Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Coronation Fashion: Crowns, Orbs & Pubic Wigs

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

From significantly sized cod-pieces to revenge dresses, the Royal family have used clothes to send a message to the public for centuries, and a coronation is one of the best opportunities to communicate what kind of king or queen you’re planning to be.King Charles III's coronation will be at Westminster Abbey, a place where monarchs have been crowned since 1066 - everyone from Henry VIII to Victoria.Today Kate is joined Betwixt the Sheets with Rosie Harte to talk coronations and royal fashion moments throughout history, including velvet robes and pubic hair wigs. Yes, you're reading that correctly.WARNING: There is adult content and explicit words in this episode.Senior producer: Charlotte Long. Mixed by Stuart Beckwith.Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Lovely betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. I am here to protect you, to protect your ears, to protect your virtue, to protect your moral core. This is your fair do's warning. Fair do's. If you are going to continue listening to this podcast,

then you need to know this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things, and you need to be an adult as well. So I don't actually think that we're being that rude today. We're talking about past coronations and what they would wear to them. Coronation fashion, coronation history. So I don't think it's the rudest one we've ever done, but I will probably be swearing,

and you just might not want to listen to that right now. And if that's the case, this is your chance to get out now while you still can. And if you stick around and you get offended, then tough tits, because you were warned. Greetings my royal betwixtus. That is my queen voice. going to do this whole introduction thing in it, but it's actually quite hard to maintain, so I'm not going to do that. I'm not sure that it was that good anyway. But instead, crack open the Bucks Fizz,

bring out the coronation chicken or the coronation keesh, is it that was supposed to be in, God almighty, if you are under the age of 70, it's likely you're about to live through your very first coronation in the UK. That, of course, is if we don't count all the winners who were crowned king or Queen of the Jungle in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, but this is a proper coronation, people. Charles will be crowned King Charles III in Westminster Abbey, a place where monarchs have been crowned since 1066. Everyone from Henry VIII to Victoria and Charlie will be following in their regal footsteps, nearly exactly 70 years to the day since his mother had her coronation. It is sad that the Queen didn't live to see her son be king, isn't it?

I think that that's sad. She would have liked that. But, stop talking nonsense, Kate. What will Charles be wearing? Hmm, what are you going to wear to a social event? It's always a tricky question, and if you're about to be made king,

I imagine it's quite a pertinent one. So what's he going to wear? And what's the history behind some of the traditional clothing and jewels that he'll be adorned with? Today, we are talking coronation fashion. And we'll be talking about everything from velvet robes, crowns and ermine to pubic wigs. Yes, you did hear that right, pubic wigs. We spoil you on this podcast. We really do. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise

when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect coppence of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and putting it on. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, a beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Jerry. And welcome back to Petwix's. And welcome back to the sheets, the history of sex scandal in society. With me, Kate Lister. From revenge dresses to, well, amply endowed cod pieces to military uniform, the royal family have used clothes to send a message to the public for centuries. The message is mostly, I am very, very rich. But the coronation is one of the most important opportunities to communicate what kind of king or queen you're planning to be. A rich one. They're planning to be a really, really rich one.

Today I am talking to fashion historian and TikToka extraordinaire Rosie Hart about some of the extravagant and notable coronations throughout history, as well as some of the iconic royal outfit moments too. And we'll be doing our best to try and decode what kind of messages are being communicated towards mere mortals in what the royals decide to put on their backs. Imaginary crowns on, kids, we are going in. Welcome to Bertwix the Sheets. It's only Rosie Hart. How are you? you. Hi, hello, I'm good, thank you. You are the perfect person to talk to with the impending coronation looming because you study the history of royal fashion. Yes, I do, so it's a very exciting time for me. Time to shine. What was it that made you really attracted to this as a subject of history? I mean, it's innately fascinating, but what was it that drew you to it?

The less studious answer is that I've got a magpie brain and anything that sparkle. So it fascinates me. But I love fashion history. It's the thing that when I began, so my career as a looking at history and as a historian, fashion history was the thing that allowed me to connect with the people and the times that I was looking at.

It's something that's so incredibly personal to pretty much everyone throughout history and you can pick up so much about how people viewed themselves and how they wanted to be viewed. And that's amped up to the max when it comes to royals throughout history. They obviously have all the money and the resources to dress how they'd like,

but also they have all these eyes on them all the time and they need to put out these messages. So it's so fun. It's sort of like studying another language and trying to see what you can tease out from their clothes. That's so true, isn't it? Apart from Hollywood movie actors walking down the red carpet, I can't think of another group of people

who are so subjected to, were going to obsess about what they wear as royalty. Yeah, and that's really not changed a lot throughout history. Even now when some members of the royal family, we don't necessarily associate them with style historically. Delicably put, Rosie. It was the royals who were setting the trends and people look to them for inspiration.

So it's really fascinating to get lost in their wardrobes. I suppose you've got several different fashions all going on at the same time. A crown isn't fashion. is it? I mean, if I could afford one, fuck what anyone else thought. I'd just be wearing that down Tesco. That would be amazing. But they're not fashionable and like the robes that Charlie Boy is going to have to wear when he's sitting on the throne and all the sceptor stuff. So there's this weight of historical importance and tradition. But then also we will obsess what they're wearing in day to day life. Like how many column inches are filled with, oh my God, Megan Markle is wearing

this colour sock or endless, isn't it? Yeah. And I think that's sort of part of the of their power, especially for the women in the family, as if they play their cards right and they pick an outfit that's going to end up in the newspapers, in magazines, they can use it to sort of direct attention towards the things that they want to bring attention to and also to direct attention away from the things that they maybe don't want people to pay attention to. So it's just as important for the modern royals as it would have been for Henry the 8th and Elizabeth I first. Wow. I always think that like, let's not filter too sorry for them. They've got billions of pounds in castles. But I do often think that the pressure

that they must be under, I feel a pressure choosing an outfit to go into work, let alone something that's going to be photographed and obsessed over. I remember reading so many articles about what the queen was wearing and what she must have secretly meant to say to Donald Trump by wearing this particular outfit. Yeah, I think they've really backed themselves into a corner almost. They've had hundreds and hundreds of years of getting people used to the idea of, oh, you can look at the royals and you can look into what they're wearing and you'll see signs of favour for political parties or you'll see their religious views that we still almost subconsciously have that view of the royals that we can read into every single detail of what they wear and they can't

just stop because we'll keep reading into what they wear and they might send a message they don't necessarily want to send so they're sort of stuck with this in a way that other people and other celebrities and other public figures aren't. I mean, if you were a royal, wouldn't you just kind of like fuck around with that a little bit? Just like wear different coloured shoes. And it means nothing, but it's just to see what people do with it or like a neon hanky coming out of a pocket or something like that, just to see what they made of it. Yeah, you hear it all the time in the newspapers about Kate breaking protocol or

Megan breaking protocol. And we don't actually know if any of these are protocol or whether it's just we've never seen royals do this before. And it must be so annoying, every single piece of jewelry or whether you paint your nails, having it scrutinized. So we're talking about the history, what's led up to this stuff. What are some of your notable, fashionable royals? Because as you said, they've all been picked over, they've all been subjected to this.

But as the history of the British monarchy, do you have a fashion favourite? Well, I always say there's two different types of fashionable monarch. There's the royals who really love fashion. and so they're fashionable in that sense. So people like Henry VIII, he had a very well-documented love of fashion, and he took pride in the fact that everything he wore was the cutting edge.

In more recent years, we have Edward VIII, very controversial figure, but considered the most stylish man of his time. He also took a lot of interest in what he wore. So there's that kind of fashionable. And then there's royals who know how, important clothes can be and are sort of doing it out of a sense of duty and being fashionable out of a sense of duty. So you have Queen Victoria who knew that clothes were important but

wasn't particularly interested in what the latest fashions from France were and what was being worn in magazines and in balls in high society. So you have two very different approaches to being a fashionable royal. What is Charles going to be wearing on his day of? coronation. And where does this come from? I'm going to say if memory serves, I've never seen a coronation before, but I'm going to imagine it's the big long cloak affair with the furry trim and there will definitely be a crown involved. But do you know what he's going to be wearing and where that came from? Well, we've had a few things that have been confirmed by the palace. But obviously it's been a very long time since we've had a coronation. And the role of the monarchy

in the country, in the world has changed a lot since then. And one of the role of the role of a coronation is to touch base. It's a moment for the royal family to say, this is how we see ourselves, this is what we think our role is. So a lot of stuff could have changed. We could see a lot of traditional elements disappear. But if Charles follows tradition, yes, will have his big velvet robes. He'll actually get two. The first one he'll wear is the robe of state, which is red velvet, and it's lined with ermine fur, which is that regal black and white spotty fur. And that's sometimes called the Parliament robes because the monarch usually wears that every year at the state's opening of Parliament. And he'll take that off before he's crowned.

And when he's actually crowned, he'll be wearing, it's like an ecclesiastical outfit, basically, which is made up with the super tunica, which is a big gold belted coat. And on top of that, the imperial mantle, which is a gold cloak. And then once all of that's done, he'll go to the back of the abbey and he'll change into his second robe, which is the robe of estate, which is the purple one. Backup robe. Yes, and that's a really elaborate one. It's usually covered in gold embroidery and it's only ever worn for the coronation. So that's a big showstopper. Oh, nice. Do you know where they came from these things? Like, how old are they? Do they get made new? No, they wouldn't, would they? This would be like a vintage bit? Well, the velvet robes are usually remade. The embroidery is

done by the Royal School of Needlework, which is at Hampton Court Palace. And because the design is different for kings and for queens, for queens, it's the shoulder and very slender, and for kings, it wraps the full way round. They probably will need to make a new one for Charles, but the gold robes that worn for the actual crowning. The supertunica, I think, dates back to 1911 and the Imperial mantle dates back to 1821. So that was for George the 4th's coronation. So they are pretty old, but the precedent for robe of state, robe of estate and the super tunica and all of that, they have their roots in the medieval version of the coronation. And what about crowns? Is there one crown or does you get to pick a crown?

Well, we know that Charles is going to use two crowns for the coronation, which is what's usually done. He's going to use the crown of St. Edward, which is the very, very heavy gold crown. And that's the one that he'll use when he's crowned officially. And that's how it's usually used. It's not ever worn again by the monarch. And then at the end, he'll switch his crown and he'll have the imperial state crown, which is the famous, very sparkly silver one with lots of big historical stones in, some of which are quite controversial. But yes, he'll get two. And lots of monarchs, particularly the older monarchs, have chosen not to use St. Edward's Crown because it's so, so incredibly heavy.

They often struggle to keep their head up. But Charles has decided he's not going to let age stop him and he is going to be up for the challenge and try and wear it. And the whole scepter and orb thing, that will be there as well? Yeah, that's just been confirmed that we'll have full regalia, at least for the king. We're not sure yet about the queen consort, but we'll have to see. What do they represent the scepter and the op? Apart from I've got fucking loads of money. What do they mean?

Well, they take us back to the early meaning of the coronation, where it's a moment when, historically, it was believed that God placed the monarchs on earth as his hand on earth. The coronation is supposed to symbolise the moment that the monarch takes on that holy responsibility. So the orb and the scepter represent the religious power of the monarch, and the religious element of being a king or a queen, as well as also things like justice and power is the main one. Most of the symbols in the coronation and most of the pieces used in the coronation link back to power and religion.

Is there going to be any sense that because we're in a cost of living crisis and the austerity and all the rest of it, that they might tone it down a little bit. They might use, I don't know, fake fur instead of ermine fur, or the crown might be cold-plated, Or are they just going to go full out, we're royals? Or is there any sense that they're going to try and just downplay this a little bit? I think so.

I think we can expect it to be not quite as lavish as Elizabeth II's coronation was. There's not been complete confirmation about what's going to be worn by the guests and other members of the royal family. But it sounds like it's going to be a little bit more like a royal wedding than a coronation where traditionally the guests would turn up in these big court. dresses with tiaras and coronets. And the crowns, nothing needs to be commissioned for them. They're just sort of resized to fit Charles's head.

But yes, I do think we can expect to see things stripped back a bit. And I think it's not just about the cost of living crisis, but also the fact that the role of the monarchy has changed. It's become a lot more about duty. Over the last hundred years, we've seen like a real move away from, We rule over you to we serve the country. And that doesn't really fit with, we're sat here and all of us, the aristocracy and our tiaras and our robes and everything. There's a real clash there.

So I think we can't expect to see that tone down. That's definitely not something that monarchs of the past would have troubled themselves about even a tiny bit. One of my favourite bad boy royals. I'm sure if I met him in real life, I think he was an absolute dick and I just want to punch him. George VIII. He liked fashion. There's no way that he would have thought I better tone down my coronation because I don't seem too imposing here, would he? Well, I think that George the Fourth coronation is such like a fascinating moment in royal history. I think it's one of the most interesting coronations is there's almost a lot of similarities with our current situation. He comes to the throne after his father had reigned the longest out of any monarch at the time.

So he's been waiting a very long time. He's been very patient. He suddenly comes to the throne at a time when England is not doing too well financially. they've been dealing with a war with France, that has hit them quite badly. So people aren't super enthused about the idea of a massive coronation, but he decides, you know, he's waited long enough and he's going to blow it out of the water. And he spends about £230,000 on his coronation, which was the most expensive coronation at that time and was over 20 million in today's. Holy shit.

It was quite a lavish affair. He instructed all of the guests to turn up. up in Tudor and Stuart inspired clothes. He studies coronations from history and other coronations of other royals reigning at the same time as him to make sure that he upstages everyone. So it's obscenely lavish. But the really interesting thing is, about a decade later when his brother comes to the throne, William IV, he takes the complete opposite approach. He's old. He's not particularly enthused about ceremony and pageantry. He realizes that the country is a little bit bored with the royals guzzling money and sort of having these lavish pageants. And so

he tries to avoid having a coronation. He says there's not really a point. And he thinks, you know, I can just turn up, I'll do the state opening of parliament in my crown and my robes and that will do the job for me. He's eventually convinced that there's a bit more more to it than just wearing a crown and there's the anointing, there's constitutional issues involved. So he agrees that he will have a coronation. But he says he will only do it so long as there is a budget cap of £30,000, which is about £3 million. So it's a tiny fraction of what his brother had spent on his coronation. So it's this huge change. So there have been times historically when Royals have attempted to stick their feeders out, have a look at how the country is feeling and then

respond accordingly. So it wouldn't be completely foreign. I'll be back with Rosie after this short break. If you are enjoying my chat with Rosie about royal history, and if you come this far, I'm going to assume that you are, then you might also enjoy history hit. It's like Netflix for history, with new documentaries and podcasts that are all ad-free, by the way, being released every single week and there is loads on Royal History. We have got a special code which gives you 60% off for your first six months. 60% off. Just use the promo code,

Royal Wardrobe! And I'm shouting that because it all has to be in capitals. Royal Wardrobe at the checkout. One more time, that's Royal Wardrobe! For 60% off your first six months at History Hit. What did George IV, who wasn't concerned with any of this, What does he wear for his coronation? Well, the first thing that I love telling people is that he wore a corset for his coronation.

He was a larger gentleman. He was also quite vain. I didn't really like the fact that he wasn't as trim as his friends, particularly as he got older. So he began wearing corsets that were so incredibly tight. And his coronation was in the summer. It was very warm. And he nearly fainted on the way to the Abbey because he sort of cinched into the girdle. His robes were very, very different. He had looked to the Bourbon Royals, so the French

Royals and Napoleon for inspiration for his coronation robes. And so his robes are more like a regaled tabard. I don't know how much he would appreciate me calling it that, but it looks very different to what everybody else wore. And then if you look at what his brother wore, William, at his stripped back coronation, he was the first royal to just wear uniform. He wore his his naval uniform and then the robes over the top, which is what we could potentially see Charles wearing this time round. If I remember correctly, George banned his wife from his coronation, which is a nice touch, I think.

Yeah, that was very controversial. Caroline, his wife, there's a brilliant quote that she said about her husband saying that he would have made a brilliant wig maker or dressmaker, not much else. And that's sadly quite true. He wasn't a particularly successful monarch. She wasn't allowed into the coronation. She did write to him and say, oh, what should I be wearing to our coronation?

He didn't respond. So she turned up on the day and was turned away at the doors and it was quite embarrassing for her. Oh, my God. I know that he's an absolute shit, but I can't help but admire just the audacity and the ridiculous pettiness of it. You mentioned Elizabeth the first there,

that she had a really elaborate coronation. What did she go for? If I remember correctly, she had a hair loose, which was supposed to be a symbol of virginity. Yes, and also at that time, it was expected for married women and also older women. As you were getting into your 20s, you were expected to cover your hair for the sake of modesty,

but Elizabeth chose not to. So that was a really big statement, setting the tone of how she wanted to be seen. But one of the things I find really fascinating about Elizabeth's coronation was that she wore, the coronation dress of her half-sister, Queen Mary. So she recycled her dress. She knew that the royal purse strings were quite tight,

and she needed to make it look like the coronation was grand and lavish, but not damage the finances. So she had the dress that her half-sister wore, and she had it tailored to make it more form-fitting, a little bit more modern, she sort of revamped it, and that's what she wore for her coronation, which is, I think, very interesting. Wow.

You sure that's not like a bit of a flex between sisters of like, I'll wear the dress, but it'll have to have it taken in. It'll just swamp me. Yeah, well, Mary had gone from much more traditional coronation. So her robes were very loose-fitting, medieval rose. But Elizabeth, she was a little bit more savvy when it came to style and fashion. She knew she wanted something that looked more like a contemporary dress. Another monarch that's big in the annals of royal fashion history

has got to be Charles II, the merry monarch, with all of his wigs and his silk stockings and all of this. I mean, he liked dress up, didn't he? Yes, he did. Well, he's credited with introducing the primitive three-piece suit during his reign. Really? So when he came to the throne, the basic makeup of a man's outfit would have been a doublet and hose,

which is sort of like big baggy breeches. But these could get extremely elaborate. Men used to cover them with ribbons and excess fabric. And they were incredibly expensive. And Charles looked at his court and looked at how ridiculous everyone looked. And when enough's enough, I'm going to create a new style of dress that is going to be designed to teach the aristocracy thrift and how to dress appropriately.

And so he creates this style of dress. vest, which we would call a waistcoat, a jacket and breeches combination, which would go on to become the three-piece suits. But my absolute favourite fact about Charles II is about his wigs and one particular wig. At the time, it was very popular for men to have these incredibly long, full, curly wigs. And if you were rich, you would have your wig sourced from other people's hair. There is a legend about Charles II that says that he made himself a wig out of the pubic hair of his many, many mistresses. Well, that'd be a big wig. Yes, and it's incredibly ridiculous story that spans generations.

The story goes, it was passed down through this family as the holy relic. And in the 1770s, one of the Earl's descendants founded a drinking club. called the wig club, which was dedicated to this wig. And all of these aristocratic men would come together and they would drink and be merry and talk about sex. And they would pay homage to this old pubic hair wig. And part of the initiation ritual for this cult, basically, was to put the wig on, down a pint from tankard that was shaped like a penis and vow to add to the wig with pubic hair. that you procured when you were on your sexual progress. So these men were adding to this already very old, I imagine quite smelly wig, and they revered it. And then, going back to George

the fourth, when he made his famous trip to Scotland at the start of his reign, he heard about this wig and he heard about the club. So he paid it a visit and decided that he wanted a new wig to be made that he was going to start. So he gave the wig club a little snuff box filled with a few ginger pews that he had managed to procure from some mistress or another in the hopes that they would start a new wig. They never did, but it's just this absolutely bizarre story. And you can go and see this snuff box. It actually exists. It's in the Museum of St. Andrews University. Is that right? Yeah. And you can see the box that the... pubic hair wig was kept in, but that has since gone missing. It was last seen in a lawyer's office

in Edinburgh in the 1930s. So presumably in some office storage cupboard somewhere, there is a pubic hair wig that belonged to King Charles II. Do we know if it's actually real? Is it like the mythology thing? Have we got any document evidence of it apart from just people talking about it and making clubs about it? Well, we know that there was a wig that the wig club had and that they revered. So we know that there was a wig that existed and was in this box, but it's quite possible that it wasn't actually linked to Charles a second. It's very possible that it was created by the wig club so that they would have something that would tether their interests in sex and everything taboo to something lofty like a royal pen. patron such as Charles II but we know that this wig

exists and it would be very fascinating if we ever found it to I don't know study it, see if we can figure out if it really is pubs and if it goes back that far be very interesting. Imagine if it turned upon the Antiques Roadshow. That would be an episode that I would be amazing.

I'm going to complete 180 now from pubic hair wigs to Queen Victoria to a saucier than people think but I don't think that she would have collected pubic I could be wrong on that one. But her coronation was a big deal. And she was a fashion trend. We did an episode about the history of wedding dresses

and her wedding dress was hugely influential. Was that the same about her coronation outfit? Her coronation outfit was very traditional. Her whole coronation was intended to be this middle ground between George the 4th's coronation and William the 4th's coronation. So it was supposed to be very average, very traditional, not rock the boat in any way. and that's really what it did.

One of the things I find quite interesting was that her velvet robes were inspired by paintings of Anne Berlin and Henry the 8th's wives. So they have these lovely cascading sleeves, and they're very regal looking. And we've never seen that make a return. They've stayed as capes from then on. But her coronation was intended to sort of calm everybody down

about the monarchy and wipe the slate clean, and shove all the controversy of the Georges and the Hanberian Royals, sort of shove it to one side and move on. And it did a very, very good job of doing that. Bringing it up to modern-day royals, I've just been sat here trying to think of really infamous royal outfits. I mean, apart from your coronation things, and the only one that keeps coming up is Diana's so-called revenge dress.

That's made a big cultural impact, hasn't it? Yes. I think it's probably one of the most famous royal outfits of all time. if not one of the most famous dresses in all of fashion history. It illustrates what I was saying earlier about how modern royals can use their fashion to divert people's attention. And that was the whole point of the revenge dress. It was being warm the same night that Charles was doing his sort of shocking interview where he admits to being unfaithful.

And Diana knew that this was going to hit the headlines. And it was going to be really quite painful for her, probably quite embarrassing too. And so she knew that she needed to figure out a way to take back control of the narrative. And after Diana separated from Charles, she, even though we think of her as this fashion icon, she became a lot less interested in fashion and she wanted it to take a backseat and be not the most important thing about her. She wanted to show that she could hold her own outside of the royal family.

and as an independent person with her own interests and charity. But she knew she needed to play the game one last time with this outfit, with this event that she was going to. So she pulled this dress out, which wasn't the original dress that she planned to wear for this royal engagement. She had actually bought the revenge dress a few years before, but had decided, you know, it's got to go in the cupboard at the back of wardrobe. It can't ever be worn.

It's not royal. It's short. It's sexy. And that's not what people expect from royals. So she'd forgotten about it until this night. And she thought, you know, this is the one. And she 100% knew that this was going to cause a commotion because she had one of her ladies in waiting,

telephoned the serpentine gallery in advance, which was where she was going to wear this dress. She telephoned them in advance to say, we've changed the outfit that she's going to wear. And it's going to be different. It's going to be a bit shocking and it's going to be all over the papers. Just brace yourself. So she turns up in this chic, sexy black dress.

She's wearing heels, which she hardly ever did when she was in the royal family. She was an incredibly tall woman and Charles not so much. She was a little bit shorter and I think there was a little bit of height insecurity there. So she often wore flats as a working royal. So this was her completely tearing up the rulebook and making a really big statement that she is her own person. She's doing her own engagements. She's on her own path. She's completely separate from the royal family.

And of course, the next day, all anyone in the newspapers could talk about was how incredible Diana looked. And I can't remember the exact headline, but it's something like the thriller he left for Camilla or something like that was the big. famous headline from the time, but it completely took away the power from Charles in that situation. That's exactly what the royals do, even today, is they use their clothes to steer people's attention in certain directions. It's such an iconic dress, and it aged very well. I feel like anyone would be happy to wear a dress like that today. Absolutely. Rosie, final question. If you were put in charge of Charlie's coronation, If they came to you and said, right, Rosie Hart, you've written a book on the history of royal fashion,

and we want you to dress the king for this. What would you do? In my heart, I would want to go the whole hog. I would be in my George IV mindset, and I would go completely elaborate and crazy. I'd love to see something like that. But realistically, I think if the royal family want to come through the coronation celebrations unscathed, they do need to strip it right back. which is a really difficult task because you can have the guests dressed in morning dress and day dresses and things like that. But then at the end of the day, you've still got to put a priceless crown on the king's head.

You're still the king, aren't you? Exactly. I think it's going to be quite jarring whatever happens. But I would definitely take a more measured approach. I would look back at what William IV did. I'd point them in his direction and say, this is the guy you need to copy because he did something right. Rosie, you have been so much fun to talk to. And if people want to know more about you and your research, where can they find you? You can find me on TikTok. My account is The Royal Wardrobe. You can also find me on Instagram and my account is Rosie H. Hart. You can also read my book, The Royal Wardrobe, which comes out in June in the UK and September in the US, where you can see me talk about over 500 years of royal fashion history.

Amazing. Oh, Rosie, thank you so much for joining me today. You have just been perfect. Oh, thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please do followers and reviewers, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. I promise we do read all of the reviews. And if there's a topic you'd like us to explore, or just something that you want to share with us, maybe you've just had a few gyms and some Coronation Keish and you just want to say hello. in which case you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. Until next time, my lovely betwixters. This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sounds.