On this day 61 years ago, Elizabeth II was crowned. These are some of the important facts about the Coronation of Her Majesty the Queen.
1. Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953 in Westminster Abbey. She is the thirty-ninth monarch to have been crowned at Westminster Abbey.
2. The Queen had already been monarch for over year. She succeeded to the throne on February 6, 1952 on the death of her father, King George VI. She was in Kenya at the time and became the first monarch in over 200 years accede while absent from Britain.
3. Her Majesty was only the sixth Queen to have been crowned in the Abbey in her own right. The first was Queen Mary I of England and Ireland, who was crowned on October 1, 1553.
4. The Coronation is a ancient ceremony going back to King Edgar's coronation at Bath in 1973.
5. June 2 was chosen because it was thought to provide the best weather for the processions and coronation. Instead, it was cloudy and it rained.
6. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were driven from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in the Gold State Coach, which had been built for George III in 1762 and has been used in all coronations since that of his son, George IV. It was pulled by eight grey geldings: Cunningham, Tovey, Noah, Tedder, Eisenhower, Snow White, Tipperary, and McCreery.
7. The Queen's Coronation dress was made by Norman Hartnell (who had also made her wedding dress in 1947). The dress was made of white satin embroidered with the emblems of the United Kingdom: the Tudor rose of England, the Scottish thistle, the Welsh leek, and the shamrock for Northern Ireland.
Also included were the emblems of the overseas Commonwealth countries: the wattle of Australia, the maple leaf of Canada, the fern of New Zealand, South Africa's protea, two lotus flowers for India and Ceylon, and Pakistan's wheat, cotton, and jute.
8. The Coronation service began at 11:15 AM and concluded at 2:00 PM, lasting almost three hours.
9. The 1953 Coronation was the first to be televised live, courtesy of the BBC. Over objections from the Church of England and PM Winston Churchill, the Queen agreed to the televised service so that as many people as possible could observe it. For most people it was the first time they had watched an event on television, and television sets were purchased just for the Coronation.
10. At the beginning was the Sovereign's Procession, which entered the Abbey with some 250 traditional representatives from Crown, Church and State. It included Church leaders, Commonwealth Prime Ministers, members of the Royal Household, civil and military leaders, and the Yeoman of the Guard.
11. The ceremony was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose duty this has usually been since the Norman Conquest in 1066.
12. The Earl Marshal of the United Kingdom is responsible for organizing the Coronation. Since 1386, the position of Earl Marshal has been undertaken by the Duke of Norfolk. Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, the 16th Duke was responsible for the Queen's Coronation. He also oversaw the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 and the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969.
13. The Coronation service fell into six basic parts: the recognition, the oath, the anointing, the investiture, which includes the crowning, the enthronement and the homage.
14. The recognition consisted of Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury asking the congregation: "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?". This was asked four times, once for each direction in the Abbey. The crowd would reply "God save Queen Elizabeth," every time, to each of which the Queen would curtsey in return.
15. The Coronation Oath consisted of a dialogue between the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury:
The Archbishop of Canterbury: "Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?"16. For the first time in the history of the coronation, the Moderator of the General Assembly Church of Scotland took part in the service by presenting a Bible to Her Majesty.
The Queen: "I solemnly promise so to do."
The Archbishop of Canterbury: "Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?"
The Queen: "I will."
The Archbishop of Canterbury: "Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolable the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?"
The Queen: "All this I promise to do. The things which I have here before promised, I will perform, and keep. So help me God."
17. The anointing was of deepest significance for the Queen. A canopy was brought over her whilst the Archbishop anointed her with holy oil, which contains oils of orange, roses, cinnamon, musk, and ambergris. Such was the religious importance, the anointing was the only part of the ceremoney that was not televised.
18. For the investiture, the Queen put on several robes and garments, leading up to stole and cloth of gold Robe Royal (Imperial Mantle). The Lord Great Chamberlain presented the golden spurs, the symbol of chivalry, after which the Archbishop of Canterbury presented a jeweled sword, the armills, and the golden bracelets of sincerity and wisdom. Her Majesty then received the orb, the coronation ring, the glove, and the scepter as representatives of her spiritual and temporal authority.
19. Elizabeth II was crowned with the St. Edward's Crown. Made in 1661, it weighs 4 pounds, 12 ounces, and is made of solid gold. The crown in its current form was first used by Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland as it had to be redesigned after the Restoration. It was refurbished from an old crown that was largely destroyed by Oliver Cromwell, and there is speculation that the lower part might be from the original Edward the Confessor's crown.
20. The Queen was crowned in St. Edward's Chair, made in 1300 for Edward I of England, and used at every Coronation since that time. Within the chair was the Stone of Scone (aka the Stone of Destiny), which has been used for the coronations of monarchs of Scotland, England, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. The Chair is permanently kept in Westminster Abbey, whilst the Stone resides in Edinburgh Castle.
21. Following the crowning, the Queen was enthroned in the Chair of Homage, and from there received the homage of several people, including archbishops, bishops, the Earl Marshal, and Royal dukes - the first being Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who pledged to be her "liege man of life and limb."
22. Prince Charles made history when he became the first child to witness his mother's coronation as Queen. Princess Anne was considered too young to attend.
23. For the recessional out of the Abbey, the Queen wore the Imperial State Crown. The crown remained on her head during her return to Buckingham Palace, as well as during the appearance on the Palace balcony. Amongst the features of the Imperial State Crown are the Cullinan II diamond, the Stuart Sapphire, and four pearls traditionally believed to have been Queen Elizabeth I's earrings.
24. A total of 8,251 guests attended Coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey, which had to be closed for several months prior so that additional seating and the Coronation Theater could be constructed.
25. 27 million people in Britain (out of a population just over 36 million) were estimated to have watched the ceremony on television and 11 million listened via radio
26. The route taken back to Buckingham Palace from the Abbey was extended so that the Queen and her procession could be seen by as many people as possible on the streets of London. It was 4.5 miles long and took the 16,000 participants two hours to complete. In full, procession itself stretched for nearly two miles, and those on foot marched 10 abreast while those on horseback were six abreast.
27. During the procession back to Buckingham Palace after the Coronation, the Queen wore the newly-made Purple Robe of Estate. The velvet robe was edged with ermine and heavily embroidered around the border in gold. The embroidered "EIIR" cipher and border of wheat ears and olive branches, took a total of 3,500 hours to complete by a team of 12 seamstresses from the Royal School of Needlework. The silk for the embroidery came from a silk farm in Lullingstone, Kent.
28. The military personnel taking part in the procession or lining the route totaled 29,200. Out of this, 3,600 hailed from the Royal Navy, 16,100 from the Army, 7,000 from the Royal Air Force, 2,000 from the Commonwealth and 500 from the overseas colonies. There were 6,700 reserve and administrative troops, while 1,000 officers and men of the Royal military police were bought in to assist the London Metropolitan police. A further 7,000 police were drawn from 75 provincial forces.
29. Despite the poor weather conditions, hundreds of thousands of people camped out in the Mall and throughout London for the processions, with many coming from all over the world. Thousands more held street parties to celebrate the Coronation.
30. On that morning, it was learned that Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay had reached the summit of Mount Everest. This was seen as a sort of coronation present, and the Queen had the idea of presenting the fourteen members of the expedition with special edition Coronation medals, which contained the extra wording 'Mount Everest Expedition'.
31. The smiling Queen Salote of Tonga famously remained undaunted by the rain throughout the long procession and refused to raise the roof of her carriage for protection.
32. The Queen appeared with her family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace wearing the Imperial State Crown and the Royal Robes to greet the cheering crowds. The Queen appeared again on the balcony at 9:45 PM to turn on the 'lights of London'. Lights cascaded down the Mall from the Palace, lighting the huge "EIIR" cipher on Admiralty Arch and turning the fountains in Trafalgar Square into liquid silver. In all, floodlights from the National Gallery to the Tower of London had been illuminated.
No comments:
Post a Comment