Sarah Gristwood - Elizabeth : the queen and the crown

Elizabeth

The Queen and the Crown

Sarah Gristwood

Princess Elizabeth photographed at Clarence House in 1951, in a dress by Norman Hartnell. US President Truman, that same year, described her as a fairy princess.

(Clockwise from top) The Imperial State Crown is cut down to fit Elizabeth. The Anointing, the most sacred moment of the Coronation. Children in the East End of London prepare to celebrate.

It was, by any standard, a very big affair. Sixteen months of preparation, and Westminster Abbey turned into a building site as tier after tier of seats climbed almost to the roof. More than eight thousand guests, including the heads of state from seventy-three countries so many, in fact, that the Royal Mews had to borrow extra carriages from Elstree Studios to transport them. More than two thousand journalists and five hundred photographers representing ninety-two nations; and so many soldiers, playing so complicated a part in the procession, that the ever-practical Elizabeth plotted out their positions using the young Prince Charless toys.

At Edgingtons flag factory in Sidcup, Kent, artists put the final touches to the cartouches to be used in the coronation of Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953.

Three million people lined streets decked with flowers from the Royal Greenhouses. Some twenty-seven million Britons watched the days events on television, many of them on a set they had bought or hired for the purpose. But therein lies a tale, for if a monarchs coronation sets the tone for their reign, then there was debate about just what the tone of this event should be.

When Elizabeths father, George VI, was crowned, just sixteen years before, the goal had been to present an image of tradition and stability. The Royal Family was desperate to put the abdication of Georges brother Edward VIII, and his raffish image, behind them.

Now, the messages might be more mixed. Cautious voices in the royal establishment (the new Queens mother among them) felt it important that nothing should change. But others notably the Queens husband, Prince Philip understood that in the postwar world, the monarchy had to establish a different relationship with its nation. That the nation wanted to be part of this event... The modernizers views had prevailed, which is why, as a cold grey day dawned on 2 June 1953, a 120-strong team from the BBC was setting up cameras in and around Westminster Abbey.

At the heart of the huge ceremony about to happen was one very small figure the diminutive, twenty-seven-year-old new Queen. The Imperial State Crown had been cut down to fit her, and she had taken instruction from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, in the spiritual significance of the great ceremony she was about to perform.

The decades ahead would be marked by her religious faith, her strong sense of duty, and her anxiety to follow the rules laid down for her. But even this early in her reign, she was no cipher. It had been she who insisted Prince Philip should chair her Coronation Commission. Even this early, she had begun to understand that those rules would have to change when necessary.

Over the preceding weeks, she had been wearing the crown while sitting at her desk, to get used to its great weight. Prince Charles would recall her going in to say goodnight to him with it balanced on her head. She had practised her steps in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace with sheets tied to her shoulders, to simulate the coronation robes with their eighteen-foot train.

One of the first concerns in planning the coronation, after all, had been that of dressing the Queen. The sovereign required a whole series of ceremonial garments for the coronation much the same as had been required since medieval times. She would arrive at Westminster Abbey in the crimson Robe of State (or Parliamentary Robe). For the most holy moment of the ceremony, the Anointing, she would be divested of this, and of all her jewels and other grand accoutrements, which would be replaced by a plain white linen shift over her dress. Then came a tunic of cloth of gold, with the Stole Royal and the Imperial Mantle and finally, for the procession out of the Abbey, she would wear the purple Robe of State, or Coronation Robe.

Underneath all these ceremonial overgarments, however, Elizabeth would need her own Coronation Dress. For this she turned to designer Norman Hartnell, who was not only her mothers longtime favourite, but also the man who had designed her own wedding dress. He produced eight different designs and the Queen chose the last, the silver embroidery of which featured not only Englands Tudor Rose but Scotlands thistle, Irelands shamrock and the Welsh leek. (Hartnell begged in vain to be allowed to give Wales the prettier daffodil.) The Queen asked him also to add emblems of the Commonwealth nations, from Pakistans wheat to Australias wattle.

Hartnell also supplied the white linen shift, but the commission for the Robes of State went to Ede & Ravenscroft, whose records describe a Coronation Robe of best quality hand-made purple velvet, trimmed with Canadian ermine and lined with English silk satin. The gold embroidery took 3,500 hours and the Royal School of Needlework used a rota of embroideresses, working continuously so that never a seat goes cold.

For the drive to Westminster Abbey, the Queen wore the Diamond Diadem made for the coronation of George IV containing no fewer than 1,333 diamonds! and the Coronation Necklace made for Queen Victoria in 1858. The necklace had subsequently been worn by three consort queens at their coronation mother, grandmother and great-grandmother to Elizabeth II.

However, Elizabeth II was not a queen consort but a queen regnant a queen who ruled in her own right. This was not the first time a queen regnant had been crowned in Westminster Abbey, but the process had not always gone smoothly.

When Mary Tudor was crowned in 1553, four hundred years earlier, the usual rituals had to be adapted for the first woman to sit on Englands throne. She just touched the knightly spurs, instead of having them strapped to her heels, and as well as the kings sceptre she was given the queen consorts sceptre surmounted with the dove of peace.

When her Protestant sister, Elizabeth I, succeeded Mary, almost none of Marys Catholic bishops was prepared to crown her. More than a century later, when Mary II was crowned with her husband, William, the Archbishop of Canterbury (who held by her supplanted father, James) likewise refused to perform the rite. Marys sister Anne, who reigned after her, was so obese she had to be carried to her coronation in a litter.