modulated diction, whose mellifluous tones and overly reverential manner were thought to give royalty the required lustre. ‘They are passing, in their thousands,’ he said, ‘through the hall of history while history is being made.’

Two days later, on a cloudy and misty morning, a mile-long cortege began its journey from Westminster Hall to Paddington Station. In a carriage behind the coffin came the Queen, the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and the Princess Royal, all in black, followed on foot by the four royal dukes – Edinburgh, Gloucester, Windsor and Kent – a study in contrasts. Artillery salutes of 56 guns were fired in Hyde Park and at the Tower of London. Big Ben rang 56 chimes, one for every year of the King’s life.

Though King George VI had a record of poor health, his death in February 1952 had come as a great shock. It was his valet, bringing him his morning cup of tea, who found him. He had died in his sleep, after a battle with lung cancer.

There could have been few more surprised by the sudden death than his eldest daughter. Princess Elizabeth and her husband of five years were shielded from the King’s last illness. On 6 February 1952, they were in Kenya at a state dinner during the first leg of a Commonwealth tour and the news of her father’s death was cabled to Government House in Nairobi the following morning.

After a delay in decoding the message (the codebook was locked in a safe and there was some difficulty in finding the key), Philip was told the news and it was he who consoled his wife as the couple walked together in the garden. The Queen did not break down or show any strong emotion but made a conscious effort to apologise to those around her for spoiling their visit to Kenya.

At that point, Elizabeth, aged 27, became Queen. She, Prince Philip and her entourage flew back to London.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill had met the young monarch only once, when she was two years old:

In 1928, after a visit to Balmoral, he told his wife Clementine that the Princess was ‘a character’ with ‘an air of authority… astonishing in an infant’.

As she grew up, George VI taught her about going through the Royal boxes carrying Government correspondence, something the monarch does daily. The Telegraph‘s article has a relevant picture of the two of them doing this in 1942.

Churchill met the Queen when she arrived in London:

She descended the passenger stairs in a brisk, businesslike manner: it was in her nature and her upbringing to put on a brave face.

If only we all did that, especially today.

Then came time for her Accession Declaration, which was held in private. King Charles’s was the first one to be televised.

The Queen then gave a radio broadcast to the nation:

… she looked forward to her coronation for which she was preparing ‘with prayer and meditation’. She appealed to her audience to ‘Pray for me on the day. Pray that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making.’

The postwar economic situation came up in conversations about the coronation:

After six years of war, a heavily-indebted Britain was still struggling to adapt to a peacetime economy. As housing minister and soon to be contender for the party leadership [and, later, Prime Minister], Harold Macmillan noted in his diary: ‘There was general agreement that it should not be this year. This year the bailiffs may be in; the Crown itself may be in pawn.’

‘It’ll have a steadying effect next year,’ said Churchill. ‘Anyway it will beat the Festival of Britain.’ He had objected to the 1951 Festival as an exclusively civil affair with no role for the Commonwealth and Empire or for the armed forces. It was a stunted Britain on display, argued Churchill. He was not about to commit the same mistake with the coronation.

It should be noted that Labour’s Clement Attlee was Prime Minister at the time of the Festival of Britain in the summer of 1951. Churchill became PM again in the general election of October that year.

Organising the coronation began, involving some of the same positions, i.e. the two Archbishops and the Duke of Norfolk, who, incidentally is Catholic:

In June 1952, a proclamation setting the date of the coronation on 2 June 1953 was signed by the Queen and posted publicly. At the same time, 42 members of the Privy Council were appointed to a Coronation Committee. Two royal dukes, Edinburgh and Gloucester, were supported by a dozen hereditary peers. The archbishops of Canterbury and York spoke for the Church of England while senior government ministers had the right of attendance along with spokesmen for the opposition parties.

The coronation was to be an almost exclusively upper class affair. Much time was spent on efforts protecting its dignity. Under the direction of Bernard Marmaduke Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk and hereditary Earl Marshal, a souvenir committee sifted applications to produce officially recognised memorabilia. Among the approvals was a pennant with the royal cipher for cyclists and a home safe with a gilt lettered engraving promoting ‘Savings in the New Reign’. Sharp’s Toffee was granted permission to produce a tin with the Queen’s image on the lid. Of the rejects, the vote against crown embroidered knickers was unanimous.

Interestingly, members of the Coronation Committee were horrified when the BBC requested permission to film the coronation:

… the official reaction was hostile. The Queen’s advisors were as one in warning of ‘an intolerable strain’ and that ‘no mistake could ever be rectified’. If there was to be television coverage, it had to be restricted to the procession into and out of the Abbey.

Churchill told the House of Commons: ‘It would be unfitting that the whole ceremony, not only in its secular but also its religious and spiritual aspects, should be presented as if it were a theatrical performance.’

By October 1952, Churchill had changed his mind:

The House of Commons was told of Churchill’s change of mind in late October. The prime minister promised that the cameras would in no way detract from ‘the utmost moral seriousness’ of the occasion.

Little did Churchill know that in the run up to the coronation, a spike in purchases of first-time television sets would occur across the nation. Back then, the screens were small. Nonetheless, many families opened their homes to neighbours, especially children, who were able to see television for the first time. Those who saw the coronation never forgot it.

As preparations took place, the Queen Mother dominated activity at Buckingham Palace:

Elizabeth was not short of advice on how to prepare for the great day. The strongest influence on her (much to her husband’s irritation) was that of the Queen Mother, who had strong views on everything and who found it hard to take a back seat.

The young Queen was seemingly accustomed to handling her duties as a monarch and mother:

Elizabeth was well practised in royal functions. A councillor of state since the age of 18, she was familiar with state papers and had acted on behalf of her father when he was unavailable. It is unlikely that the Queen’s children, Charles and Anne, noticed any great difference in their own lives. With nannies to care for them and with their parents often absent from home, they were semi-detached from the main action.

Coronation rehearsals began on May 14, 1953. They were held daily:

In her private quarters in Buckingham Palace, Elizabeth practised her role ‘attached to sheets tied together to mimic her 13ft train’. Four months had been spent on finding new make-up for the Queen. The beauticians had eventually settled for a peach-tinted foundation and a lipstick to tone with the purple robes of state.

As the coronation drew near, the media indulged in an orgy of royal gossip set against an historical backdrop. When the precise significance of the sword, the sceptre and the orb had been exhausted and there was nothing more to say about the 38 earlier coronations since the Norman Conquest, a note of desperation entered the daily commentary. That St Edward’s Crown was roughly equal to the weight of Debrett’s Peerage while the Imperial State Crown was heavier than Who’s Who was followed by the revelation that ‘Her Majesty is not one of the light breakfasters. She likes to follow her fruit juice with a substantial dish of bacon and eggs.’

In her later years, breakfast became a bowl of cereal accompanied by toast. The Queen and Prince Philip had breakfast together, serving themselves cereal from Tupperware containers.

As Coronation Day neared, people from all over the UK erected bunting, banners and signs on their homes. The Telegraph has a photo showing one street display. I rather doubt we will see such visual enthusiasm outside of bunting this time around.

London became a nexus of national enthusiasm:

The sheer splendour of an occasion gave a much needed injection of confidence and hope to a beleaguered nation. A film of the procession route three days before shows crowds camping out 12 deep on both sides of the Mall. By coronation eve, some 30,000 were bedded down.

The Underground started at 3am and buses began bringing more spectators into the coronation area at 4.30am. They came equipped with spirit stoves, stools, blankets and tinned food. Portable radios and wind-up gramophones helped to pass the time. London’s buskers – dancers, acrobats, singers – worked all hours.

This is how Coronation Day began at Westminster Abbey:

The doors at Westminster Abbey opened at 6am for the first guests to take their places. They huddled together against the chill. Foreign royals and other overseas dignitaries followed after 8.30am. Though most went unrecognised by onlookers they were all given a hearty cheer.

The excitement mounted with the procession into the Abbey led by royal chaplains followed by a host of all that was esoteric in the orders of chivalry, the Royal household, the Commonwealth prime ministers, Sir Winston Churchill looking distinctly grumpy in the Tudor vestments worn by Knights of the Order of the Garter, and the senior clerics of the Church of England. The four-year-old Prince Charles, in tow with his nanny, entered by a side door to sit between the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. Proudly, he announced that he was wearing his father’s hair oil. Anyone who showed an interest was invited to take a sniff.

By 11am the full congregation of 8,000 was squeezed into the Abbey and 15 minutes later the Queen arrived in the Gold State Coach, magnificent to look at but a byword for discomfort. At her side was her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in the uniform of Admiral of the Fleet. Across the country 20 million television viewers, many of them sharing sets with friends and neighbours, were tuned in to freckled screens.

The greatest royal show ever, almost certainly never to be repeated, was about to begin – and those who had spent the best part of a year in planning this once-in-a-lifetime event could be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief.

King Charles remembers

This short retrospective video begins with the Coronation. In it, King Charles recalls that, in the weeks before the ceremony, the Queen wore the magnificent St Edward’s crown when she kissed him good night. It is very heavy and she needed to wear it at length so that she got used to the weight of the Imperial State Crown, which she wore at the coronation. Later, she wore it only for state occasions, e.g. the State Opening of Parliament:

On March 11, 2023, The Telegraph‘s Royal Editor Victoria Ward told us ‘How mischievous Prince Charles “got his paws” on the crown at his mother’s coronation’. The article is accompanied by a photo of him, between the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, looking decidedly bored.

However bored he was, he made history:

The four-year-old boy, dressed in a white silk shirt and white suit, became the first child to witness his mother’s coronation on June 2, 1953.

Prince George will be the next child to follow in those footsteps:

Fast forward 70 years, and Prince George will watch from almost the same spot, as his grandfather returns to Westminster Abbey for his own turn. 

The nine-year-old future king, who is likely to be accompanied by both of his siblings, is expected to be given an official role at the ceremony.

He will also be the first future king to attend his grandfather’s coronation since Edward VIII and George VI in 1902.

Returning to King Charles and his mother’s coronation:

In the years since Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, Charles has described his memories of the day, which he watched with rapt attention before turning first to his aunt, Princess Margaret, and then his grandmother, the Queen Mother, apparently plying them with questions.

Lady Moyra Campbell, one of the late queen’s six ladies in waiting, would later recall: “We heard the Queen Mother whispering to him, telling him what was happening. He behaved impeccably. It was a lovely moment.”

Having received a special, hand-painted invitation designed especially for him and adorned with marching soldiers, the young Charles was spirited into Westminster Abbey by his nanny, Helen Lightbody, to witness the moment of his mother’s crowning.

After communion, he was taken “silently and unobtrusively from the church”, according to reports from the time.

It was likely not a moment too soon for the young Charles, who was pictured looking more than a touch bored during the ceremony, eyes glazed and face resting dejectedly on his fist.

On the royal party’s return to Buckingham Palace, the young prince was in his element, running up and down the corridors with his two-year-old sister, Princess Anne, who was deemed too young to attend the ceremony. He also sported his first medal, struck specifically for the coronation.

Lady Moyra laughed as she recalled in 2012: “He was wearing his father’s hair lotion to smooth his hair and we had to sniff it and admire it.”

Years later, Charles had seemingly forgotten such joy, telling his biographer that he had been annoyed that the Palace barber had cut his hair too short and plastered it with “the most appalling gunge”.

At one point, the young prince caught sight of the Imperial State Crown, which weighs more than 1kg and is adorned with 2,901 precious stones, including the Cullinan II diamond.

Lady Anne Glenconner, another maid of honour, would later recall: “Prince Charles got his paws on it, however old he was, when we got back to Buckingham Palace.

“Because [the Queen] took it off, put it on a table, and Prince Charles made a beeline for it. And we thought he was going to drop it. We thought, ‘Oh my goodness, that would be a bad omen‘. But luckily, I think my mother, as a lady-in-waiting, seized it from him and took it away.”

Meanwhile, as the Queen posed for official photographs with the Duke of Edinburgh, Charles and Anne played up by covering their faces with their hands.

The young monarch put a hand on Charles to settle him down, before Cecil Beaton’s shutter came down.

Charles later described watching his young mother practising ahead of the coronation with the heavy St Edward’s crown. 

“I remember my Mama coming, you know, up, when we were being bathed as children, wearing the crown. It was quite funny – practising,” he said.

Previously, young Princess Elizabeth wrote down her memories of George VI’s coronation at his request:

Queen Elizabeth had been in a similar position 16 years earlier, when as a young 11-year-old Princess she was present to watch her own father, George VI, crowned on May 12, 1937.

Having been thrust unexpectedly onto the throne when his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated, George wanted his daughter to feel more prepared for her own coronation day and so asked her to record her memories.

“It was very valuable,” the Queen later acknowledged.

Her recollections of the two-and-a-half hour ceremony, scrawled neatly in red pen in a child’s exercise book, have since been preserved in the Royal Archives.

The title page reads: “To Mummy and Papa, In Memory of Their Coronation. From Lilibet, by Herself.”

She wrote: “We sat down and waited for about half-an-hour until Mummy’s procession began. Then came Papa looking very beautiful in a crimson robe and the Cap of State.

“I thought it all very, very wonderful and I expect the Abbey did too.

“The arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned, at least I thought so.”

The young princess said the music was “lovely” and the orchestra played “beautifully”.

However, she admitted that towards the end the service “got rather boring as it was all prayers”.

“Grannie (Queen Mary) and I were looking to see how many more pages to the end, and we turned one more and then I pointed to the word at the bottom of the page and it said ‘Finis’. We both smiled at each other and turned back to the service,” she wrote …

The Queen later admitted in a 2018 BBC documentary that she could remember her father’s coronation “much better” than her own.

“Because I wasn’t doing anything, I was just sitting there,” she said, before adding with just a touch of pride: “I’ve seen one coronation and been a recipient in another, which is pretty remarkable.”

Whether George will be spotted taking his own notes at his grandfather’s Coronation in May remains to be seen, but he will most likely have the good fortune of attending two coronations before his own big day, whenever that arrives.

Religious ceremony

On June 2, 2022, at the beginning of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee four-day weekend, the Archbishop of York, the Right Revd Stephen Cottrell wrote about the religious aspects of the coronation for The Telegraph, ‘The Queen’s Christianity is the lens through which she views the world’:

Amid all the pomp, pageantry and pleasure the Platinum Jubilee brings, it is easy to forget that, at its heart, the Queen’s Coronation nearly 70 years ago was a religious event.

While television cameras may have been granted access to Westminster Abbey that day, one moment was hidden from public view.

Her Majesty was anointed with oil and afforded a time of stillness and reflection before God. She was also given a Bible by Archbishop Fisher and reminded that scripture is “the most valuable thing this world affords”.

Geoffrey Fisher was the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, and was alongside Her Majesty as she prepared for the spiritual journey that lay ahead. One of the treasures in the Lambeth Palace library is the book of devotions that he prepared and presented to her all those years ago. It includes prayers, passages of scripture and daily meditations.

For Her Majesty, the Coronation was an intimate encounter between a monarch and her God, a moment where the Queen would be called by name and given a lifelong vocation.

It marked a moment at which her personal relationship with Christ met the national events and public moments that remind us that this country, its laws and customs and culture, is shaped by the Christian faith …  

This is a discipleship that, gently but truly and generously, makes the love of Christ and the care of God known. Quite simply, she could not be as she has been without her faith in Christ.

In Archbishop Fisher’s book of private devotions, the first prayer he gave the Queen to consider was Psalm 25:3-4: “Shew me they ways, O Lord: and teach me thy paths. Lead me forth in thy truth, and learn me: for thou art the God of my salvation; in thee hath been my hope all the day long.”

This prayer, which Her Majesty prayed 70 years ago, is still as relevant today, and as a Christian I too take great comfort in it as I seek to follow in the way of Christ. It is, indeed, a calling for all of us.

Nineteen copies of the Archbishop’s devotions were printed. The devotions covered the month leading up to Coronation Day. He signed the books Geoffrey Cantuar (Latin for Canterbury):

I have much more to write about the Queen’s coronation.

More to follow tomorrow.