Good morning and welcome to this, our special Coronation assembly. And this really is a special assembly. First and foremost, no one in this room has experienced a coronation in this country in their lifetime. Queen Elizabeth II was coronated in 1953, seventy years ago, and believe it or not none of us here is seventy years old. It may well be that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment for me, too, to lead such an assembly as a Head. Assuming I\u2019m a Head teacher until I retire, that leaves another 26 years, which means our King Charles III would be 99 when I finally give up – Not impossible that he\u2019ll still be serving as our Monarch at that point, when one considers the longevity in his ancestral line; and so, all things considered, I feel the pressure to say something of great import and authority on the eve of such a weighty occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s a tricky topic the coronation, precisely because it\u2019s such a vast and historic notion. And that\u2019s before you\u2019ve taken into account any of the economic, political or personal views which swirl around such events, as the coverage this weekend of whether or not we should be swearing allegiance to our new king attests. Whether you like it or not, the Royals are of fascination to us, dramatised for centuries from Shakespeare all the way to Netflix\u2019s The Crown, satirised for generations whether that be Spitting Image or The Windsors, and always guaranteed to sell newspapers with apparently scandalous revelations, whether that be about Edward VIII\u2019s abdication, the tragic demise of Princess Diana or, currently, the seemingly inexhaustible subject that is Meghan Markle. The Royals: they\u2019re everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So where to begin? Well, you could start with looking at Charles\u2019 nominative predecessors, namely Charles I and Charles II. Although, he may rather you didn\u2019t… the Historians amongst you will know that Charles I had a bit of a difficult time shall we say, ending as a result of the Civil War with his being tried, convicted and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was then abolished and the Commonwealth of England established as a republic. Not what one might call an unmitigated success. The monarchy was then restored to his son Charles II in 1660, though not until he\u2019d been given a good thumping by Cromwell and had to flee into exile. Famously hedonistic and known as the Merry Monarch, Charles II was very popular but perhaps had more in common with an adolescent Prince Harry than with his namesake Charles III in terms of temperament. And if I feel the weight of history in the writing of one brief assembly in a small corner of SW19, I can\u2019t imagine the weight of it upon the shoulders of Charles III. There is just so much incredible history and tradition associated with what\u2019s happening tomorrow. One of my favourite details is the fact that there is something called the Stone of Destiny \u2013 what a cool name \u2013 which legend has it has been used in coronations of kings Irish, Scottish and English, for centuries and which now resides in Edinburgh Castle \u2013 it\u2019s so famous it\u2019s been kidnapped before, back in the 50s \u2013 very rock<\/em> and roll \u2013 and now it\u2019s been transported back to Westminster under special guard to take its role in the coronation, and had its own special welcome ceremony in Westminster Abbey to make it feel at home, just like the rock <\/em>star it truly is…<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what\u2019s not to love about the Stone of Destiny? It\u2019s so, well, mad and wonderful. And this is the thing: we live in a land built on mad myth and wonderful legend, a land which rests on misty, ancient Celtic and Viking and Norse and Anglo-Saxon customs which have all been mixed up together and which don\u2019t make much sense if you analyse them too closely, but which I believe adds to our sense of who we are \u2013 a nation of story-tellers and believers in magic and custom and traditions brought in from all sorts of different peoples and lands \u2013 and so perhaps the Coronation, however we feel about it as an event, can represent that beautiful inter-woven tapestry of our country, which grows ever more diverse in the stories it contributes, and ever more magical as a result. It\u2019s easy \u2013 so very very easy \u2013 to approach events like the one tomorrow, indeed any form of tradition or ceremony, with cynicism, to tut about money spent and outmoded notions of nationalism. But I\u2019m going to try not to do that and I hope you\u2019ll try with me. I\u2019m going to try to appreciate and really understand the importance of occasion, of coming together, and of laying down markers in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To me, this is what we can be celebrating, whatever our views on monarchy; let\u2019s take the opportunity of the Coronation to pay attention to the stories of our past, look with optimism to those of our future, a future of many and different people coming together to celebrate our already interwoven narratives, and create more shared traditions and moments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good morning and welcome to this, our special Coronation assembly. And this really is a special assembly. First and foremost, no one in this room has experienced a coronation in this country in their lifetime. Queen Elizabeth II was coronated … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[36,68,47,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Having exhausted the historical angle, I unsurprisingly turned to a more literary perspective, and you may remember that at our memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II we looked at the quotation from Henry IV, Part 2: \u2018Heavy lies the head that wears the crown\u2019. Shakespeare understood and explored with such humanity the idea that kingship in all of its pomp and ceremony is first and foremost a responsibility, and a duty which can weigh heavily at times; and I do think about King Charles III, at 73 the oldest person to accede to the throne, having served the longest ever tenure as heir apparent and Prince of Wales in British History, taking up this responsibility at a time in his life when the rest of us are looking at winding down, drinking gin in the garden and revelling in having far less <\/em>responsibility than at any other point in life. It must be tiring, and strange, as well as exultant and exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n