Parliament is the voice of today. The monarch is the voice of history

On this very day 60 years ago Queen Elizabeth II was crowned and she is still Queen. She is unique and so we are uniquely fortunate. It has become almost a truism to say that the Queen has presided over astonishing change in this kingdom and has been the still small voice of calm at the centre of the storm.

But even clichés can contain truth. The white cliffs are still there, but this country is almost unrecognizable as that in which she was crowned. But she has remained the same as the beautiful young woman who was presented in Westminster Abbey as ‘Your Undoubted Queen’. The Coronation is a Christian service but with elements of older, almost primeval sacrifice and dedication.  The words resound with glory.

In his account of the ceremony (shown in the video clip above) the historian Harold Nicholson asked if it was an anachronism, merely a magnificent charade symbolizing with splendour the memories of a mighty imperial past? Or was it more accurately a pageant of British history and its long progress towards democratic kingship?

I think the latter.