Musings on the Coronation and the Ghost of Diana.
Kings-1 1:39
'And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon: and they are come up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This [is] the noise that ye have heard.'
Twenty-six years after the great ecclesiastical space of Henry III had echoed to the sobs and claps of a grieving nation, it resounds to Handel's anthem and "GOD SAVE THE KING!" Diana, Princess of Wales' memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey on the 6th September, 1997. King Charles III and Queen Camilla were crowned there on the 6th May, 2023, the first time for man and wife jointly, since William and Mary in 1689.
Poor old Camilla. She certainly gets the stick from you folks! Our pasts cling to us like sodden garments. Can't we just accept that circumstances prevailed and they, as with us all, were subject to fate and forces outside of their control?
There were the humans and then there were the expectations and realities. She knew Charles had to have a virgin - a concept now under attack - whether he liked it or not, and she didn't qualify. The dye was set after that. Duty called and he obeyed but it never stopped the feelings. Doesn't that apply generally to everyone? Most people are forced into strait-jackets that are uncomfortable but necessary, for what is the alternative?
Tragedy it was, from start to finish, but I don't buy the line that Diana was the innocent victim, and Camilla the wicked witch. In fact I think it might be an example of how internalised classic fables project onto real life, rather than the other way round.
Those big innocent eyes belied a complicated woman, who was none the less, far from innocent in the affair, or indeed through them. She pushed the boundaries, and as an aristocrat herself, and the product of broken parental relationships, she I think was fully cognisant of the path she pursued with its inevitable tragic consequence, in which the nation empathised and drowned.
The times I have observed Camilla close up she impresses, obviously not in the youthful, glamourous and yes sexy way of Diana, but as a down-to-earth, no nonsense, realist, in fact far more suited to the technical job of 'Queening' than Diana. She is unpretentious and relates on the interpersonal human level.
We can only admire the way she has silently coped with the brick-bats, without complaint and without disintegrating psychologically. That I believe, shows great strenth of character and probably something that the emotionally insecure Charles, with a distant mother, attracted her to him.
Charles has had a long - historically the longest - apprenticeship as Prince of Wales, permanently in the public eye, not of his choosing but as an accident of birth and constitutional requirements. He could have blown it all on wine women and song and become grossly overweight as did George IV. He could have lost his head like Charles I.
Instead he devoted his energies to social, environmental and cultural purposes that have had real benefit for thousands. He found and filled a gap in the social welfare state with the Princes Trust, as his father had before him with the Duke of Edinburgh Award. That is all to his credit, and as his long-term supporter and confidant, to Camilla's too, which her joint Coronation - the first time a husband and wife were jointly crowned since William and Mary in 1689 - is perhaps, just reward.
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