When Charles is crowned King today, he will be following in a long tradition of Christian kingship. The existing coronation practice of the British monarchy can be traced back over a thousand years to the crowning of the first King of All England, Edgar, in Bath Abbey in 973 AD. Edgar’s coronation service – devised by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Dunstan – has been the template for every coronation since. Key elements include the oath made by the monarch to God and a service of Holy Communion (in earlier times, the Mass). Some critics object to the Christian and biblical basis of the coronation ceremony. The National Secular Society’s chief executive Stephen Evans said this week:
‘This coronation may be fit for a king, but it’s certainly not fit for a modern democracy. An exclusively Anglican ceremony is a ludicrous way to inaugurate a head of state in one of the least religious countries on Earth’.
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