Prince Charles and a living history lesson

When I was a lobby journalist, I never went to the State Opening of Parliament. I much regret it, because when I finally went this week, as a peer, there was no Queen. The printed programme on our seats described itself as ‘The ceremonial to be observed at the Opening of Parliament by Her Majesty The Queen’, but in fact the Prince of Wales stood, or rather, sat in, because of his mother’s ‘mobility issues’. He read well, sticking to her understanding that to give any expressiveness to the Queen’s Speech would be to verge on constitutional impropriety. Imagine how inappropriate it would have been, for example, if the phrase ‘Her Majesty’s Government will level up’ had been uttered with any hint of enthusiasm. The Duke of Cambridge was in the chair to his father’s right, his expression in repose slightly melancholy. Between them, on a table, sat the Crown, like a box that must not be opened.

The occasion is a living, crowded, illustrated history lesson. It contains the classical elements of our polity – monarchy, bishops (wearing a sort of ermine fleece I had never noticed before), judges (wigged and robed), military (full dress uniform), foreign ambassadors and, of course, Lords, joined at the last minute by MPs below the bar. I found it all moving, not the less so for feeling slightly precarious and also, occasionally, comic. The bit I enjoyed most occurred in the Prince’s Chamber behind the throne. In marched the Yeoman of the Guard, sparklingly turned out. Then someone laid lighted lanterns in front of each and someone else shouted the order that the lanterns be taken up. This done, the Beefeaters slow-marched off to search the cellars for gunpowder, of which, I presume, they found none. If the whole thing does get blown up in our time, it will be accomplished not by explosives, but by bad ideology.