magnificent plume waving in the wind from the crown.”
Elizabeth II traveled to Westminster Abbey in the twenty-four-foot-long Gold State Coach, with gilded sculptures and door panels featuring classical scenes painted in the eighteenth century. Eight gray horses, one of which was named Eisenhower, pulled the fairytale carriage. The Queen wore her great-great-grandmother’s diadem and a coronation gown of white satin with short sleeves and a heart neckline, its bodice and bell-shaped skirt adorned with the symbols of Great Britain and its Commonwealth realms (among them a rose, thistle, shamrock, maple leaf, and fern), all extravagantly embroidered in pale colored silk, gold and silver threads, semiprecious stones, seed pearls, and shimmering crystals. She could be seen smiling at the thunderous cheering as she waved her white-gloved arm up and down. Prince Philip wore the full dress uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, which he covered during the ceremony with his peer’s robes of scarlet topped by an ermine cape.
Awaiting the Queen’s arrival at the Abbey door promptly at 11 A.M. were the maids of honor, dressed identically in white satin with pearl embroidery. “She was relaxed, and she looked so beautiful,” recalled Anne Glenconner (then Lady Anne Coke, daughter of the Earl of Leicester). “She had a wonderful little figure, with a tiny waist and wonderful complexion with great big eyes. Prince Philip looked after her, saying to us, ‘Do this and do that.’ ” One of the Queen’s attendants said, “You must be feeling nervous, Ma’am.” “Of course I am,” replied Elizabeth II, “but I really do think Aureole will win,” a reference to her horse running in the Derby four days later.
The maids of honor, assisted by the Mistress of the Robes, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, arranged the monarch’s crimson velvet Robe of State edged with ermine and gold lace. As the maids grabbed the satin handles on the eighteen-foot train, the Queen looked over her shoulder and said, “Ready, girls?” They lifted the heavy velvet, and proceeded down the long aisle toward the gold-carpeted coronation “theater” in the center of the Abbey before the high altar gleaming with regalia of scepters, swords, and crowns and draped with gold, crimson, and blue tapestry, all illuminated by bright arc lights for television.
The procession included heads of state, diplomats, an African chieftain in leopard skin and feather headdress, a Muslim in plain black robe, crown princes, and members of the royal family, including Philip’s mother wearing a dove gray nun’s habit and wimple, and the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret trailing twelve-foot trains. All the women wore ball gowns, and those men not in flowing robes or traditional costumes (“plucked indiscriminately out of the dead pages of British history,” wrote Russell Baker in the
When the Queen approached the high altar, her heavy skirt swinging “backwards and forwards in a beautiful rhythmic effect,” the Boys Choir of Westminster School sang out, “
Elizabeth II stood by King Edward’s Chair as the archbishop began the “recognition,” presenting her in turn to the 7,500 distinguished guests seated in the four sides of the Abbey. As the occupants of each quadrant cried “God Save Queen Elizabeth!” followed by a trumpet fanfare, she gave a slight neck bow and slow half curtsy, the only time she would ever make that dual gesture as Queen.
After swearing the coronation oath in which she pledged to honor the laws of Great Britain, its realms, territories, and possessions, and “maintain the Laws of God,” the most spiritual part of the ceremony took place. She stood in front of the Chair of Estate as her maids of honor removed her crimson robe, her gloves, her jewelry and diadem. The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire and the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Marquess of Cholmondeley, then helped Elizabeth II put on her Colobium Sindonis, a simple scoop neck white linen dress with a full pleated skirt that fitted over her gown. “Lord Cholmondeley had to do up the shift in the back,” recalled Anne Glenconner. “He couldn’t do hooks and eyes, so they put on press fasteners so he just had to push them shut.”
Four Knights of the Garter held silver poles supporting a canopy of woven silk and gold over King Edward’s Chair, where the Queen sat awaiting her anointing out of television camera range. “It was the most poignant moment,” Anne Glenconner continued. “She looked so young, with nothing on her head, wearing only the white shift over her dress.” The Archbishop of Canterbury poured holy oil from a 22-karat gold ampulla in the form of an eagle into a twelfth-century silver-gilt anointing spoon. He anointed Elizabeth II with oil, making a sign of the cross on the palms of each of her hands, her forehead, and exposed upper chest. “Some small interest was generated,” according to one account, “by the fact that Elizabeth unlike Victoria did not refuse to let the archbishop anoint her breast.”
She was then invested with coronation robes weighing thirty-six pounds. They were made of stiff woven golden cloth—the long-sleeved Supertunica held by a wide belt, the embroidered Stole draped around her neck, and the Imperial Mantle, a large gleaming cloak fastened with a gold eagle clasp. Her garments, from the simple linen dress to the splendid vestments, along with the symbolism of her anointment, were designed to signify her priestlike status. British sovereigns long ago gave up the notion of a divine right, responsible to God alone, which allowed them to rule without necessarily listening to the advice of their merely mortal ministers or Parliament. But as a devout Christian, the Queen believed that the coronation sanctified her before God to serve her people, much as the Pope is blessed in his ordination.
“The real significance of the coronation for her was the anointing, not the crowning,” said Canon John Andrew, a friend of the royal family and senior chaplain to the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury. “She was consecrated, and that makes her Queen. It is the most solemn thing that has ever happened in her life. She cannot abdicate. She is there until death.”
In a further series of rituals, she was presented with her regalia, each “ornament” a symbol of royalty, starting with two armills, thick 22-karat gold bracelets that signified sincerity and wisdom. She received gold spurs, a thick white glove to encourage “gentleness in levying taxes,” and the Jewelled Sword of Offering to help her protect good and punish evil, which she carried to the altar, reverently balancing it between her hands. A ruby and sapphire coronation ring was placed on the fourth finger of her right hand to show her fidelity to her subjects, jeweled scepters represented queenly power, mercy, and leadership, and the orb topped by a cross of precious jewels displayed Christ’s power over mankind.
Still seated in King Edward’s Chair, nearly engulfed by her ponderous golden robes and holding a jeweled scepter upright in each hand, she looked with “intense expectancy” as the archbishop blessed the enormous St. Edward’s Crown of solid gold, set with 444 semiprecious stones. He held it aloft, then placed it firmly on her head, which momentarily dropped before rising again. Simultaneously, the scarlet and ermine robed peers in one section of the Abbey, and the bejeweled peeresses in another, also identically dressed in red velvet and fur-trimmed robes, crowned themselves with their gold, velvet, and ermine coronets. The congregation shouted “God Save the Queen,” and cannons boomed in Hyde Park and at the Tower of London. As the archbishop intoned, “God crown you with a crown of glory and righteousness,” Elizabeth II could literally feel the weight of duty—between her vestments, crown, and scepters, more than forty-five pounds’ worth—on her petite frame.
Accompanied by the archbishop and Earl Marshal, the Queen held the scepters while ascending the platform to sit on her throne and receive the homage of her “princes and peers.” The first was the archbishop, followed by the Duke of Edinburgh, who approached the throne bareheaded in his long red robe, mounted the five steps, and knelt before his wife, placing his hands between hers and saying, “I, Philip, do become your liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folks. So help me God.” When he stood up, he touched her crown and kissed her left cheek, prompting her to quickly adjust the crown as he walked backward and gave his wife a neck bow.
In the royal gallery, tiny Prince Charles, wearing a white satin shirt and dark shorts, arrived through a rear entrance and sat between the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret to witness his mother’s anointing, investiture with regalia, crowning, and homage paid by his father. “Look, it’s Mummy!” he said to his grandmother, and the Queen flashed a faint smile. The four-and-a-half-year-old heir to the throne watched wide-eyed, variously excited and puzzled, while the Queen Mother leaned down to whisper explanations.
The woman who only sixteen years earlier was at the center of the same ceremony smiled throughout, but Beaton also caught in the Queen Mother’s expression “sadness combined with pride.” “She used to say it was like a
