I’m looking forward to next week’s coronation of King Charles III. He is Great Britain’s first new monarch of my not-so-short lifetime.
How long has it been since the last coronation? So long that the late journalist and author Jan Morris was still alive. Morris’s masterpiece, “Coronation Everest,” describes Britons’ giddy exultation when they learned that a British-led expedition had conquered the world’s highest mountain on the same day that 27-year-old Elizabeth was anointed queen.
Everyone reviles the Windsors as a bunch of layabouts luxuriating on the public dole while shuttling among their many, far-flung palaces. But I think Charles & Co., billing out at $127 million a year, represent good value. If you divide that number by 10 “working royals” (kind of an oxymoron, I admit) that comes out to just over $10 million per sentient Windsor.
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That’s roughly half of Tucker Carlson’s last reported salary, and they are a lot more entertaining. Just before jetting off to London to join his family, Prince Harry of Montecito, Calif., casually let slip that his brother William, the Prince of Wales, accepted “a very large sum of money” from Rupert Murdoch to settle some litigation.
Memo to Harry: Don’t expect a front-row seat at Westminster Abbey.
What’s so great about the coronation? The hocus-pocus, for one thing. Even though Elizabeth’s 1952 coronation was televised, over prime minister Winston Churchill’s furious objections, her ritual anointing with sacred oil was hidden from public view. That will probably happen this time, too — but with animal cruelty-free oil!
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That’s right; Charles has decreed that the sacred tincture, partly composed of olive oil from Jerusalem’s Monastery of Mary Magdalene where his grandmother is buried (a lot of this was covered in “The Crown”; I hope you were paying attention) must no longer contain civet oil or ambergris extracted from whale intestines.
In another nod to “sustainability,” Charles’s gal pal-soon-to-be-queen Camilla will be sporting a recycled crown instead of commissioning new headgear from the royal jeweler. Camilla will wear Queen Mary’s crown, designed for the 1911 coronation of King George V. The 2023 crown will not feature the massive, controversial Koh-i-Noor diamond, as it did in 1911. That is because, like the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, the Koh-i-Noor really belongs to someone else — in this case, India.
Other coronation fun: Groove on the Charles-and-Camilla selected Spotify playlist — The Beatles; The Who; David Bowie; The Kinks; Grace Jones; the (omg) Spice Girls; and (omg 2) Tom Jones. The music reminds me of Jeff Goldblum’s famous line in “The Big Chill”: “Don’t you have any other music, you know, from this century?” Oh, OK. Here’s Harry Styles’s insipid 2019 hit, “Treat People With Kindness,” not exactly the watchword of the House of Windsor but still.
Look for a new King Charles stamp, new coins, and new banknotes! Say what you will, the Brits have their currency act together. On the flip side of their paper money, the exchequer portrays Churchill (5-pound note), Jane Austen (10-pound note), artist JMW Turner (20-pound note), and computer scientist Alan Turing (50-pound note).
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We depict seven dead white guys, including a merciless killer of Native Americans, on our banknotes. Rule, Britannia!
Sidebar: Will Canada continue to display Queen Elizabeth on its $20 bill? Probably yes, according to a Bank of Canada spokesman quoted by CTV News: “It will be years before images of the King appear on the $20 bill.”
Naturally the coronation will showcase Britain’s legendary cuisine. The official dish of Elizabeth’s 1952 event was Poulet Reine Elizabeth dish, which came to be known as Coronation Chicken, or “chicken salad,” as the Allrecipes website helpfully explains. The plat du jour for next month’s event is Coronation Quiche, “chosen personally by their majesties The King and The Queen Consort.”
Let them eat quiche! I’m a Charles man, always have been.
Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him @imalexbeamyrnot.
