The Rest Is History - 329: Coronations: Chaos, Ceremony and Empire

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

What was the most calamitous coronation of all time? Which ceremony does Tom think is the most boring topic he's ever discussed on the podcast? How will Charles III's big day compare to that of his ancestors? In the third and final episode, Tom and Dominic answer all these questions as they explore the most recent coronations in British history. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory. all eyes to the throne. Suddenly two or three run, others fall back. Some talk, direct, hurry, stand still or disappear. Then three or four of high rank appear from behind the throne. An interval is left. The crowd scarce breathe.

Something rustles, and a being buried in satin, feathers, and diamonds rolls gracefully into his seat. The room rises with a sort of feathered silken thunder. Plumes wave, eyes sparkle, glasses are out, mouths smile, and one man becomes the prime object of attraction to thousands. The way in which the king bowed was monarchic. As he looked towards the peeresses and foreign ambassadors, he looked like some gorgeous bird of the East. So that, Dominic, was a description by the painter Benjamin Robert Hayden of George IV entering Westminster Abbey for his coronation, with very much an emphasis on the rolling.

Yes. Because he was a very large gentleman, wasn't he? He was a man of size. And I've read that from Roy Strong's book, Coronation, A History of Kingship in the British Monarchy. And it actually has George IV on the cover. He's got a train. I think he's wearing a kind of cloak modelled on Napoleon's.

Only designed to be even bigger and better. And there are eight people carrying it. His coronation was an absolutely splendid occasion, Tom. It was simultaneously vulgar and shambolic, wasn't it? It was. And incredibly, incredibly expensive. Yes. So all themes that we will be exploring over this the final episode of

our tour through coronations um and in the the second episode we finished with um the last of the stewarts and dying and she is succeeded by george the first who is the um who comes from hanover yeah and he's chosen basically for one reason and one reason only, namely that he's not Catholic. Exactly. He's a Protestant. So he doesn't really even speak English, which as we shall see- Leads to complications. Leads to complications of the coronation.

So in that very first episode, Tom, you did that brilliant bit of historical kind of detective work, uncovering the sort of Christian roots, the roots in the Old Testament, paganism, Anglo-Saxon kings, the Carolingians, Charlemagne. And you made coronation seem deeply important and powerful. Beating sacral heart of a kingdom. Right. But when you get to the Hanoverians... It all gets tits up. Well, yeah, it's just... There's just a series of... I mean, one of them is actually very good, I think, George II. The others are ludicrous in all kinds of entertaining ways.

There's a sense in which they don't understand really what's going on, isn't there? Yeah. Well, George I literally doesn't understand what's going on, because he's German and he doesn't really speak English. So basically, he had become king on the 1st of August 1714 because that's when Queen Anne had died. And that had been preceded by all kinds of political jostling. Are the Hanoverians going to come in? Is it more important to have a very remote Protestant relative than to go to the Catholic Stuarts or Jacobites? They basically decide, fine, we'll get George over. He pitches up in September, and then he's crowned in October.

So because he doesn't speak any English, they agree that they'll go back to doing it in Latin, so that actually he will have some vague sense of what is going on. And so this is the first time since Elizabeth, isn't it? Since Elizabeth, exactly. What's slightly shambolic is that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Tennyson, he's 78 and he's completely doddery and inept. So adding to the fun. Everything goes wrong. A bit like what we talked about, James I came down from Scotland, huge security because

people are worried about ructions. So there's huge security this time. And actually the bishops of Bath and wells and durham who you talked about i think in the first or second episode has always been key figures they they're not able to get to the king's canopy where he's meant to be because there's too many soldiers around who sort of push them out of the way and stuff what would say dunstan say well so dunstan would not be impressed no um there's a point at which actually if it's the last coronation in which the Archbishop of Canterbury asks the congregation sort of formulaically, do you accept this man as your new king? And one of the people there is a woman called Catherine Sedley, who is the former

mistress of James II, and she's renowned as a great wit. And she says, when the Archbishop asks this question, she apparently said in a very loud voice, does that old fool think that anyone here will say no to his question when there are so many drawn swords? So it's very much a sort of cross between the coronation and a kind of armed camp. And actually, the drawn swords are completely understandable because this is the year of the great coronation riots. So in at least 20 towns across England, largely in the South and the West. So in other words, those parts of the country that actually had been pretty royalist in the Civil War, if you look at the map. The Coronation Day sees tremendous riots by sort of Tory mobs.

It's fair to say. If you can imagine a Tory mob. High church mobs, Tom. So I know we have a lot of vicars and people of the cloth who listen to this podcast drawn by your work on Christianity. And we also have at least one listener

to this podcast who lambasts us on Twitter whenever he suspects us of wiggery or of low church sentiments or any tolerance of dissent or any of these kinds of things. So they would have been out rioting? They absolutely would have been out rioting because there had recently been a huge hullabaloo, one of the great political controversies in all British history, about a man called Henry Sir Cheverell,

who had given this sermon in which he dissed dissenters and low church people. And he'd been impeached by the House of Commons. And this had been the single biggest issue in the general election of 1710. Great days. Great days. Great days. So the mobs pour onto the streets on Coronation Day. In Bristol, they shout,

Sir Cheverell and the Duke of Ormond and damn all foreigners. Great slogans. In Taunton, Church and Dr. Sir Cheverell. In Birmingham, Tom, I know you're an Aston Villa supporter, they chant, kill the old rogue, by which they mean George I, kill them all, Sir Cheverell forever. In Tewkesbury, Sir Cheverell forever, down with the roundheads. Great stuff.

All this sort of stuff. So there's a lot of trouble. There's not enough troops to kind of suppress it. So the mobs kind of rage, rampage, unchecked. But that's a good coronation tradition, going back at least to the time of William the Conqueror. You'd like to see, well, yes. Well, except in William the Conqueror,

the mob, I mean, there are lots of soldiers who do a lot of damage, aren't there? I mean, every side could join. Because presumably there are people who are very keen on George I as well. Whigs. Yes. You know, he's saving Britain from the maxims of French tyranny and the principles of Popish superstition.

I suppose. So there's also the whole issue of maypoles. So the maypole is regarded by this point as a symbol of Jacobitism, of incipient Jacobitism. That's a great shame, isn't it? Because... Because it should be a symbol of merry England. Well, you see, this is the thing. It's seen as a symbol of merry England.

And people say, oh, the roundheads hated maypoles in the 1650s. And the Whigs, if they're not challenged, they will eventually get rid of maypoles. And George I is merely a Trojan horse for anti-maypolism. It's for anti-fun. Exactly. Exactly. So people are still shouting and rampaging about. And in Bedford, they actually dress the maypole in mourning in black.

Do you know, I love Hanoverian England. All of this stuff. Well, it's, they actually dress the Maypole in mourning in black. Do you know, I love Hanoverian England. All of this stuff. Well, it's all these memories of the Civil War. Yeah. I mean, the fact that people are going and rioting, shouting about

high church forever. The thing I liked about George I as someone who's recently become a Scottish landowner. Yeah. Inherited this tiny little place outside Berwick-on-Tweed.

I'm glad you described it because whenever you say you've become a Scottish landowner, I imagine a lot of people unsubscribing in horror. Owning Ben Nevis or something. No, it's a little crofter's cottage on the banks of the Tweed. And he was crowned as king of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, the Dominion of Wales, and the town of Berwick-on-Tweed.

It's a separate entity. It's a separate entity. Very good. Very good. That's good. So this rioting, actually, it then flares up again in 1715, a year later at the general election, which is won by the Whigs, and they then pass the Riot Act.

So the phrase that's very common. Ah, okay, so read the Riot Act. To read the Riot Act is that the troops would read it out, or somebody, a magistrate or whatever, would read it out to people if they don't disperse. Well, there you go. The Whigs stopping innocent people from having fun. Cracking down on rioting.

Right, exactly. So that's George I's coronation. The coronation itself is a slight, it's not that exciting compared with the rioting. George II's coronation. That's splendid, isn't it? Because that's the handle one. That's the Zadok the priest one. Exactly, exactly.

So George II's coronation, I think, is actually a real high point of coronations. It's the handle one. Exactly. Exactly. So George II's coronation, I think, is actually a real high point of coronations. It actually goes well. Nothing goes chaotically wrong. Doesn't his queen wear a spectacularly

ornamented dress? She does with jewels. With jewels. So many jewels that they have to lift her up by a pulley when she kneels down. Yeah.

So she's kind of weighed down by the weight of rubies or whatever. It'd be nice to see that at the king's, wouldn't it? That would very would answer the critics of she's also given we know that her mistress of the robes had a handkerchief to wipe off any oil that might foil and fall on her face so that suggests to me that at this point in the anointing they're slightly more concerned about its sartorial implications yeah and they are about the sacral quality. Well, because it must be really difficult because essentially as Protestants who are

also very, you know, the spirit of enlightenment is going on. It's all that kind of thing. I mean, it must be very weird that these rituals are still carrying, still being done. Also, there's a lot of German blood in this coronation and they're very practical people, the Germans. They are, aren't they? Hence the provision of handkerchiefs. Also, hence the provision, at this point,

putting aside seats in Westminster Abbey for people to sell wine and coffee during the ceremony. And do you think kind of portable toilets? There are toilets put aside, and toilets will become an issue later in this podcast, Tom, you'll be pleased to hear. Amazing. I'll tell you who's still around at this coronation

and gets a laugh from the crowd. Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. So the former favourite of Queen Anne. She's still around. The procession goes on a very long time and it's very boring apparently. So she took a drum from one of the drummers and sat on it. And people said, oh, that's the wife of the Duke of Marlborough. And they all cheered and laughed and thought this was hilarious. QA would have enjoyed that, wouldn't he? He would, yeah. And there, Sarah Churchill, elegant Duchess of Posteria. Exactly. So we know that actually this was an impressive occasion because there was a Swiss traveler called César de Souciere. And he went to a lot of this and reported on it.

How come? Did he buy a ticket? Are they selling tickets? Well, they do sell tickets. They sell tickets to the banquet. Oh, but not to the ceremony in the Abbey? No, not to the ceremony. He was very impressed by the banquet.

He said the chandeliers were very good. He said there's a hereditary champion. We haven't talked about the king's champion. The champion always comes in on horseback during the banquet in full armour. And this Swiss fellow thought this was absolutely brilliant. Well, it would be, wouldn't it? I'm amazed that Charles hasn't brought that back.

Yeah, that would be fantastic. He loves a retro stunt stump doesn't he charles is very keen on the music and this is the musical coronation because handle had been brought over under george i uh one of the george i's last bits of legislation was an act to naturalize handle as a british citizen so handle is given the job of writing the music. He has four weeks to do it, and he writes Zadok the Priest, which is the Champions League anthem, or the genesis thereof, that we started our series with. And everybody immediately thinks it's brilliant.

The only thing that goes wrong is that actually at the coronation, the choir sang Zadok the Priest at the wrong point. They'd gotten a terrible muddle with it and they'd sung the wrong words at one point and done some anthem and forgotten to do the end. So they sing this at the wrong point. But apart from that, it's brilliant. Wasn't there a problem with the choir boys as well, that their voices kept breaking in the rehearsal? Oh no. So they had to cut, you know, kind of hurling fresh choir boys in to take them places.

Right. But the sense I get is that it's a kind of cycle of shambolic, expertly organised, shambolic, expertly organised. And so it goes on. Well, I think we've got two shambolics in a row, actually. George III is... George III is an idea. An absolute idea. Well, George IV is pretty bad.

George III is an idea. So they set up 1761. They're learning from, what is it, about 30 years, just over 30 years since George II's coronation. They do the same. They're going to have a big banquet in Westminster Hall. They've got partitions. They've got a sluice, and I quote,

for the reception of urinary discharges. They've got, they sort out galleries and stuff in Westminster Abbey. However, everything else is rubbish and totally shambolically and disastrously organised. So to start with, crowds are too big and there are too many people trying to get to Westminster Abbey in carriages and there's a carriage jam outside Westminster Abbey. So they can't, people can't get into the Abbey. Everything is massively delayed. They finally get into the Abbey, and the person who is organizing it, who is, what's his name?

The Earl of Effingham, I think it is, or something of Effingham. They're aptly named. He's forgotten loads of the stuff. He's forgotten the thrones, hasn't he? He's forgotten, yeah, there's nowhere for the king and queen to sit. He's forgotten the sword of state, so they have to borrow a sword, a random sword from the Lord Mayor of London. The canopy is a big deal for people in 18th century coronations.

They've forgotten the canopy, so they have to sort of try and cobble something together with a bit of cloth and some sticks. So this obviously looks awful, looks rubbish. The crowds are so thick, they're sort of pressing down. There's not enough troops to hold back the crowds. So the troops are having to beat back the crowds with the flats of their swords and the butts of their muskets. So this is obviously not very, you know, it's not the sort of spirit of jollity.

It's not sacral at all. I mean, to have forgotten the thrones is ludicrous behaviour. All the spectators who write accounts. So whereas the Swiss fellow said, brilliant, 1727, people now say they talk of always confusion, irregularity and disorder. There's a lawyer, isn't there? William Hickey. Oh, right.

Yes, it's William Hickey there. Yeah. Who gives his account of the anointing. Yeah. It's very funny. As many thousands were out of the possibility of hearing a single syllable, they took that opportunity to eat their meal when the general clattering of knives, forks, plates, and glasses that ensued produced a most ridiculous effect and a universal bout of laughter for them.

That's right. They've all brought in picnics. People have all brought in picnics. I think this reflects very well on Hanoverian Britain. On pies and stuff. Well, it seems they're either rioting or picnicking. I mean, that's exactly how I think of the 18th century. They keep having to stop because nobody knows what's meant to happen.

What to do. So at one point, the king's meant to take communion, and he doesn't know whether he should wear his crown or not. But they obviously haven't been rehearsing enough. No, they've done no rehearsal. So here's where you've got a toilet issue. They've set up a special toilet, which they call the retiring chamber,

for the Queen to use behind the high altar instead of the chapel. When she gets there... What goes wrong? She sneaks off to go to the loo. When she gets there, she finds the Duke of Newcastle. It's like a man who's using the ladies. You know, that kind of... The Duke of Newcastle. It's like a man who's using the ladies, you know, that kind of...

The Duke of Newcastle has taken advantage of... Self-identifying for a few minutes. Right. And is sitting and is seated on the clothes stool, as they call it, which must be a very unpalatable sight in the middle of a coronation. Especially if he's eating a pie at the same time. Right. Sound of cutlery, meanwhile, and people laughing.

So... Sounds great. The whole thing takes six hours. And by the time they get out, it's taken so long that it's all... The sound of cutlery, meanwhile, and people laughing. Sounds great. The whole thing takes six hours. And by the time they get out, it's taken so long that it's dark. On the way back, the king complains to this bloke Effingham and says, this was awful. This was a disaster. This was my big day and it's been a disaster.

And Effingham says to him, you know, I grant you there has been some neglect. But he says, the good news is we've learned lessons and the next coronation will be really well organized. That's what you want. And George III apparently found this highly amusing. He went back and had bread and milk with his wife, didn't he? Well, actually, the coronation banquet, Tom, if that's a shambles, the coronation banquet is possibly even worse. So to start with, they light this by these linen tapers. And the linen tapers shower the guests with ash.

So everybody is covered in ash. The organization, the thing is organized by a bloke called William Talbot, who's the Lord Steward. And he is, I read, was noted for his swaggering manners and rude demeanor. And he's forgotten to put in enough tables. So there's two groups, the barons of the sink ports and the aldermen of the city of London. And there's no seats for them at all. The aldermen are given the table of the knights of the bath and they're kicked out.

The barons of the sink ports have no table at all. they're told they just have to i hope they riot no uh they're only silenced when this bloke william talbot challenges them to a duel excellent so meanwhile he has trained his horse he's got a party trick he's trained his horse to walk backwards away from the king as a sign of you know respect like a sort of yeah like a persian vizier yeah you know retreating from his sovereign but the horse gets it wrong and keeps backing keeps backing towards the king and whenever they put so showing the king his ass and presumably dumping whenever they shove the horse out they managed to get the horse out of westminster hall the horse keeps forcing its way back in and backing towards the king. Oh, it sounds great.

So it finally ends at 10 o'clock and the banquet ends. And actually what happens here is not unique to 1761. It happens at almost all of these banquets. As soon as it ends, the tradition is that the public can then have whatever is left. So there are people outside and in the galleries who are poised waiting for the last guest to leave. Is it like the Christmas sales? Right. But their face is pressed to the glass.

And as soon as that happens, it's all up for grabs and they pile in. So they pile in and they take everything. They'll take the tablecloths. They take chairs. They'll take the tablecloths, they take chairs, they take plates, and this sort of mob storming off with all this stuff. And because it's regarded as traditional, nobody wants to be the person who stops it. So it continues. Now, do you think we have time for George IV before the break? Yes, I think we absolutely do. Just one note. Yes. Did you read this thing about

Bonnie Prince Charlie perhaps coming? I didn't. Surely he would not have been welcome. Well, apparently he attended the coronation under the pseudonym of Mr. Yes. Did you read this thing about Bonnie Prince Charlie perhaps coming? I didn't. Surely he would not have been welcome. Well, apparently he attended the coronation under the pseudonym of Mr. Brown. Did he? And he spoke to someone in the audience and said he wouldn't want to be crowned for anything. Looked a terrible business. Really? It was reported in a newspaper.

Yeah, it's easy for him to say that once he's lost, though, isn't it? I mean. Yeah. Ye national inquirer. Yeah. I never wanted it anyway. Yeah, so let's do George IV. So his entry into the Abbey, that's what I read at the start of this episode, rolling in and looking like a gorgeous bird of the East.

I mean, he's all about the bling, isn't he? Yeah, he is. So I said George III was an idea, but I don't think, now I'm reconsidering that because I think George IV is pretty bad. So first of all, George IV, his coronation actually is postponed because of his marital difficulties. So it was meant to be August 1820. It gets put off by almost a year because he wants to get rid of his wife,

Caroline of Brunswick, who he accused of never changing her underwear in all the time he was married to her. rid of his wife, Carolina Brunswick, who he accused of never changing her underwear in all the time he was married to her. So I think it's fair to say they both behaved pretty badly, didn't they? George and Carolina Brunswick. They just absolutely despised each other. To George's credit, he's a great antiquarian. So that's the kind of interesting thing.

I suppose it's a way of elbowing the Stuarts aside, going back to the medieval coronation. So there's a kind of spirit of antiquarianism. Absolutely. And he's all about resurrecting medieval and Elizabethan looks, isn't he? Yeah. He basically says everybody must dress as an Elizabethan. So it's the first ersatz coronation. It is.

It's the first one. Well, we've probably got about as far from the sacral now as we can ever get. It's like a panzer night. Let's do it in fancy knife. Let's do a fancy dress. That's all. So, yes, but he insists that everybody else

has to pay for their own fancy dress, whereas he expects the country to pay for his. To pay for his. Because he's dressing as Napoleon.

Right. Well, he's dressing, I mean, if you look at his garb, he looks absolutely preposterous. And actually, you mentioned Napoleon. So,

French war reparations actually foot a lot of the bill for this. So I worked out the cost. It was £238,000. In terms of as a proportion of GDP and whatnot, in today's money, that would be about £1.3 billion. So this is the coronation to end all coronations. It's the biggest blowout. Now he's desperate that his wife is not allowed to take part. The legislation to divorce her, kick her out has run into trouble because the Whigs have decided, it's the Whig Victoria again, the Whigs have decided to take her side because they despise George and they despise the Prime Minister, Lord

Liverpool. So Caroline does show up on the big day. She shows up with her chamberlain, Lord Hood. She has written, Lord Hood has written and says she's going to come. Lord Howard, who's running the show, has written back and said, you know. So is this another Effingham? He's a part of the family, exactly. Part of the Norfolk clan. The Duke of Norfolk is never allowed to preside over this because he's Catholic. He always has to delegate it to some member of his extended family. She pitches up anyway.

She arrives on the big day at six o'clock in the morning at Westminster Hall. There's a lot of people in the crowd who support her. There are soldiers guarding Westminster Hall who don't let her in. The commander of the guard says, you can't come in without a ticket. She says, I'm the queen.

I don't need a ticket. No good. She's eventually turned away after trying various doors. And then she and Lord Hood eventually go down to Westminster Abbey. George IV has hired a load of boxers to act as doorkeepers. So one of these boxers says to her,

I'm not admitting, you know, you haven't got a ticket, love, you're not coming in. And eventually, surrounded by soldiers with bayonets, she is turned away while the crowds shout, shame, shame.

And of course, Tom, as you will know, so she's turned away from her husband's coronation. She dies two weeks later. So a very poignant scene. I mean, actually, this would make a great film. I was thinking this, yeah.

I mean, it's an amazing story. Actually, the coronation of George III, I was thinking, would make a great comedy. Yeah. This would make a great tragic comedy. It would.

It would. Actually, probably just a comedy. Although there are very comic elements. So George IV now arrives at his coronation. She's gone. He arrives, and he's wearing this massive costume.

You know, as you said, it's very Napoleonic, sort of huge, huge and stuff and he is it's a very warm day and he's sweating i mean he's a lot he's a gentleman of size isn't he yeah what is he like 60 inch waist or whatever it is he's your fat friend he is soaked in sweat and he actually said to somebody afterwards i would not endure again the sufferings of that day for another kingdom. The actual content of the service, unlike the Elizabethan or the Stuart period, is pretty fixed at this point. There's no controversy about the content.

And the arrangements go all right, but the choir go out first because of some sort of, I don't know, some communications breakdown. So as the king processes out, he has to go past all these empty benches which are covered with the choir's litter. So presumably the choir had been themselves smuggling pies and sandwiches or whatever. The procession to the banquet is a shambles because a very strange thing. It's the barons of the Sink Ports again, always causing trouble. They're allowed this time and they've got seats. They've got a canopy that they're meant to hold over George.

But George is very keen to be seen by the public. So he walks very fast to get out from under the canopy. So the poor wardens of the Sinkport are scurrying after him. They start walking fast too, and they're described, because they're trying to outpace each other, one of the spectators said they ended up with them making a somewhat unseemly jog towards the banquet. They get into the banquet.

Now, they've learned their lesson from the linen tapers last time. What they've put now is they've got massive wax candles and chandeliers. But because it's such a hot day, the candles melt. So all the people sitting underneath, they're being hit by wax. Wax is dripping on them. There's more horse action in this one. The Lord High Steward is the Marquess of Anglesey. Now, as the Lord High Steward, he is required to ride into the banquet

and reveal the first dish on the table. Unfortunately, he is the Marquess of Anglesey who lost his leg at the Battle of Waterloo, and he's wearing a prosthetic leg, and he can't get off his horse unaided. So it's a shambles. Pages have to come and try to unscrew his leg and get get off his horse unaided so it's a shambles pages have to come and like try to unscrew his leg and get him off his horse and everybody starts laughing and it ruins the atmosphere i think it's carry on coronation once again uh the king leaves at eight o'clock um he goes off bankrupt continues a little while once the guests are gone the crowd pour in um this time the rioting and stuff is much worse

than ever so the soldiers fighting the crowd over the remains of chicken legs smashed plates and all this kind of thing and it doesn't there all this isn't dispelled until about three o'clock in the morning um and the last anyone sees is some of sort of George IV's cronies who have drunk far too much having to be carried to their coaches. So it's not, it doesn't show Britain at its best. So Dominic, you, you asked me in the previous episode, which coronation would I most like to have seen? I would definitely like to have seen that one.

Yeah. I think that's my top coronation. Right. Well, it's a lot better than the, so the next coronation with which we'll go in. Oh, we don't want that one. Come back and we'll do the most boring coronation of all time most boring coronation there's a tempting offer for you that is a tempting offer all right we'll see you after the break for that i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond and together we host the rest is entertainment

it's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews splash of showbiz gossip and on our q a we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Then at the close of that solemn rite they both put on their crowns, and take their scepters in their hands, while neither of them frowns. Then robed in purple and velvet, they prepare to take their departure. The queen goes first, and the king follows after.

Then the king entered his beautiful coach, the sides were made of glass, especially made so that his subjects might see him pass, and he seated himself by his queen, most lovely and gay. Then the royal coach was driven by eight beautiful bays away. And the people cried, long live King Edward and his beautiful queen, declaring such a sight they had never seen and which they would remember for many a day because they had seen their king and queen on coronation day and that uh dominic is um by very much friend of the show william mcgonigal scotland's greatest poet on the coronation of

king edward the seventh and um in the first half we were listening to the the pie consumption the toilets in westminster abbey horses ar, people falling over left, right and centre, all tremendous carry on. Yeah. But from now on, coronations, they become more earnest, don't they? They definitely become more earnest. Deliberately so. And after George I, he's succeeded by his brother, William IV, who has absolutely no interest in or understanding of coronations whatsoever to the degree that he doesn't really want one at all. He would have listened to your very first episode in this series, Tom, in bewilderment and horror at the talk of the sacronature of coronations.

Because he's a bluff sailor. He is a bluff sailor. So he wouldn't have had any. He was not a man for an abstract noun. I think it's fair to say. He didn't want a coronation. He was told he had to have one. His coronation happens in the run-up to the Great Reform Act.

So Britain is being convulsed by political controversy, and he's having to deal with that. There's sort of a battle between the Whigs and the Tories and popular unrest demanding parliamentary reform, all this stuff. And he says, listen, if we're going to have a coronation, I don't want any of the flummery. So the coronation banquet, the king's champion on his horse,

all of these splendid traditions. I despise them. I don't want them. And this is the point at which they're done away with. So basically, the spectacle is limited to some gun salutes and a couple of small processions. He wears an admiral's uniform, because as you said, he's a sailor uh with a robe over the top and the total cost is an eighth of george iv's coronation so i mean in some ways it might as well not have happened but dominic can i just read what he said um about the moment where the crown was laid on his brow to go for it it was a great moment when i actually felt the crown descending upon me and touching my temples i could could not restrain a thrill, but not of joy of awe at the responsibilities almighty God had been pleased to put upon me.

So actually the sacrality does come through at the end. So he sees the error of his ways. Well, yes, I stand corrected. So that said, it's a bit of a non-event, isn't it?

His coronation. Yeah. And actually even Queen Victoria, 1838, so seven years later, her coronation is still rubbish. So people often even Queen Victoria, 1838, so seven years later, her coronation is still rubbish. So people often say, oh, coronations, they're all in its order, it's Victorian flummery. But Queen Victoria's coronation wasn't really Victorian.

It was still Hanoverian. Yeah, and the Hanoverians did better coronations than the Victorians, actually, I would say. Well, the Victorians only did one. Well. That's very true. But you know the Victorian angle on this was that there was no anointing of the queen's breasts. Yes. I know you love this detail, Tom, which I find disturbing.

I mean, it's a kind of example of how the rituals evolve, isn't it? Right. Victorian prudery, I suppose. So the Victorian coronation, again again it's a lot cheaper than george the fourths um it's probably what are we looking at it's about a quarter of the cost um so it's more expensive than than william the fourths but it's still pretty cut price it is the first coronation it's a mass tourism event because of railways so probably up to about half a million people come down to london and there's fireworks

displays and there's things going on in the parks and there's hot air balloons i think that um people in workhouses are given beer to toast it are they yeah oh that's nice which is nice for them that's not very victorian giving them beer is it victorian would be encouraging them to work a little bit harder for yes overnight or something yes um sens, they have a break for sandwiches halfway through the coronation. I don't think the king will be doing that at his own coronation. And sandwiches are laid out on the altar, Tom.

It seems very unsacral behaviour. Yeah. Again, people say it wasn't very well rehearsed. Witnesses say nobody knew what they were doing. Disraeli, who was there as a young mp said all those involved were always in doubt as to what came next and you saw the want of rehearsal and the archbishop of canterbury um wedged the ring very painfully onto victoria's finger yes on the wrong finger yeah the music was regarded uh one newspaper said a strange medley of

odd combinations which doesn't sound very promising somebody fell the aptly named lord lord roll yes he fell down the steps he was 82 he fell down the steps he rolled right down in the words of queen victoria's diary that's hanoverian that's the one touch there isn't what he is a hanoverian if he's 82 rolling down steps and things and but generally there's not enough chaos and you know there's not enough vulgarity at Victoria's. It's shambolic and under-rehearsed and a bit shabby. And that's the reputation for kind of British state occasions, isn't it?

That they are seen abroad as being not very good. And the whole idea that state occasions and royal occasions are what Britain does best is something that presumably kicks in due to the influence of the empire and the need to kind of, you know, parades and jubilees and things. Although interestingly, I read something today that some bloke who worked in Westminster Abbey for sort of, you know, 80 years or something was asked of the coronations of 1902, 1911, 1937, and 1953, which was the best. And he said, oh, there's absolutely no doubt about it.

1953 was by far the best. You know, far better organized. You know, as time went on. Because it was on TV. So the whole world would be watching it. The whole world would be watching. I mean, they couldn't have horses, arses, and people falling down steps for that. No, they didn't do.

Well, they sort of do go in fancy dress, don't they? I mean, actually, nobody thinks that the fancy dress they're wearing, people think of it as... What people wear to coronations. Yeah, but a lot of this is thanks to George IV's ludicrous pantomime senses of costume, isn't it? Yeah.

Anyway, 1902 is Edward VII, Edward the Caressor. He has his mistresses, doesn't he, in a box? He does indeed. And he also, he's another very large man. He's not a great man for dieting, I think it's fair to say, or not an abstemious man. And he has an abdominal abscess just before the coronation, which means it has to be postponed, I think, pretty much two days before the big day. So one consequence is they've got loads of things planned for the people and they decide to go

ahead and do them anyway. So there's a coronation dinner for the poor of London, Tom. They were going to serve 500,000 dinners to Londoners. Is that the one that the maids went to? I think it probably is. That we talked about in Downton Abbey episode. It must be. They gave out, every single person was given a tin of Roundtree's chocolate. But, get this, Roundtree's had two different kinds of chocolate, some for the poor people who were attending the dinner, and some for the people who were stewards, helping the poor people.

And the people who were stewards got better chocolate than the diners, because Roundtree's said they would be of greater influence socially than the poor. Well, at least I'm being honest. Well, I suppose so. But the other consequence is that a lot of the European bigwigs who are meant to be coming to this coronation had to go home. They couldn't stay around for two months waiting for people to clear up their abdominal abscesses. So as a result, it became much more British and much more imperial than it would otherwise have been. Oh, that's interesting.

Which is interesting. So is that what then kind of instituted the idea that coronation should be an imperial occasion? I think it probably would have been a bit imperial anyway, but it's even more imperial. Yes. But I mean, that's the keynote, presumably for George V. I know nothing about George V's coronation. But I mean, it is for George VI and definitely for Elizabeth II. Yeah. For Edward VII and George V basically have the same coronation. You know, Sikh troops, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener,

you know. But George V doesn't have his mistresses in a box. No, he doesn't. Moustaches. One nice thing actually about Edward VII's coronation is he has the

commanders of the Boers along to watch a naval review. And they'd only just signed the peace deal. So he has Lewis Boater and these other characters. So they'd literally only signed the end. The end of the war was only a sort of two months earlier. And he said, oh, come to the coronation. It'd be a great laugh.

You know, we can all be friends. Did they have a good time? I think they did, actually. I think they did. I mean, I don't think they go and they think, I don't think they think, oh, we've been, we've been dreadfully patronized and treated very badly there's a sort of sense oh well this is fair play well done you know hurrah for hurrah for everybody so he dies in 1910 doesn't he george v one of my favorite people from all history so i know dominic what

he said when his father died i've lost my best friend and the best of fathers i never had a cross word with him in my life i love george v i'm assuming that his coronation is incredibly dull he's thinking about stamp collecting of course and his creases in his trousers his wife mary way has the koinor diamond in her crown mary queen mary of ek is it tech tech tech tech i thought you'd gone mad then, Tom. So George V has this coronation. He says, it was a terrible ordeal, he writes in his diary. It was grand yet simple and most dignified and went without a hitch. What I love about George V,

it's not just that he's so boring. It's also that he's such a family man. He says, I nearly broke down when dear David came to to do homage to me as it reminded me so much when i did the same thing to my beloved papa so david is the future edward the eighth who is a very bad he's a he's a bounder he's a cat and a bounder so george the fourth enjoys he has a tremendous time he says he's a bit tired at the end and they must have had great coronation stamps brilliant he must have loved that so special edition stamps that he could then get for free. It's none of the banquet of vulgarity with him. Do you know what he does after the coronation for the rest of the day?

Does he go and shoot loads of birds? No. He goes and answers his telegrams. Excellent. Yeah, I should have guessed. Then he goes off to India for the Delhi Durbar. The Great Durbar, yes. Which I suppose is a kind of coronation, isn't it?

It is. None of the crown jewels are allowed to leave the United Kingdom. Durbar. The Great Durbar, yes. Which I suppose is a kind of coronation, isn't it? It is. None of the crown jewels are allowed to leave the United Kingdom. Fortunately, however, India is full of jewels. Right. Yes. Have a habit of finding their way into- Indian crowns. Into British crowns. It's completely reasonable for Indian crowns to come to Britain, but obviously not vice versa. Of course. So a special imperial crown of India is made for him, and he goes off to Delhi with it. So Coronation Park in Delhi, about 60,000 people turn up. He and Mary of Teck are seated on thrones in their full gear.

He says in his diary, I mean, it's the most amazing thing. It's the most extraordinary ritual probably in British history that this incredibly boring man who loves his stamps and worries about shooting birds and creasing his trousers. He's sitting on a throne while thousands of Indian dignitaries are queuing up to pay homage to him. Kind of princes. And he says in his diary, what he writes is, rather tired after wearing my crown for three and a half hours, it hurt my head as it is pretty heavy. And that's all he has to say. But the next day they go to the red fort uh and he and mary they go out deliberately modeled on the moogle emperors and the ceremony

modeled on the moogle emperors to receive um the the salutes of half a million people who have come to see them and then he goes and shoots something like 20 000 pheasants or something i knew that killing animals had to feature at some point. He writes in his diary, I think we went a bit too far today or something like that. So actually, George VI's coronation, I think is quite boring. I don't want to be disrespectful, but he is quite boring. So he's King's Speech, father of Queen Elizabeth II, king during the Second World War. And he shouldn't have got it because this coronation has been explicitly arranged for his brother, dear David, Edward VIII, who has deserted his post, Tom, to go off on an American divorcee.

Something that we don't approve of on the rest of history. He's gone off. This is a very big empire and dominions kind of coronation. So the prime ministers from all the dominions are present for the first time in the procession. Once again, you've got tons of contingents of kind of Indian troops, Canadians, Australians, all of those kinds. Tom, you're yawning even while I'm-

Sorry. I just thought of it. It's making me bored. So first radio coronation. So he gives an address. This is your Lionel Logue, Geoffrey Rush in the film. course of course don't stammer all this stuff uh the bbc do film and will televise the procession i mean nobody has a television so i don't know who's actually watching sort of 15 people in in surrey or something oh look there's me so exactly in

the procession have you seen it no have you seen it no of course not i couldn't be less interested in it golly tom you're really uh georgia six coronation i think of all the things we've done throughout across all the entire sweep and span of our podcast what's the single most boring thing that i can think of don't you think no i don't think of anything more boring i've yes yes we recorded an episode that we never put out because it was so boring it was so boring while we were doing it i booked a holiday okay yes i know do you remember the episode yes i do yes i do that was worse than this okay but that that hasn't gone out whereas this i'm assuming

is going out and so i put anyway, make it interesting for the listeners. Second World War is just storm clouds overhead. Storm clouds are building. Meanwhile, in Germany. Herr Hitler. Yes, exactly. There you go. Done.

This was the second, 1953. Filmed in 3D, Tom. Did you know that? Did you know it was filmed in 3D? No, no, that is interesting. I once did. I was a talking head on a Channel 4 documentary called The Coron filmed in 3D? No, no, that is interesting. I once did. I was a talking head on a Channel 4 documentary called The Coronation in 3D. And what I was required to do was to go down and they kept saying,

now, can you answer this question by explaining why it's really appropriate that Elizabeth II was filmed in 3D in 1953? It's very hard to answer that. But the most popular member of the procession was the Queen of Tonga. So it rained. Famously, it rained on the coronation day in 1953. It's a kind of miserable occasion because it's post-war. Britain's only just coming out of the long period of post-war austerity. So it's kind of greyness to London and a grayness to the proceedings, I would say. And it starts raining. And in Tonga, if you are somebody's guest,

it is regarded as impolite to imitate them in any way. So all the carriages put up their hoods. And so she didn't. And she doesn't. And so the crowd can see her. The crowd can see her. And they think she, I mean, because she's quite large and because she's kind of she doesn't and so the crowd can see her the crowd can see her and they think I mean Picard

because she's quite large and because she's kind of quite jolly yeah the crowd will start waving and laughing and everybody says oh the Queen of Tonga

what a tremendous person and she is the great star yeah because she's the only person who goes to that that I know anything about well Churchill went yeah

I didn't know that Churchill went of course he I mean I assume he went but I don't know that Churchill went. Of course he, I mean, I assume he went, but I don't know anything he did there. He just, you know, wiped away,

yeah, he wiped away tears at the spectacle of a radiant young queen. A new Elizabethan. Exactly. Nehru went to that coronation. That's nice. Yeah, Nehru went.

But you're right. It's, it's actually a surprisingly dull occasion, though. It's really livened up by Everest. So it's on the morning of the coronation that the news reaches Britain that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgate...

Brought by James Morris, who will shortly become Jan Morris. Exactly so, broken in the times by James, later Jan Morris. And we'll be doing an episode on that. And we will be doing an episode about the conquest of Everest. So in the newspapers in Britain, there is this sort of enormous outpouring And we'll be doing an episode on that. And everybody says, oh, hurrah, hurrah, we're top nation once again, and all this sort of carry on. The other thing is, of course, TV.

Let's say 25 million people watched it on TV, and yet there are only about two to three million televisions in Britain. So people are literally cramming into their neighbors' houses to watch. And it's the single biggest, most important moment in the massive take-up of television in 1950s Britain. Because people are desperate to see this extraordinary spectacle through the miracle of television, Tom. Yes. And of course, still then, a largely Christian country, deferential towards authority. Yeah, that's true. Absolutely true. Yeah. Not much of a Republican movement then.

I mean, literally, you could probably fit it in a phone box. There are lots of people who are maybe indifferent to the monarchy or even people who think, well, I don't really like them, but there's no organized Republican movement worthy of the name.

So quite different circumstances to today's coronation. I think the Republican movement, you could still pretty much fit in a phone box. It's about a quarter of the population. No, but that's not the same as a republican movement though is it that's no i've seen people who who regard the whole thing with contempt and you know flummery mumbo jumbo and yeah why are we paying for this nonsense maybe about a quarter of the population um i think it's just it's just you know we've've been in the first episode looking at how these rituals have long sustained a kind of deep meaning.

And even over the course of the past few hundred years where that meaning has been misunderstood or misinterpreted or occluded or whatever, it's still been there. And it was obviously incredibly important for the Queen. You know, she devoutly believed that it had been a sacramental moment. Yes. A bit like elizabeth the first you know she'd been married to her nation all that kind of thing yeah um i think that what's interesting about the uh operational orb it's called isn't it the uh charles's coronation is that probably most people will view it as a either with indifference they won't bother with it at all, or they'll watch it as a spectacle. Or they will be radically infuriated by the whole spectacle. Yeah.

Or they will be very excited by the very sacral quality of this coronation. Tom, the group that I'm least persuaded by is the people who, like you, are convinced of the sacrality of the uh of the occasion i think there's an awful lot of people probably a majority who enjoy a spectacle i i completely agree and i think it's always been that way but the fact remains that it is a sacral occasion it it you know without that sacral occasion there's no point in having it um and people may ignore it they may despise it They may not even be aware of it, but it remains a religious service. And that is, I think,

a challenge in a country that is increasingly not Christian, not interested in religion at all. Because I think for the first time, it means that we have rituals surrounding the enthronement of our head of state

that probably mean very little to the vast majority of people who are watching it, I would say. So I think that is something new. I would wonder deep down how much those rituals meant to lots of the people in those crowds. No, I agree. I agree. But they might not understand the theology. They might not understand the scriptural references. They might not understand the precise significance of the ritual, but they would be aware that it was significant. If you asked people, I mean, even at kind of George III or whatever, they'd say, does it matter that you have one?

So the example of that is William IV. He was told he has to have one even if he doesn't want one. He was basically told he has to have one because he picks up a crown, doesn't he, or something and puts it on his head and says, I had a coronation. He gets told in no uncertain terms that you have to have it. But now I think lots of people would just be simply bewildered by what's going on. I think you've spent too much time in the metropolitan dinner parties, Tom. When I tread the streets of Middle England, I see people sobbing with joy at the thought of the coronation.

Dusting down their bunting. Exactly. Dusting down their bunting. Our next door neighbor has bunting, actually. A note of hope. Yeah. Could I end the series by quoting a tweet by Francis Young, who was- I know you like Francis Young.

He came on our podcast to talk about the occult. He did. Magic in Merlin's Realm. And he was very keen on all the occult significance of pavements in Westminster Abbey and things. And he tweeted, the king seems to be going hard on the sacralization of monarchy. Oil consecrated in Jerusalem. The Cosmati pavement uncovered. So that's the one in Westminster Abbey.

Relics of the true cross. So they were given to him, to Charles, by the Pope. The St. Augustine Gospels. So they've come from, I think, Corpus Christi College, the oldest gospels in Britain. More privacy for the anointing. This is wild. I think he's wrong.

I'll tell you what I think is wild. Toilets being set up in chapels, sandwiches laid out on the altar, horses coming in backwards. Sir Cheverel forever so i i'm absolutely torn between excitement at the cosmati pavement being uncovered yeah and disappointment that there isn't going to be a horse right i'm backing up to the king and showing him his ass if there's no high church riot in taunton i should be very disappointed well you can organize one i

could i could indeed the great riot of chipping Norton yeah get on with it right so on that bombshell Tom Coronation's actually turned out to be much more interesting

than I thought we're starting the Olympics isn't it yeah I mean I compared them to the Olympics right at the beginning and I remember

when we finished doing the two episodes we did in the Olympics we ended by saying well that was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be it's good to end

Restless History episodes that way rather than saying, well, that was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It's good to end Restless History episodes that way, rather than end the other way. That was a lot worse than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. So thanks very much for listening. We hope that you have a good coronation, whether you are going to watch it or whether you're just bunking off or doing whatever you're doing.

Have fun. God bless the King. Did you say God bless the King? God. Have fun. God bless the king. Did you say God bless the king? God save the king. God save the king. May the king live forever. That's what people say. Or, you know, on the revolution,

if that's how you feel. We're kind of, you know, we're open to all political situations here. So have a good time. Yes, of course we are. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History.

For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A,

we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.