by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2019

Coronation Chair commissioned in 1296 by King Edward I; Credit – By Kjetil Bjørnsrud – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=780325

Check out all our British coronation articles at the link below:

• Unofficial Royalty: British Coronations

The main elements of the British coronation service and the form of the oath taken by the sovereign can be traced to the order of service devised by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury for the coronation of Edgar the Peaceable, King of the English in 973. Dunstan felt there was a need for a major ceremony similar to the coronations of the King of the Franks and the German Emperor. Previously, the Kings of Wessex and the early Anglo-Saxon Kings of the English were installed on the Kings’ Stone which can still be seen in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, England.

Dunstan wrote the order of service for King Edgar’s coronation based upon ceremonies used by the Kings of the Franks and ceremonies used in the ordination of bishops. Although there have been revisions in the order of the ceremony, the sequence of taking an oath, anointing, investing of regalia, crowning, and enthronement found in the original Anglo-Saxon text have remained constant. See our article Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey for more specific information about the coronation liturgy.

The United Kingdom is the only European monarchy that still has a coronation ceremony with a crowning. In the United Kingdom, upon the death of the sovereign, there is an immediate transference of power. The heir to the throne becomes the new sovereign immediately upon his/her predecessor’s death. “The king is dead, long live the king!”

If the sovereign is a male and is married, his wife instantly becomes queen consort because, in the United Kingdom, a wife takes her husband’s status. A coronation is not necessary at all for a person to become the sovereign or the queen consort.

King Edward V, one of the “Princes in the Tower,” two disputed monarchs Empress Matilda, Lady of the English, the only surviving child of King Henry I, and Lady Jane Grey, and additionally King Edward VIII who abdicated in 1936, are the only monarchs since the Norman Conquest in 1066 who were never crowned.

King Henry II decided to adopt the French practice of ensuring the succession by declaring his heir the junior king. His eldest surviving son Henry, called “The Young King,” was crowned at Westminster Abbey on June 14, 1170. His wife Marguerite was not crowned at this time and this greatly infuriated her father King Louis VII of France. To appease the French king, another coronation which included Marguerite was held on August 27, 1172, at Winchester Cathedral. Henry the Young King predeceased his father and never became King of England.

A number of queens consort were not crowned with their husbands but were crowned in a separate ceremony. The reasons vary from not being married when their husbands became king, not being in England at the time, pregnancy, illness, etc. Eight queens consort were never crowned. Margaret of France, the second wife of King Edward I, was never crowned, making her the first queen consort since the Norman Conquest in 1066 not to be crowned. King Henry VIII apparently did not feel the need to have his last four wives crowned. Three of them were queen for not very long: Jane Seymour (died) – 15 months, Anne of Cleves (divorced) – 7 months, Catherine Howard (beheaded) – 16 months. Henry VIII’s last wife Catherine Parr (survived) was queen for a bit longer – 2 ½ years. Henrietta Maria of France, wife of King Charles I, and Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II), were never crowned because they were Catholic and did not want to participate in a Church of England ceremony. King George IV’s estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick was prevented from being crowned with him and when she showed up at Westminster Abbey she was turned away.

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