The coronation of the monarch of the United Kingdom is an initiation ceremony in which they are formally invested with regalia and crowned at Westminster Abbey. It corresponds to the coronations that formerly took place in other European monarchies, which have all abandoned coronations in favour of inauguration or enthronement ceremonies. A coronation is a symbolic formality and does not signify the official beginning of the monarch's reign; de jure and de facto his or her reign commences from the moment of the preceding monarch's death or abdication, maintaining legal continuity of the monarchy.

The coronation usually takes place several months after the death of the monarch's predecessor, as it is considered a joyous occasion that would be inappropriate while mourning continues. This interval also gives planners enough time to complete the required elaborate arrangements. The most recent coronation was that of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on 6 May 2023.

The ceremony is performed by the archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior cleric in the Church of England, of which the monarch is supreme governor. Other clergy and members of the British nobility traditionally have roles as well. Most participants wear ceremonial uniforms or robes, and before the most recent coronation, some wore coronets. Many government officials and guests attend, including representatives of other countries.

The essential elements of the coronation have remained largely unchanged for the past 1,000 years. The sovereign is first presented to, and acclaimed by, the people. The sovereign then swears an oath to uphold the law and the Church. Following that, the monarch is anointed with holy oil, invested with regalia, and crowned, before receiving the homage of their subjects. The consort of the king is then anointed and crowned as queen. The service ends with a closing procession, and since the 20th century it has been traditional for the British royal family to appear later on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to greet crowds and watch a flypast.

History

English coronations

English coronations were traditionally held at Westminster Abbey, with the monarch seated on the Coronation Chair. The main elements of the service, as well as the earliest form of the coronation oath, can be traced to the rite devised by Saint Dunstan for the coronation of King Edgar in 973 AD at Bath Abbey. Dunstan's ceremony drew on the coronation practices of the Franks and on the liturgy used in the ordination of bishops. Two versions of the early coronation service, known as (from the Latin , meaning 'order') or recensions, survive from before the Norman Conquest. It is not known whether the first recension was ever used in England; the second recension was used for Edgar's coronation in 973 and for those of subsequent Anglo-Saxon and early Norman kings.Gosling, pp. 5–7.

A third recension was probably compiled during the reign of Henry I and was used at the coronation of his successor, Stephen, in 1135. While retaining the principal elements of the Anglo‑Saxon rite, it may have incorporated material from the consecration of the Holy Roman emperor in the , a German liturgical book compiled in Mainz in 961, thereby bringing English practice closer to continental usage.Strong, pp. 43–44. This recension remained in use until the coronation of Edward II in 1308, when the fourth recension was introduced after several decades of development. Although influenced by French coronation rites, the new ordo placed greater emphasis on the relationship between the monarch and the nobility and on the coronation oath, neither of which featured prominently in the more absolutist French tradition.Strong, pp. 81–82. One manuscript of this recension, the at Westminster Abbey, has come to be regarded as the definitive version.Strong, p. 84.

Following the beginning of the English Reformation, the boy-king Edward VI was crowned in 1547 in the first Protestant coronation, during which Archbishop Thomas Cranmer preached against idolatry and what he described as "the tyranny of the bishops of Rome". Six years later, Edward was succeeded by his half-sister Mary I, who restored the Catholic rite.Strong, pp. 204–206. In 1559, Elizabeth I underwent the last English coronation conducted under the auspices of the Catholic Church; however, Elizabeth's insistence on incorporating elements reflecting her Protestant beliefs led several bishops to refuse to officiate, and the ceremony was performed by the relatively low‑ranking Bishop of Carlisle, Owen Oglethorpe.Strong, p. 208.

Scottish coronations

Scottish coronations were traditionally held at Scone Abbey in Perthshire, with the monarch seated on the Stone of Destiny. The original rituals were a fusion of ceremonies used by the kings of Dál Riata, based on the inauguration of Aidan by Columba in 574, and by the Picts from whom the Stone of Destiny came. A crown does not seem to have been used until the inauguration of Alexander II in 1214. The ceremony included the laying on of hands by a senior cleric and the recitation of the king's genealogy.Thomas, pp. 46–47. The bishop of St Andrews (from 1472 an archbishop) usually presided, but other bishops and archbishops also performed at some coronations.

After the coronation of John Balliol, the Stone was taken to Westminster Abbey in 1296 and in 1300–1301 Edward I of England had it incorporated into the English Coronation Chair. Its first certain use at an English coronation was that of Henry IV in 1399.Strong, pp. 75–76. Pope John XXII in a bull of 1329 granted the kings of Scotland the right to be anointed and crowned. No record exists of the exact form of the medieval rituals, but a later account exists of the coronation of the 17-month-old infant James V at Stirling Castle in 1513. The ceremony was held in a church, since demolished, within the castle walls and was conducted by the archbishop of Glasgow, because the archbishop of St Andrews had been killed at the Battle of Flodden.Thomas, pp. 50–51. It is likely that the child would have been knighted before the start of the ceremony.Thomas, p. 53. The coronation itself started with a sermon, followed by the anointing and crowning, then the coronation oath, in this case taken for the child by an unknown noble or priest, and finally an oath of fealty and acclamation by the congregation.Thomas, pp. 54–55.

James VI and I had been crowned king of Scotland in the Church of the Holy Rude at Stirling in 1567. After the Union of the Crowns, he was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey on 25 July 1603. His son Charles I travelled north for a Scottish coronation at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh in 1633,Range, p. 43. but caused consternation amongst the Presbyterian Scots by his insistence on elaborate High Anglican ritual, arousing "gryt feir of inbriginge of poperie".Strong, p. 257. Charles II underwent a simple Presbyterian coronation ceremony at Scone in 1651, but his brother James VII and II was never crowned in Scotland, although Scottish peers attended his 1685 coronation in London, setting a precedent for future ceremonies.Strong, p. 351. The coronation of Charles II was the last to take place in Scotland, and no bishop presided as the episcopacy had been abolished; the de facto head of government, Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, crowned Charles instead.

Modern coronations

The Liber Regalis was translated into English for the first time for the coronation of James I in 1603, partly as a result of the reformation in England requiring services to be understood by the people,Gosling, p. 10. but also an attempt by antiquarians to recover a lost English identity from before the Norman Conquest.Strong, p. 244 In 1685, James II, who was a Catholic, ordered a truncated version of the service omitting the Eucharist, but this was restored for later monarchs. Only four years later, the service was again revised by Henry Compton for the coronation of William III and Mary II. The Latin text was resurrected for the 1714 coronation of the German-speaking George I, since it was the only common language between the king and the clergy. Perhaps because the 1761 coronation of George III had been beset by "numerous mistakes and stupidities",Gosling pp. 54–55 the next time around, spectacle overshadowed the religious aspect of the service. The coronation of George IV in 1821 was an expensive and lavish affair with a vast amount of money being spent on it.

George's brother and successor William IV had to be persuaded to be crowned at all; his coronation at a time of economic depression in 1831 cost only one sixth of that spent on the previous event. Traditionalists threatened to boycott what they called a "Half Crown-nation".Strong, p. 401. The king merely wore his robes over his uniform as Admiral of the Fleet. For this coronation, a number of economising measures were made which would set a precedent followed by future monarchs. The assembly of peers and ceremonial at Westminster Hall involving the presentation of the regalia to the monarch was eliminated. The procession from Westminster Hall to the Abbey on foot was likewise eliminated and in its place, a state procession by coach from St James's Palace to the abbey was instituted, an important feature of the modern event. The coronation banquet after the service proper was also terminated.

When Victoria was crowned in 1838, the service followed the pared-down precedent set by her uncle, and the under-rehearsed ceremonial, again presided over by William Howley, was marred by mistakes and accidents.Gosling p. 52 The music in the abbey was widely criticised in the press, only one new piece having been written for it, and the large choir and orchestra were badly coordinated.Range, p. 224

In the 20th century, liturgical scholars sought to restore the spiritual meaning of the ceremony by rearranging elements with reference to the medieval texts,Strong, p. 470. creating a "complex marriage of innovation and tradition".Strong, p. 480. The greatly increased pageantry of the state processions was intended to emphasise the strength and diversity of the British Empire.Richards, p. 101

Bringing coronations to the people

The idea of the need to gain popular support for a new monarch by making the ceremony a spectacle for ordinary people, started with the coronation in 1377 of Richard II who was a 10-year-old boy, thought unlikely to command respect simply by his physical appearance. On the day before the coronation, the boy king and his retinue were met outside the City of London by the lord mayor, aldermen and the livery companies, and he was conducted to the Tower of London where he spent the night in vigil. The following morning, the king travelled on horseback in a great procession through the decorated city streets to Westminster. Bands played along the route, the public conduits flowed with red and white wine, and an imitation castle had been built in Cheapside, probably to represent the New Jerusalem, where a girl blew gold leaf over the king and offered him wine. Similar, or even more elaborate pageants continued until the coronation of Charles II in 1661.Strong, pp. 133–135. Charles's pageant was watched by Samuel Pepys who wrote: "So glorious was the show with gold and silver that we were not able to look at it". James II abandoned the tradition of the pageant to pay for jewels for his queenGosling p. 33 and thereafter there was only a short procession on foot from Westminster Hall to the abbey. For the coronation of William IV and Adelaide in 1831, a state procession from St James's Palace to the abbey was instituted, and this pageantry is an important feature of the modern event.