by Revd Neil Patterson, Chair of the Gender & Sexuality Group on General Synod
Like a small number of (male) ordinands in the Church of England, I had the privilege during my training of spending a semester at the Venerable English College in Rome in 2003-4, where among other things I attended the lectures of Fr. Robert Christian OP on the sacraments at the Angelicum University. To the delight of the British members of his international class, one week he took a swing away from the canonical seven sacraments to speak about ‘the one that got away,’ coronation, illustrated by showing the film of 1953 (the edited ‘A Queen is Crowned,’ for those who care about such details). And as he explained the extensive parallels with ordination and other Christian rites, he opined wistfully, ‘they’ll never do it again.’
For most of my adult life, that has been what I too rather expected, feeling that, glorious as the history is, Britain today is a very different place, and that it would prove impossible to summon up the will to perform such an extraordinary rite. Indeed it felt that it might be better to have no crowning at all than something completely reformed into a semi-secular form. And in that spirit I prayed quite sincerely, ‘may the Queen live for ever!’ and looked out at the beacons across Herefordshire last summer wondering if it might be the last time the fires burned on the hills for an anointed monarch.
But it is not so. I write this shortly after the liturgy has been published, and to my astonishment and delight, all the substance of the ancient service, carried out for a thousand years, will come to pass once more in our time. Details almost beyond interpretation, like the King donning a ‘supertunica of cloth of gold’ that marks continuity with Byzantium and beyond, or the redemption of the sword that speaks of the ambiguity of worldly power in the sight of God, will be enacted again. And most importantly for a priest of the Church of England, the King will be anointed for Christian service and crowned within a celebration of the Eucharist, and receive communion with his Queen as fellow-worshippers with us all.
And there on camera with their Majesties will be people I know, playing their parts in history. Dean David Hoyle, a source of great wisdom to me and many others, will be ferrying the regalia to and fro throughout the service as required. I suspect his part in making all this happen is great beyond such public credit as he will receive for it. And yesterday it was finally made public that the Bishop of Hereford is to be a Bishop Assistant to the Queen – the rehearsals have been taking over his diary for some time, and he is justifiably delighted. I know this may not be true for everyone – but for me that personal connection is part of what makes it human, and real, and loveable.
Many words have been and will be written on the meaning of the service, whether theological treatises on Christian kingship, or bland expansions of the official themes of ‘community, faith and service’ or indeed critiques of varying severity of the whole business. But in the end the value of the Coronation is only a subset of the value of monarchy itself, and on that one thought has been upmost in my mind as I reflect on it. Apart from a few, probably only two, members of the King’s family in the Abbey on Saturday, no-one else, not even those there I know, will ever sit in that seat or wear the Crown. And none of the rest of us ever will either. And that is just as well.
Perhaps because I am naturally rather competitive myself, I have always tended to see ambition as a besetting sin in so many contexts – the desire to have or do more than others. More money, more books published, more followers on social media, more ‘great experiences’ in life or most troubling of all, more power. The truth is, in every context, there will almost always be someone with more, and so that is not the path of true joy. But under a monarch, we have ordered our land and society so that this truth is made manifest to all. Even the determined politician who has made it to 10 Downing Street for a few years (or months, lately) receives office – from the Crown. The foremost of the great and the good, in the arts and business and academia, may hope to gain honour – from the Crown. Even the highest of high achievers must look up, as we pray they will look up to God too, the giver of all good gifts.
By contrast, whatever you may think of him as a person or a contributor on many issues of our time, especially the environment, the King is there wholly without merit, by a chance of birth, destined for his throne from birth, as are the Prince of Wales and Prince George. He could not choose it, or win it, or deserve it and, if he had, the office would be the less. Though I hope future generations will be charitable to any heirs who do not feel able to succeed. So as he comes, eight months into his reign, to this formal enactment of his kingship, we pray for Charles Philip Arthur George, child of God and servant of the King of Kings, that he may fulfil this strangest of all callings. God Save the King!