King Charles’s Coronation is just over two weeks away with rehearsals ramping up before the monarch and Camilla, Queen Consort, are crowned at Westminster Abbey. The organisers will be working around the clock to make sure the ceremony goes smoothly on May 6 amid reports rehearsals have overrun, the King could be tripped up by his robes and protesters will disrupt the proceedings.
There may still be time to perfect the event to avoid blunders, but there are historic precedents for mishaps to happen.
Royal historian Tracy Borman, Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, outlined some of the hitches seen in past coronations.
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King George IV’s Coronation was full of drama. The former Prince Regent disliked his wife so much that he banned her from attending his big day.
Ms Borman said: “He hated his wife Queen Caroline and so he barred her from Coronation, so she turned up anyway.
“She found the Abbey doors slammed in her face and it created this huge scandal and the King was booed as he came out of the Abbey for so cruelly humiliating her.”
She added that George IV also broke the record at that time for the amount spent on a coronation.
The royal historian said: “He was a man of excess. He always spent so much money.
“He spent the most on a Coronation than had ever been spent. He spent £243,000, which for the 1800s was an absolute fortune.”
The “Virgin Queen” used her Coronation to celebrate her mother, Anne Boleyn, the first wife of Henry VIII to be beheaded.
Ms Borman said: “So this was a brave move because Anne Boelyn hadn’t been mentioned since her execution in 1535, but when Elizabeth was crowned in 1559, she put her mother front and centre. She even had a life-sized model of her mother on the procession route.
“So she was making a real statement there, and actually it was quite risky because people didn’t like Anne Boelyn and they didn’t like to be reminded of her, but the new Queen used that as an opportunity to express how she felt about her mother.”
King Richard II, who ruled from 1377 to 1399, had his crown blown off during his Coronation.
Ms Borman said: “At his Coronation, a gust of wind blew off his crown and that was seen as a really bad omen – and it was because he ultimately lost his crown.
“Later he was actually pushed off the throne and usurped by a cousin in 1399.”
Ms Borman is appearing at theatres around the UK with How To Be A Good Monarch – 1000 Years of Kings & Queens.
For ticket details visit tracyborman.co.uk/theatre
Her new book Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History is published on May 18 by Hodder & Stoughton.
It will also be on sale at theatres featuring in the tour.
