Vegan friendly holy oil, falling down stairs: what does that have to do with coronations?

Key points
  • Preparations for the coronation of King Charles are in full swing.
  • Buckingham Palace said the event will “reflect the role of the monarch today and look to the future.”
  • Here are some coronation traditions and highlights from past ceremonies.
The sacred oil has been sorted, new music has been ordered, and the official emblem has been revealed.
Preparing for in full swing, the couple will be crowned on May 6th.
It was widely believed that the event would be cut short compared to his mother. coronation in 1953, and Buckingham Palace said that while it would be “rooted in a long tradition”, it also “reflects the role of the monarch today and looks to the future”.
Really, The design of the coronation emblem pays homage to the monarch.

The emblem depicts the flora of the four peoples that make up the United Kingdom: the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland, the daffodil of Wales and the shamrock of Northern Ireland, which Buckingham Palace said was a tribute to the king’s love of nature.

The emblem of the coronation of King Charles.

The design of King Charles’s coronation emblem pays homage to the monarch’s decades-long campaign to protect the environment. Source: AARP / AP

The myrrh oil used during the most sacred part of the ceremony will not contain any ingredients of animal origin, as was the case on previous occasions.

The Palace has confirmed that six orchestral commissions, five choral commissions and one organ commission have been composed for the occasion, including a new coronation hymn performed by musical theater impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber.
“A range of musical styles and performers combine tradition, heritage and ceremony with new contemporary musical voices, reflecting the king’s lifelong love and support for music and the arts,” the palace said in a February statement.

Here are some coronation traditions and highlights from past ceremonies.

coronation chick

This is a British classic with a royal start.
was first served at the Queen Elizabeth Ceremony Banquet in 1953, where it appeared on the menu as Poulet Reine Elizabeth – or Queen Elizabeth’s Chicken.

It was created by Her Majesty’s florist Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume, who at the time was director of London’s Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.

The dish consisted of cold chicken topped with a creamy curry sauce served with a well seasoned dressed salad of rice, green peas and peppercorns.
But, despite its origins, coronation chicken is not one of the dishes that the British are recommended to serve on the day of the coronation of King Charles.

Dishes include Asian Style Coronation Marinated Lamb Roast by Ken Home, Coronation Eggplant by Nadia Hussain, and Strawberry Ginger Truffle by Adam Handling.

Vegan friendly holy oil

In the most sacred part of the coronation ceremony, the monarch is anointed with chrism. Previous versions were made with civet gland oil and whale intestinal ambergris.
But not the version that would be used for King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla. The newly consecrated oil was made from olives harvested from two groves on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, the Monastery of the Ascension and the Monastery of Mary Magdalene, the burial place of King Charles’s grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece.
The oil, scented with sesame, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, neroli, benzoin and orange blossom, is based on that used for the coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth 70 years ago and a formula that has been used for hundreds of years, Buckingham Palace said in a statement. Friday
Golden container in the shape of an eagle

An ampoule containing myroslav oil and a coronation spoon used at the coronation of the British Queen Elizabeth in 1953. Source: AARP, Press Association / Matt Dunham/Alami

His Beatitude Theophilus III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Anglican Archbishop of the city, Hosam Nahum, consecrated the chrismation in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the palace reported.

Traditionally, oil is poured from an ampule (an exquisite gold vessel in the shape of an eagle) onto a coronation spoon, and then the sovereign’s head, chest and hands are smeared.
During the coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth in 1953, television cameras cut off the moment as the moment was considered too sacred to broadcast.

Whether the anointing will be shown at the ceremony of King Charles has not yet been reported.

700 year old chair.

The historic coronation chair that held Henry VIII and other monarchs of England and then Britain for some 700 years is being transformed ahead of King Charles’s coronation ceremony this year.
The coronation chair was commissioned by King Edward I and included the Bun Stone or Destiny Stone, which has been used for centuries for the coronation of Scottish kings. Edward brought the Stone from Scotland in 1296.

According to London’s Westminster Abbey, it has been used in coronation ceremonies since 1308 and has been used for the coronation of monarchs since the time of Henry IV in 1399.

A woman works on a chair.

Restorer Krista Blesley is working on the restoration of the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey in London ahead of the upcoming coronation of King Charles III. Source: AARP, Press Association / Kirsty O’Connor/Alami

Over the years, the chair has suffered from wear and tear, not least from graffiti by local Westminster schoolchildren and tourists in the 18th and 19th centuries. One visitor carved the words “P. Abbott slept in this chair July 5-6, 1800.”

A bomb blast in 1914, believed to have been orchestrated by suffragettes (women who advocate for the right to vote), also destroyed a small corner. Its base, which has a lion on each corner, was also replaced in the 18th century.
In the meantime, Scottish Nationalists took the Flatbread Stone on 25 December 1950 before it was discovered months later. The stone was returned to Scotland in 1996 and is kept at Edinburgh Castle, but will return to London for the coronation.

The latest conservation work will focus on cleaning the surface with sponges and cotton swabs from dirt and stabilizing the surviving layers of gilding on the medieval chair and base.

Coronation Chaos

Many might think that coronations are carefully planned events, but apparently this was not the case in all cases.
The coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 was barely rehearsed and was shown.
The ceremony lasted five hours, and because of this, the monarch changed her outfit twice.

She recalled in her diary that the Archbishop of Canterbury put her coronation ring on the wrong finger, which she later managed to remove, but not without “great pain”.

The monarch also spoke of the moment the politician Lord Rolle fell while walking to pay his respects to the queen.
She wrote that the “infirm” 87-year-old woman “when trying to climb the steps, fell and rolled down, but was not injured in the least.”
“When he tried to climb them again, I got up and went to the end of the steps to prevent another fall,” she wrote.
It is also said that the confused bishop and she had to return to her seat to complete her service.

Bored Charles

The current King Charles was four years old when he attended the coronation of his mother Queen Elizabeth.
It was a historic moment for the then Duke of Cornwall, who became the first child to see his mother’s coronation as sovereign. His sister, Princess Anne, was too young to attend.

But the three-hour ceremony appeared to be too much for the young royal, who was photographed resting his head on a propped arm with a bored expression.

A young guy stands between two women.

Prince Charles with his aunt, Princess Margaret (right) and grandmother, Elizabeth the Queen Mother, at the coronation of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1953. Source: Getty / Halton Deutsch/Corbis

Years later, he told his biographer that he remembered little of the coronation other than the haircut he received from the palace barber.

He said that it was too short, and his hair was stuck to his head “with the most terrible anguish.”

– With Reuters