thumb|upright=1.2|[[George VI receiving the homage after being crowned in 1937; watercolour by Henry Charles Brewer]]
The coronation of the monarch of the United Kingdom is an initiation ceremony in which they are formally invested with regalia and crowned at Westminster Abbey. It corresponds to the coronations that formerly took place in other European monarchies, which have all abandoned coronations in favour of inauguration or enthronement ceremonies. A coronation is a symbolic formality and does not signify the official beginning of the monarch's reign; de jure and de facto his or her reign commences from the moment of the preceding monarch's death or abdication, maintaining legal continuity of the monarchy.
The coronation usually takes place several months after the death of the monarch's predecessor, as it is considered a joyous occasion that would be inappropriate while mourning continues. This interval also gives planners enough time to complete the required elaborate arrangements. The most recent coronation was that of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on 6 May 2023.
The ceremony is performed by the archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior cleric in the Church of England, of which the monarch is supreme governor. Other clergy and members of the British nobility traditionally have roles as well. Most participants wear ceremonial uniforms or robes, and before the most recent coronation, some wore coronets. Many government officials and guests attend, including representatives of other countries.
The essential elements of the coronation have remained largely unchanged for the past 1,000 years. The sovereign is first presented to, and acclaimed by, the people. The sovereign then swears an oath to uphold the law and the Church. Following that, the monarch is anointed with holy oil, invested with regalia, and crowned, before receiving the homage of their subjects. The consort of the king is then anointed and crowned as queen. The service ends with a closing procession, and since the 20th century it has been traditional for the British royal family to appear later on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to greet crowds and watch a flypast.
History
English coronations
thumb|right|upright=1.7|Coronation of [[Harold Godwinson|Harold II at Westminster Abbey in 1066, from the Bayeux Tapestry]]
English coronations were traditionally held at Westminster Abbey, with the monarch seated on the Coronation Chair. The main elements of the service, as well as the earliest form of the coronation oath, can be traced to the rite devised by Saint Dunstan for the coronation of King Edgar in 973 AD at Bath Abbey. Dunstan's ceremony drew on the coronation practices of the Franks and on the liturgy used in the ordination of bishops. Two versions of the early coronation service, known as (from the Latin , meaning 'order') or recensions, survive from before the Norman Conquest. It is not known whether the first recension was ever used in England; the second recension was used for Edgar's coronation in 973 and for those of subsequent Anglo-Saxon and early Norman kings.
thumb|upright=1.7|right|Coronation of [[Henry IV of England|Henry IV at Westminster Abbey in 1399]]
A third recension was probably compiled during the reign of Henry I and was used at the coronation of his successor, Stephen, in 1135. While retaining the principal elements of the Anglo‑Saxon rite, it may have incorporated material from the consecration of the Holy Roman emperor in the , a German liturgical book compiled in Mainz in 961, thereby bringing English practice closer to continental usage. This recension remained in use until the coronation of Edward II in 1308, when the fourth recension was introduced after several decades of development. Although influenced by French coronation rites, the new ordo placed greater emphasis on the relationship between the monarch and the nobility and on the coronation oath, neither of which featured prominently in the more absolutist French tradition. One manuscript of this recension, the at Westminster Abbey, has come to be regarded as the definitive version.
Following the beginning of the English Reformation, the boy-king Edward VI was crowned in 1547 in the first Protestant coronation, during which Archbishop Thomas Cranmer preached against idolatry and what he described as "the tyranny of the bishops of Rome". Six years later, Edward was succeeded by his half-sister Mary I, who restored the Catholic rite. In 1559, Elizabeth I underwent the last English coronation conducted under the auspices of the Catholic Church; however, Elizabeth's insistence on incorporating elements reflecting her Protestant beliefs led several bishops to refuse to officiate, and the ceremony was performed by the relatively low‑ranking Bishop of Carlisle, Owen Oglethorpe.
Scottish coronations
thumb|upright=1.3|right|[[Alexander III of Scotland|Alexander III at his coronation aged eight at Scone Abbey in 1249, being greeted by the royal poet who will recite the king's genealogy]]
Scottish coronations were traditionally held at Scone Abbey in Perthshire, with the monarch seated on the Stone of Destiny. The original rituals were a fusion of ceremonies used by the kings of Dál Riata, based on the inauguration of Aidan by Columba in 574, and by the Picts from whom the Stone of Destiny came. A crown does not seem to have been used until the inauguration of Alexander II in 1214. The ceremony included the laying on of hands by a senior cleric and the recitation of the king's genealogy. The bishop of St Andrews (from 1472 an archbishop) usually presided, but other bishops and archbishops also performed at some coronations.
After the coronation of John Balliol, the Stone was taken to Westminster Abbey in 1296 and in 1300–1301 Edward I of England had it incorporated into the English Coronation Chair. Pope John XXII in a bull of 1329 granted the kings of Scotland the right to be anointed and crowned. It is likely that the child would have been knighted before the start of the ceremony. The coronation itself started with a sermon, followed by the anointing and crowning, then the coronation oath, in this case taken for the child by an unknown noble or priest, and finally an oath of fealty and acclamation by the congregation.
James VI had been crowned in the Church of the Holy Rude at Stirling in 1567. After the Union of the Crowns, he was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 25 July 1603. His son Charles I travelled north for a Scottish coronation at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh in 1633, but caused consternation amongst the Presbyterian Scots by his insistence on elaborate High Anglican ritual, arousing "gryt feir of inbriginge of poperie". Charles II underwent a simple Presbyterian coronation ceremony at Scone in 1651, but his brother James VII and II was never crowned in Scotland, although Scottish peers attended his 1685 coronation in London, setting a precedent for future ceremonies. The coronation of Charles II was the last to take place in Scotland, and no bishop presided as the episcopacy had been abolished; the de facto head of government, Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, crowned Charles instead.
Modern coronations
thumb|Partial illustration of the State Procession prior to the Coronation of [[James II of England|James II and Mary of Modena at Westminster, 23 April 1685]]
The Liber Regalis was translated into English for the first time for the coronation of James I in 1603, partly as a result of the reformation in England requiring services to be understood by the people, but also an attempt by antiquarians to recover a lost English identity from before the Norman Conquest. In 1685, James II, who was a Catholic, ordered a truncated version of the service omitting the Eucharist, but this was restored for later monarchs. Only four years later, the service was again revised by Henry Compton for the coronation of William III and Mary II. The Latin text was resurrected for the 1714 coronation of the German-speaking George I, since it was the only common language between the king and the clergy. Perhaps because the 1761 coronation of George III had been beset by "numerous mistakes and stupidities", the next time around, spectacle overshadowed the religious aspect of the service. The coronation of George IV in 1821 was an expensive and lavish affair with a vast amount of money being spent on it.
George's brother and successor William IV had to be persuaded to be crowned at all; his coronation at a time of economic depression in 1831 cost only one sixth of that spent on the previous event. Traditionalists threatened to boycott what they called a "Half Crown-nation". The king merely wore his robes over his uniform as Admiral of the Fleet. For this coronation, a number of economising measures were made which would set a precedent followed by future monarchs. The assembly of peers and ceremonial at Westminster Hall involving the presentation of the regalia to the monarch was eliminated. The procession from Westminster Hall to the Abbey on foot was likewise eliminated and in its place, a state procession by coach from St James's Palace to the abbey was instituted, an important feature of the modern event. The music in the abbey was widely criticised in the press, only one new piece having been written for it, and the large choir and orchestra were badly coordinated.
In the 20th century, liturgical scholars sought to restore the spiritual meaning of the ceremony by rearranging elements with reference to the medieval texts, creating a "complex marriage of innovation and tradition". The greatly increased pageantry of the state processions was intended to emphasise the strength and diversity of the British Empire.
Bringing coronations to the people
thumb|upright=1.5|left|Queen [[Elizabeth I carried from her Coronation in a horse-borne litter, 15 January 1559]]
The idea of the need to gain popular support for a new monarch by making the ceremony a spectacle for ordinary people, started with the coronation in 1377 of Richard II who was a 10-year-old boy, thought unlikely to command respect simply by his physical appearance. On the day before the coronation, the boy king and his retinue were met outside the City of London by the lord mayor, aldermen and the livery companies, and he was conducted to the Tower of London where he spent the night in vigil. The following morning, the king travelled on horseback in a great procession through the decorated city streets to Westminster. Bands played along the route, the public conduits flowed with red and white wine, and an imitation castle had been built in Cheapside, probably to represent the New Jerusalem, where a girl blew gold leaf over the king and offered him wine. Similar, or even more elaborate pageants continued until the coronation of Charles II in 1661. Charles's pageant was watched by Samuel Pepys who wrote: "So glorious was the show with gold and silver that we were not able to look at it". James II abandoned the tradition of the pageant to pay for jewels for his queen and thereafter there was only a short procession on foot from Westminster Hall to the abbey. For the coronation of William IV and Adelaide in 1831, a state procession from St James's Palace to the abbey was instituted, and this pageantry is an important feature of the modern event. the last of these was published in 1905 depicting the coronation which had taken place three years earlier. Re-enactments of the ceremony were staged at London and provincial theatres; in 1761, a production featuring the Westminster Abbey choir at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden ran for three months after the real event.
The coronation of George VI in 1937 was broadcast on radio by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and parts of the service were filmed and shown in cinemas. The state procession was shown live on the new BBC Television Service, the first major outside broadcast. At Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, most of the proceedings inside the abbey were also televised by the BBC. Originally, events as far as the choir screen were to be televised live, with the remainder to be filmed and released later after any mishaps were edited out. This would prevent television viewers from seeing most of the highlights of the coronation, including the actual crowning, live; it led to controversy in the press and even questions in parliament. The organising committee subsequently decided that the entire ceremony would be televised, except for the anointing and communion. It was revealed 30 years later that the about-face was due to the personal intervention of the Queen. It is estimated that over 20 million people watched the broadcast in the United Kingdom. The coronation contributed to the increase of public interest in television, which rose significantly.
Commonwealth realms
The need to include the various elements of the British Empire in coronations was not considered until 1902, when it was attended by the prime ministers and governors-general of the British Dominions, by then almost completely autonomous, and also by many of the rulers of the Indian Princely States and the various British Protectorates. An Imperial Conference was held afterwards. In 1911, the procession inside Westminster Abbey included the banners of the dominions, India and the Home Nations. By 1937, the Statute of Westminster 1931 had made the dominions fully independent, and the wording of the coronation oath was amended to include their names and confine the elements concerning religion to the United Kingdom.
thumb|The first British coronation in the 21st century during the [[coronation of Charles III and Camilla (6 May 2023)]]
Thus since 1937, the monarch has been simultaneously crowned as sovereign of several independent nations besides the United Kingdom, known since 1953 as the Commonwealth realms. In 2023, the oath was amended to avoid reciting the realms other than the United Kingdom during the coronation of Charles III.
Preparations
thumb|[[Westminster Abbey has been the traditional location for coronations since 1066.]]
Timing
The timing of the coronation has varied throughout British history. King Edgar's coronation was some 15 years after his accession in 959 and may have been intended to mark the high point of his reign, or that he reached the age of 30, the age at which Jesus Christ was baptised. Harold II was crowned on the day after the death of his predecessor, Edward the Confessor, the rush probably reflecting the contentious nature of Harold's succession; whereas the first Norman monarch, William I, was also crowned on the day he became king, 25 December 1066, but three weeks since the surrender of English nobles and bishops at Berkhampstead, allowing time to prepare a spectacular ceremony. Edward II's coronation, similarly, was delayed by a campaign in Scotland in 1307. Henry VI was only a few months old when he acceded in 1422; he was crowned in 1429, but did not officially assume the reins of government until he was deemed of sufficient age, in 1437. Pre-modern coronations were usually either on a Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, or on a Christian holiday. Edgar's coronation was at Pentecost, William I's on Christmas Day, possibly in imitation of the Byzantine emperors, and John's was on Ascension Day. Elizabeth I consulted her astrologer, John Dee, before deciding on an auspicious date. The coronations of Charles II in 1661 and Anne in 1702 were on St George's Day, the feast of the patron saint of England.
Under the Hanoverian monarchs in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was deemed appropriate to extend the waiting period to several months, following a period of mourning for the previous monarch and to allow time for preparation of the ceremony.
In the case of every monarch between George IV and George V, at least one year passed between accession and coronation. Edward VIII was not crowned and his successor George VI was crowned 5 months after his accession. The coronation date of his predecessor had already been set; planning simply continued with a new monarch. The coronation of Charles III and Camilla was held on 6 May 2023, eight months after he acceded to the throne.
Since a period of time has often passed between accession and coronation, some monarchs were never crowned. Edward V and Lady Jane Grey were both deposed before they could be crowned, in 1483 and 1553, respectively. Edward VIII also went uncrowned, as he abdicated in 1936 before the end of the customary one-year period between accession and coronation.
Location
The Anglo-Saxon monarchs used various locations for their coronations, including Bath, Kingston upon Thames, London, and Winchester. The last Anglo-Saxon monarch, Harold II, was crowned at Westminster Abbey in 1066; the location was preserved for all future coronations. When London was under the control of rebels, Henry III was crowned at Gloucester in 1216; he later chose to have a second coronation at Westminster in 1220. Two hundred years later, Henry VI also had two coronations; as king of England in London in 1429, and as king of France in Paris in 1431. such coronations were common practice in mediaeval France and Germany, but this is only one of two instances of its kind in England (the other being that of Ecgfrith of Mercia in 796, crowned whilst his father, Offa of Mercia, was still alive). More commonly, a king's wife is crowned as queen consort. If the king is already married at the time of his coronation, a joint coronation of both king and queen may be performed. The most recent was that of Charles III and his wife Camilla in 2023. If the king married, or remarried, after his coronation, or if his wife was not crowned with him for some other reason, she might be crowned in a separate ceremony. The first such separate coronation of a queen consort in England was that of Matilda of Flanders in 1068; the last was Anne Boleyn's in 1533. The most recent king to wed post-coronation, Charles II, did not have a separate coronation for his bride, Catherine of Braganza. In some instances, the king's wife was simply unable to join him in the coronation ceremony due to circumstances preventing her from doing so. In 1821, George IV's estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick was not invited to the ceremony; when she showed up at Westminster Abbey anyway, she was denied entry and turned away. Following the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell declined the crown but underwent a coronation in all but name in his second investiture as Lord Protector in 1657.
Participants
Clergy
thumb|right|Archbishops of Canterbury and York at the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who has precedence over all other clergy and all laypersons except members of the royal family, traditionally officiates at coronations; in his absence, another bishop appointed by the monarch may take the archbishop's place. There have, however, been several exceptions. William I was crowned by the Archbishop of York, since the Archbishop of Canterbury had been appointed by the Antipope Benedict X, and this appointment was not recognised as valid by the Pope. Edward II was crowned by the Bishop of Winchester because the Archbishop of Canterbury had been exiled by Edward I. Mary I, a Catholic, refused to be crowned by the Protestant Archbishop Thomas Cranmer; the coronation was instead performed by the Bishop of Winchester. Elizabeth I was crowned by the Bishop of Carlisle (to whose see is attached no special precedence) because the senior prelates were "either dead, too old and infirm, unacceptable to the queen, or unwilling to serve". Finally, when James II was deposed and replaced with William III and Mary II jointly, the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to recognise the new sovereigns; he had to be replaced by the Bishop of London, Henry Compton. Hence, in almost all cases where the Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to participate, his place has been taken by a senior cleric: the Archbishop of York is second in precedence, the Bishop of London third, the Bishop of Durham fourth, and the Bishop of Winchester fifth.</blockquote>
The Bishop of Durham stands on the monarch's right and the Bishop of Bath and Wells on their left.
During the Coronation of King Charles III, Queen Camilla was similarly accompanied by Bishops Assistant – the Bishops of Hereford and of Norwich – on her right and left respectively.
Great Officers of State
The Great Officers of State traditionally participate during the ceremony. The offices of Lord High Steward and Lord High Constable have not been regularly filled since the 15th and 16th centuries respectively; they are, however, revived for coronation ceremonies. The Lord Great Chamberlain enrobes the sovereign with the ceremonial vestments, with the aid of the Groom of the Robes and the Master (in the case of a king) or Mistress (in the case of a queen) of the Robes.
Other claims to attend the coronation
Many landowners and other persons have honorific "duties" or privileges at the coronation. Such rights have traditionally been determined by a special Court of Claims, over which the Lord High Steward traditionally presided. The first recorded Court of Claims was convened in 1377 for the coronation of Richard II. By the Tudor period, the hereditary post of Lord High Steward had merged with the Crown, and so Henry VIII began the modern tradition of naming a temporary Steward for the coronation only, with separate commissioners to carry out the actual work of the court.
For the 2023 coronation of Charles III and Camilla, a Coronation Claims Office within the Cabinet Office was established instead of the court.
Other participants and guests
Along with persons of nobility, the coronation ceremonies are also attended by a wide range of political figures, including the prime minister and all members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, all governors-general and prime ministers of the Commonwealth realms, all governors of British Crown Colonies (now British Overseas Territories), as well as the heads of state of dependent nations. Hereditary peers and their spouses are also invited. For Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, 8,000 guests were squeezed into Westminster Abbey.
Dignitaries and representatives from other nations are also customarily invited. The coronation of Charles III and Camilla in 2023 broke with that precedent and 16 foreign monarchs attended. English and British queens dowager also did not traditionally attend coronations until Queen Mary broke precedent by attending the 1937 coronation of her son, George VI.
Service
The general framework of the coronation service is based on the sections contained in the Second Recension used in 973 for King Edgar. Although the service has undergone two major revisions and a translation, and has been modified for each coronation for the following thousand years, the sequence of taking an oath, anointing, investing of regalia, crowning and enthronement found in the Anglo-Saxon text have remained constant. The coronation ceremonies takes place within the framework of Holy Communion.
=== Recognition and oath ===<!-- This section is linked from United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland -->
thumb|[[Edward VII taking the oath in 1902]]
Before the entrance of the sovereign, the litany of the saints is sung during the procession of the clergy and other dignitaries. For the entrance of the monarch, an anthem from Psalm 122, I was glad, is sung.
The sovereign enters Westminster Abbey wearing the crimson surcoat and the Robe of State of crimson velvet and takes their seat on a Chair of Estate.
Garter Principal King of Arms, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Lord High Constable and the Earl Marshal go to the east, south, west and north of the coronation theatre. At each side, the archbishop calls for the recognition of the sovereign, with the words: