The difficulties with crowning King Charles III

By ERASMUS

THE AMERICAN political system, despite its formal separation of church of state, still finds room for a sort of civic religion which lends dignity to military funerals and presidential inaugurations. In Britain, by contrast, a quirky unwritten constitution gives a central place to what might be called royal religion. This reflects the twin role of the monarch as the apex of secular governance and guardian of the Christian faith. That royal faith was on spectacular display on May 19th when an African-American prelate, Michael Curry, dazzled some and perplexed others with an exuberant hymn to love delivered at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

But any constitutional law buff can tell you that royal faith has its sombre moments too. As is argued by a couple of newly published studies by University College London, thought needs to be given now to the ceremonies which will take place when Harry’s father, Prince Charles, eventually succeeds Elizabeth II as head of state. “The ceremonies of accession and coronation help to define not just the monarchy but the nation whom the monarch is there to represent,” one of the reports by UCL’s Constitution Unit says. To put it mildly, that nation has moved on in the last seven decades. The report lists some of the vast social changes that have taken place since Elizabeth II became queen in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Post-war Britain was class-divided, deferential, militarised (with armed forces of 863,000 compared with under 150,000 today) and, at least formally, devout. Baptisms in the Church of England have declined from 672,000 a year in 1950 to 130,000. In 1956 a third of the British public professed the belief that the Queen had been specially chosen by God.