No one does historical pageant like the British. Uniquely in Europe, and in the West, we have retained the historical arterial connections with our national identity.
There are contexts when it counts against us, for example the new hyper-sensitivity to colonial adventurism, and other contexts, like a coronation when it floods the body politic and the cultural imagination with refreshing energy, beauty, delight and enthusiasm.
There are always two perspectives to make an assessment - glass-half-full or half-empty mode - and if ever a moment in our national story deserved the half-to-very-full treatment, the coronation of King Charles III does.
Perhaps we can take pride in the Catholic construction of St Peter’s, otherwise known as Westminster Abbey. It was designed specifically to be a platform for Catholic coronations. We might hint to our ecumenical friends that the mother Church has a track record for longevity, beauty and competence and take pride in the "loan" of Catholic architecture, imagination and perspective.
Perhaps too we can congratulate the Protestant state for recovering so competently from the execution of a King, and from what turned out to be an experimental republic. France doesn’t appear to have been able to get over the endless social and political contortions that its journey into traumatically-birthed republicanism has taken it. But the present British constitutional arrangements have proved stable and functional where others have failed or been overcome.
Even just at the level of our shared humanity, there was so much to celebrate as King Charles began his journey up the aisle towards the throne in the Abbey.
He had waited patiently and with much stamina and courage for the moment he had carried as part of his destiny. Not many of us have to wait until we are 73 to begin the life and purpose we were set on from childhood. And as Archbishop Justin Welby reminded the watching world, this was not a private and personal journey, but one of vocational sacrifice where the future King had given up most of the privileges of personal privacy as part of his public role.
There were expressions passing across his face during the ceremony, and few people have had to endure the micro-attentive public gaze more than he has over a lifetime, which suggested a maturity of purpose, self-giving, wounded but purposeful, sensitive but courageous, attracting our sympathy and support.
The liturgy was a complex cultural mix. For those who saw the task as one of reflecting multiculturalism, it was a triumph of adventurous eclecticism. If you were not moved by the synchronised dancing of a black Gospel choir there was Byzantine chant. If the Kyries sung in Welsh did not stir your soul, there was one of the most beautiful anthems William Byrd ever gave birth to.
And there were moments few of us would see more than once in a life time which touched the soul, the heart and the mind all at once. To hear the King praying out loud - the first time a monarch has prayed in such a way at his own coronation - added one more moment of authenticity to a liturgy that swirled with currents of multiple meanings.
To see the King kneel, in shriven mode, in preparation for anointing in a simplicity of dress that was in stark contrast to everything that surrounded him, provided another glimpse of the spiritual reality that underpinned all the other dimensions of the day.
And to see and almost feel the kiss that William placed on his cheek in filial fealty, infused with as much affection as it contained political and historical symbolism, will nest in the memory longer than most of the other images.
The depth of sacramental mystery (coronation was once suggested as an eighth sacrament) and mythically charged interweaving of music and word was sandwiched between pageant and populace.
The pageant had at its heart thousands of the most beautiful and elegant horses, all of them moving from walk, to dance and occasionally prance.
Wave on wave of equestrian beauty washed down the Mall and flowed towards the Thames passing Whitehall. It was impossible to hide the memories of a previous Charles being ushered out of a window on the platform of his execution on a more chilly January day. But on this day, the populace confined itself to booing Prince Andrew and cheering the alternative media royalty of the moment, for now Ant And Dec. The populace littered the pavements with its temporary tents, its umbrellas, and tea flasks, holding up toddlers and children to the cameras, the horses, the rain and each others’ mutual admiration.
As an antidote to the increasing brutality of urban life, the coronation was giving new birth to cheerful British civility. Instead of muggings, friendship groups morphed into being spontaneously on the pavements. People sang, danced, grimaced cheerfully in the rain and cheered at every opportunity.
For a moment the terrible tide of cultural and national self-hatred was halted and a more generous, trusting, celebratory, humble, brave and civic cheery courage was re-born.
Even the police, who on other days seemed unable to manage so many of the daily tasks of civic oversight a city requires, found the imagination and the will to get hold of a piece of advertising hoarding. They placed it strategically between the protestors and the road to curtail and contain the only bitter and furious people in the crowd. Die hard republicans could wave their yellow flags of protest, but behind the hoarding they could neither see the King and he could not see them. Their rage, confected or sincere, lacked the fuel of making other people miserable and so began to collapse and deflate deprived of a target.
It was a day steeped in the recovery of historical memory and infused with the discovery of new myths. Who could not delight in the President of the Privy Council offering herself as a re-born British Boadicea, Greek Athena or Arthurian Lady of the Lake, infusing the mythic choreography with her own competence and archetypal nobility? If the new lady bishops, garnished with lipstick and earrings, did not quite excite the imagination as much as might have been hoped, Penny Mordant embodied a more ancient commanding femininity, that entranced both those who watched from near, and those who gazed down the internet from afar. No personal political career can ever have piggy backed so successfully on a public event with such innocence and to such powerful effect.
Beyond the simple majesty of the king, the day had given us heroes and villains. Penny and Ant and Dec at one end of the scale, and the Princes, Harry and Andrew, who might in another age have been put in the tower, but for the moment have simply been sent to digital Coventry.
At the end of the day, a horizon filled with elegant troops cheered the King and Queen on the balcony. With the power of a precision that steered the whole proceedings, the earth shook with their raw acclamation. The King was seen to give a brief sigh. It was finished. The day of Coronation had come and was almost gone. May God save the King, and give him much sleep, refreshment and joy in his office. He has the prayers of his people.
<em>(Photo: Getty images) </em>
