The New Murrey and Blue blog

Well, blunders and accidents can accompany just about any human activity, not only coronations, and the crowning of King Charles III is going to be a departure from the ancient ceremony, with a lot of changes and “modernising”.

I’ve already written about my fears concerning that word “modernising”. My entire disenchantment with the Church of England, while still at school, was due to the modernising of the Bible, prayers etc. Everything lost its mystique. There was something so awe-inspiring about the language of the King James Bible; to me there’s little or nothing awe-inspiring in the modern English. But I hasten to say this is just my very personal view. And no, I haven’t changed to a different faith.

Regarding the coronation of Richard II, which is mentioned in this article, all I can say is that I agree with Kathryn Warner (in her biography of Richard) that for the wind to have blown the crown from the boy-king’s head would have required something of hurricane force as the incident was supposedly inside Westminster Hall. We have the chronicler Adam Usk to blame for this story. Richard also lost a shoe and a gilt spur, so clearly the stars were against him from the get-go.

But Richard II was just ten when he was crowned, so he was hardly likely to have a huge say in the arrangements. You can see him in the illustration above, a small figure with a burly uncle on either side. He was a child and became so tired that he had to be carried shoulder-high from Westminster Abbey!

Try as I will, I can’t picture King Charles III losing a shoe and spur, or having the crown blown from his head! Or being carried shoulder-high, come to that. 😄