As the furore caused by the publication of Spare may – or may not – be dying down, there are some signs that the Royal Family are beginning to take back control of the media narrative, while refusing to make any public comment on Prince Harry’s revelations.
Firstly, there was the announcement that Prince Charles will be handing back up to £250 million a year from profits that the Crown Estate have harvested from offshore wind farms. Now the first details of the coronation on Saturday 6 May have emerged. Anyone who saw the King’s speech at Christmas will have realised that this is intended to be a different kind of reign to his mother’s, with a more liberal and inclusive attitude, and so his coronation will continue this new regime. Details of the three-day celebration have emphasised its diverse credentials, with everything from a coronation choir that will feature deaf singers and LGBTQ+ representatives to the Big Help Out, an initiative that is designed to boost both volunteer groups and public service.
There remains the lingering, sulphurous odour of the soap opera that has been consuming the Royal Family
A royal source has indicated that the celebration will be both ‘majestic’ and ‘inclusive’. Rather than wallowing in old-fashioned pageantry, the presence of ‘global musical icons and contemporary stars’ at a coronation concert on Sunday 7 May at Windsor indicates that the event is designed to have a celebratory, unifying feel. Notably, the King will not be donning the habitual royal outfit of breeches and stockings when he is crowned; he will instead opt for military attire, although it is expected that he will still wear the garb of majesty at various points during the ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
Just as the coronations of both George VI and Elizabeth II were intended to show that Britain was still a global force to be reckoned with, the determinedly contemporary feel of King Charles’s investiture is a clear attempt to demonstrate that the monarchy is still relevant not just to the United Kingdom, but to the world. The Queen’s funeral and the attendant ceremonies around that – not least the queue to see her coffin lying in state – showed that, even with the country in a deeply beleaguered state, we still excel at putting on a monarchical display that attracts both admiration and envy from other nations. It comes as little surprise that the inclusivity of the ceremony – even, whisper it, a certain wokeishness – should nod to the King’s lifelong interest in liberal political and social causes; it was no coincidence that his speech last Christmas talked of food banks and community, rather than the Christian messages that his mother was more instinctively comfortable with.
Yet for all of the high-minded and worthy ideals behind the coronation, there remains the lingering, sulphurous odour of the soap opera that has been consuming the Royal Family over the last three years. Whether or not Harry and Meghan are invited to the ceremony, their presence, or lack thereof, seems likely to dominate chatter about proceedings. For all of the noble talk about community choirs and charitable initiatives, it seems all but inevitable that the major news story is going to be how the King’s younger son and his wife behave, before, during and after the coronation.
It remains a source of justified frustration that, even with far more weighty and pressing matters to consider, the saga of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and their relationship to his family, continues to overshadow everything else, but this uneasy situation shows no signs of resolution.
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