One day, a very large, embossed envelope dropped through our letter box at home. At the time my wife was working for a local charity and the envelope contained an invitation to a royal garden party at Hillsborough Castle hosted by the then Prince Charles. I won’t repeat what I said when she opened it but rest assured, my wife took her mother as her ‘plus one’ and not me.
Today Charles III will be anointed king of a country where only three out of every 10 Britons think the monarchy is ‘very important’, the lowest proportion on record. Another survey focusing on young people showed that 41 per cent now believe there should be an elected head of state.
It will come as no shock to discover I’ve never been, nor ever will be, a fan of any monarchy, especially an English one. And rest assured this is an English monarch, for while much has been made of bringing the historic Stone of Scone from Scotland for the coronation, they could have brought Ben Nevis and it wouldn’t legitimise Charles up north.
Some indication of the strength of anti-royalist sentiment in Scotland echoed around Hampden Park stadium last weekend where Celtic played Rangers and Celtic supporters belted out the catchy chant, "You can stick the coronation up yer a**e".
On this side of the Irish Sea the division between loyalist and republican splits almost exclusively along sectarian lines, though even here some younger unionists no longer view loyalism as an integral part of their identity.
That the monarchy has survived into the 21st century is bewildering considering our ‘woke’ society and how it is the antithesis of meritocracy. Monarchy embodies inherited privilege with wealth and power handed down solely due to accident of birth.
And while I hold no personal antipathy for Charles the man, I’d suggest that having lived off the public purse for 74 years it’s time he began earning his own living. With an estimated personal fortune of over £1 billion Charles could easily have paid for his lavish coronation but instead, taxpayers will be picking up the tab of around £100 million, perverse against the backdrop of the present financial crisis, with striking nurses and record levels of the population reliant on food parcels.
The real question is why there was a need for a coronation at all? There’s no legal imperative as Charles became king at the Accession Council and all other European monarchies have long since dispensed with such frippery. Denmark, Sweden and Norway ended coronations at the start of the 20th century while the last one in Spain happened in 1555.
Of course, for those willing to stand in the cold and rain for days to glimpse the golden coronation carriage, this will sound like sour grapes. And while the ruling class in the UK were willing to put EU membership to a vote, they show no such appetite to offer the same democratic choice over the monarchy.
We can but hope the day arrives when our MPs are no longer forced to give an oath of allegiance to the English king, something which many republican MPs on the other island would also welcome. Until that day arrives, our democracy will continue to be humiliated into bending a knee to aristocracy.
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If you’re of a similar vintage to myself, you’ve no doubt had occasion while watching the news to worry you might be experiencing a minor stroke. Reports that Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill had accepted an invitation to the coronation was one such instance of this.
While I understand Michelle O’Neill’s explanation that she wants to reach out to all in our society, her decision still feels somewhat surreal. Indeed, many have already called her attendance more a provocation than an attempt at reconciliation. For, let’s be honest, Michelle could put on a union flag dress and dance in the front of this year’s Twelfth march, and she still wouldn’t be accepted by most loyalists. I also doubt she’ll be accepted by those she’ll meet in Westminster Abbey where a multitude of suspicious eyes will carefully watch her throughout the coronation.
Still, there may be a way she could retain her republican credentials. I’d love if the fashionista commentators reviewing what the visiting dignitaries were wearing said, “And that’s the Sinn Féin vice president sporting a striking colour combination of a green, white and orange outfit, and completing her ensemble is an interesting piece of jewellery called an Easter lily. How absolutely lovely."
