“Why King Charles received another crown”
King Charles is presented with the Crown of Scotland during a service at St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh on July 5. ( Andrew Milligan/Getty Images) Scottish crown jewels presented to monarch during service in Edinburgh to mark coronation Two months after his coronation, King Charles was presented with another crown. As much as that Crown of Scotland carried with it centuries of royal symbolism, the ceremony that surrounded the presentation of the Scottish crown jewels to him in Edinburgh a few days ago also reflected efforts to send signals about the monarchy’s future in that corner of the United Kingdom. Ewen Cameron, a professor of Scottish history at the University of Edinburgh, saw careful efforts to send two distinct messages from the service held at St. Giles’ Cathedral to mark the coronation. “They wanted to send this message: You know, we take Scotland seriously. We recognize what contemporary Scotland is all about,” Cameron said in an interview. “But also … they wanted to send a reminder of the Scottishness of the monarchy.” That Scottishness has deep historic roots — the crown, for example, was made for King James V, and he wore it for the first time in 1540, at the coronation of Queen Mary of Guise. But the actual ceremony last week is, in royal terms, a relatively new phenomenon. King Charles, left, and Queen Camilla arrive for the presentation of the Honours of Scotland at St. Giles’ Cathedral. (Jonathan Brady/The Associated Press) “In some ways, it doesn’t have very deep historical roots,” said Cameron, who noted that while Charles’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, did something similar in 1953, after her coronation, her father, King George VI, and three previous monarchs did not. As Elizabeth came to the throne, there were some particular considerations. “It was tricky in 1953 because that was an era when … early Scottish nationalism was beginning to develop,” Cameron said. “Not really in an electoral sense. The [Scottish National Party] weren’t very successful at elections, but there was a broad sort of cultural movement, feeling around that Scotland wasn’t quite getting its just recognition within the union.” As much as it was a royal ceremony in 1953, there were efforts to ensure it didn’t have the full flavour of a coronation. The Queen came in regular day dress rather ceremonial robes. “They wanted the Queen to be seen in Scotland to kind of respond to this feeling,” said Cameron. “But they didn’t want to go too far and have anything that looked like a coronation, because that might feed the very nationalism that they were seeking to kind of manage.” However delicate that balance was in 1953, Cameron sees it more so in 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9yzHb0IyEk Scotland marked the coronation of King Charles and his wife Camilla, presenting him with the “Honours of Scotland,” Britain’s oldest crown jewels. “It’s even trickier now because, of course, Scotland’s position has changed,” he said. “We have a Parliament here in Edinburgh, which is devolved,” Cameron said. “And of course we also have an SNP government, or SNP working with the Green Party. And of course both of those parties want independence for Scotland.” This time around, there was a bit more to the ceremony. “What we saw last week was a kind of development of what had been done in ’53,” said Cameron. “The King … he didn’t just turn up in his blue double-breasted [suit] … he was in some sort of regalia.” The Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, was there this time, but Charles wasn’t sitting too close to it, Cameron noted. Officers guard the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, ahead of the service. (Jonathan Brady/The Associated Press) “So they’re trying to manage this. You know, it’s not a coronation, it’s something else,” he said. “It’s about recognizing … a degree of Scottishness in terms of what the monarchy stands for.” Coronation expert George Gross said that being presented with Scotland’s crown would have been especially significant for Charles. “Less than a year ago, the King had been standing paying vigil with his late mother lying in rest in St. Giles’ Cathedral, with that same crown on top of the coffin,” said Gross, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London. “That was a very poignant moment.” Outside the cathedral last week, republicans who want to abolish the monarchy waged their own protest. “This pointless vanity parade in Edinburgh will cost Scottish taxpayers millions of pounds, and for what?” Graham Smith, CEO of the group Republic, said in a news release. “So Charles can once again be centre of attention for a day.” Anti-monarchy protesters and royal supporters gather near St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh on July 5. (Russell Cheyne/The Associated Press) Cameron said he was struck by the fact that the protesters “were given a very prominent position” close to the door of the cathedral. “There didn’t seem to be any of the heavy-handed tactics that were present last summer or indeed at the time of the coronation in London, where the Metropolitan Police had a lot of criticism for the way that it handled the republicans.” Along with King Charles and Queen Camilla, Charles’s heir, Prince William, and Catherine, Princess of Wales, were on hand as Charles was presented with the crown jewels. Cameron found it interesting they were so prominent. From left, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince William, King Charles and Queen Camilla take part in the service. (Andrew Milligan/The Associated Press) “It seems to me that that generation of the Royal Family are … less keen to play the Scottish cards, if you like, than their father or especially their grandmother, the late Queen,” he said. “You don’t see Prince William very often wearing a kilt, for example.” Seeing William and Catherine along for this ceremony left Cameron wondering if it was “an attempt to … introduce them to that side of royal tradition, to inculcate them into, you know, what needs to be done as far
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