2,119 words
Let’s just get it out of the way right now: There were too many multi-culti annoyances at the coronation of King Charles III. For me the worst part was this — but it’s not even that bad. Not nearly as bad as the black preacher at Harry’s wedding. (If you click the link and watch the black preacher, note the priceless reactions from Prince Andrew’s daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie.) But there was so much else about the coronation that was exquisitely beautiful and moving, I was willing to overlook all of that.
Purely on the level of spectacle, it is unsurpassed by any event in recent memory save one: the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. You’ve really got to hand it to the British, don’t you? This is a people who, at this point, have practically had their balls cut off and handed to them in a purse with a matching pair of heels. But there’s still something left in them after all; something of the old imperial sangfroid, panache, and savoir faire are still in evidence. (Thank God for the Norman Conquest, or we wouldn’t be able to describe anything!) And a reverence for tradition was also in evidence — no matter how compromised by an obsession with seeming au courant.
That most of my closest friends didn’t plan to watch the coronation and have a “ho hum” attitude about the whole thing is inexplicable to me. This was our chance to witness, possibly for the one time in our lives, an ancient ceremony rich with symbolism. For some time now, Greg Johnson has referred to me as Counter-Currents’ “royal correspondent” (my first such contribution is here — and see here and here — oh, and also here). The source of my interest is simple: I never cease to be fascinated by the fact that these traditions survive and are being perpetuated by people who seem to really believe in them — no matter how disappointingly “modern” those people may seem in other respects.
Each element of the coronation — every garment worn, every object, every decoration, every color, every gesture, every choice of doors to enter and exit from, every line read or recited, every piece of music (save, perhaps, the one linked above) — tells a story. Everything is rich with history and significance. And, unless they were putting on a very good act, every participant seemed, with their every gesture and expression, to communicate that they were aware of all these meanings and that they believed. It was the most sincere hour I’ve seen on television in a long time. No irony here, no glad-handing American insincerity; no high-fiving; no Elton John; and, most importantly, no Meaghan.
This was a moment to face ourselves and see just how silly and vulgar we are. It was a moment to be humbled. This is one of the most important functions of tradition, and of the representatives of tradition, such as the royals: to remind us of greatness, of something greater than ourselves, so that we feel a call to rise, to be better than we are, to be worthy of our history, and to make our ancestors feel a little less nauseated when they look down at us, from wherever they are. It was the most beautiful ceremony I think I have ever witnessed (again, rivalled only by the Queen’s funeral) — and, to my surprise, it was also quite emotionally moving.
This had to do almost entirely with King Charles himself. I studied his facial expressions carefully throughout the ceremony — as I am sure every viewer did. At 74, Charles is the oldest person ever to be crowned King of England. The coronation is the moment he had been preparing for his entire life. What is extraordinary is that he seemed genuinely humbled by the experience. He listened intently to everything that was said, and his eyes conveyed sincerity of belief. At times, he seemed emotionally moved — almost on the verge of tears. For many men, this would be the ultimate self-aggrandizing experience, but not for Charles. He seemed to feel the weight of history, and the burden of his high office.
At no point was this more palpable than when he was invested with all the paraphernalia of the monarch. Each object was carefully presented to him and explained. At some moments, he made eye contact with the individuals presenting the different ceremonial objects, and smiled at them benevolently. The objects that were not presented to him to wear and carry (such as the Great Golden Spurs), he caressed, as if he were touching holy relics loaded with mana. Each time he was invested with one of the objects he was meant to actually wear or carry — the coronation robes, the golden orb, the scepters, and, finally, the crown — his expression seemed to suggest that he received each as a burden, rather than as a treasure or a symbol of personal importance.
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Of course, part of the reason for this is that these objects really are quite literally a burden: They are extremely heavy — so heavy that Charles had to be helped to stand up and sit down, and to walk. It was impossible for me not to feel sympathy for this old man, weighed down by these great burdens, received so late in life. Watch the video and you will see what I saw: Charles suffered. Yet these burdens were received at the right time: Charles certainly had time aplenty to reflect on the meaning of it all, and to avoid the mistake a younger man might make: thinking that all this was for him.
In fact, thousands filled the streets and £100 million ($125 million) was spent — not for Charles Philip Arthur George, but for what he represents. The ceremony is, in part, designed to effect this realization — in the onlookers, and also in the monarch himself. In the Coronation Chair, we are meant to realize, sits not a man, but Britain itself. I believe that even the weight of the ceremonial objects — the robes, crown, etc. — is intended to convey this to their bearer. Don’t rejoice, don’t imagine that this is a celebration of yourself, that weight seems to say. This is a cross to bear, not a gift. No one cares about you; all that matters is what you represent.
In all this, there is a deep mystery. I think that some of my friends take no interest in these matters because they have formed the tacit conviction that Charles, and other modern monarchs, are not “real” kings. What’s a real king? Someone with political power; someone who could launch an armada or convey his enemies to the Tower. Charles, by contrast, is sort of a pretend king, a mere “figurehead.” But this just misses what is so special and, I would say, genuinely mysterious about constitutional monarchy.
It’s true that Charles wields no real political power. (Constitutionally, the monarch does have certain significant powers — such as to declare war, to make peace, to fire ministers, and to command the military — but these powers have not been exercised in a long time.) Yet, he wields a very different sort of power: the power of symbolism. Symbolic power is of extraordinary significance. But literal-minded sorts, the people who think power is exclusively about guns and money, seem to be oblivious to it. In truth, the constitutional monarch is something much more interesting than the absolute monarch. His power consists in the fact that he is the nation embodied in one man.
Because the monarch is above politics — never expressing political opinions — he can embody the nation for those of different political persuasions. Paradoxically, it is because he is powerless that the monarch is so powerful. His power is close to the virile power that Julius Evola speaks of: a power that comes not from doing anything, not from being a man of action, but merely from being; being who he is. Being born to reign, born to embody the nation, born to represent history and tradition.
This would be absolutely impossible if the King were chosen by the people. And this is why American presidents can’t ever manage to be the “father of the country”: If you didn’t vote for him, he’s not your national symbol. The American coupling of the roles of head of government and head of state is disastrously wrongheaded, and this fact alone demonstrates the superiority of constitutional monarchy. The monarch is not chosen by the people, he is “chosen by God,” as we were reminded on Saturday. He is the next in line in a line of kings that goes back centuries. He can embody the nation because his family history is essentially the same thing as the nation’s history.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Photo credit: Chris Jackson
For years prior to his mother’s death, the world debated whether Charles was “fit” to be King (many said he was not), and whether the public would accept him. This all faded away to nothing as soon as the Queen died. The huge outpouring of grief that we saw last September translated into enormous sympathy directed toward Charles — for the loss of his mother, and for the great burden suddenly thrust upon him, at his advanced age. There was also a willingness to “give him a chance,” and a feeling that to do otherwise would be unfair. So far, this good will on the part of the public has held up. And it is not hard to see why. Aside from a few very, very minor displays of temper (which are more amusing than anything else), Charles has been just as his mother was: self-effacing.
And this is another of the mysteries of constitutional monarchy. I realized this as I watched Charles during the coronation: for him, this is a way. It is a kind of karmayoga: the obliteration of the ordinary ego through the path of duty, of unselfish action. The tao of Charles III is extraordinary, because no one can choose it: one has to be born into it. The gods have made other paths available to the rest of us, but to this one man they gave a path that no one else may walk.
Of course, not all monarchs have been up to it. Most have only appeared to be self-effacing — though in appearing to be so, they did their duty to the nation, and that was enough. But Charles, whatever his flaws, is reportedly a religious man who also cherishes his family history. The meaning of the coronation would have been lost on lesser men with more ordinary dispositions — but not, I think, on Charles.
One man is King. One man effaces himself and becomes the nation and its history — or, at least, he appears to. And the nation sees itself in him and, effectively, worships itself in him. The people loved the Queen, and they will love King Charles as well. This always happens. It happens because, deep down, no matter what they may say, they love themselves — their people, their culture, their history. The ups and downs of the royal family — who are more like a pantheon of (highly imperfect) gods than anything else — become the ups and downs of the nation. When the monarch rejoices, when he is crowned or celebrates a milestone, the people rejoice. When he dies, they grieve. This is the mystery of constitutional monarchy.
Of course, the question is how much longer it can last. As I noted at the outset, strenuous efforts are being made to assure everyone that Charles is not just King of the British but also of those folks who merely happen to carry British passports. It seems doubtful that this is going to work — no matter how many non-whites get recruited for the pomp and circumstance, and no matter how many are elevated to the peerage.
The monarch, I’ve said, embodies the nation. But who is that? I suspect he performs this function almost entirely for the real Brits, and not for folks like Ngozi Fulani. The trouble is, of course, the real Brits just aren’t having babies. Many years ago, the Shah of Iran quipped that “one day there will be only five kings in the world: the four in the deck of cards, and the one in England.” But I don’t know. All things come to an end. I don’t think that I will live to see the end of the British monarchy, and I’m happy about that. It would be like living to see a black James Bond.
So, stop your carping and enjoy what’s left of it while you can. And rejoice — for something genuinely magical happened last Saturday. We don’t get to see that very often.
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26 comments
Bishop Michael Curry is the head of the Episcopal Church; I.e., he’s the goddam Pope of what’s known officially as the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Anglican Church in America, which was set up so that Anglican clergy didn’t need to swear allegiance to the British monarch after the Revolution. He’s a „preacher „ in the same, humble sense that Pope Francis is merely the vicar of St. Peter‘s old see. I mention this not to criticize your fine essay, but to recall that at the time of what’s his name‘s wedding to that mulatto, it’s was working for an Episcopal org whose staff were quite miffed when Curry was universally identified by the media as „a black preacher from Chicago.”
Yes, but he acts just like a black preacher from Chicago!
Can I be a radical Whig at this party? God (One of Plotinus, Being of Parmenides) is the only true king.
If it had been left unsullied by the multi-culti pandering I may concede. But whatever blights, no matter how brief or how few, are not few nor brief enough. For this is the frog in boiling water. This was another vehicle for the message they want sent – there is no such thing as British anymore. Only a ghoulash that you have to accept. You are merely a spec in a drek we will swirl around so our spreadsheets can create a bigger market with more people and a bigger market share and a longer ponzi runway of “growth” to capture.
It is those spreadsheets and those models and those who build them and build policy with them who have the power. Coronate a King with the power to squash the merchant rabble and their magical spreadsheets and be the King of a true people and I will accept that Coronation as a truly splendorous ceremony. This, this is just a distraction; the coronation of a stooge, who accepts and promotes all of the precepts of abolishing his people and his nation with them. He just wants his portfolio to, “grow”, by importing an endless rabble. He has no truly grand and noble ambition like increasing the greatness of his nation by uplifting his true people and performing feats of war and administrative genius in reliance and partnership with them – his blood, his folk, his people to whom he is duty and honor bound.
This guy wants to replace his people. May the weight of it all crush him. May a new Lion rise, the way the Kings of old arose and earned their place on the throne or even outright forged one from nothing. May that King be British.
Well said. I don’t care about royals in general, but I watched a few clips of this nonsense just to see how pozzed it was — and it was pozzed enough. The symbolism of the event does not change the fact that Charles is a traitor to his people.
I agree with the author’s premise on the importance of ceremony and continuity of tradition, pageantry, gravity … …
The fundamental premise of the monarch is that he is the final arbiter of justice and bears the highest duty to ensure that every person along the hierarchy performs their reciprocal duties sufficiently to meet their obligations. Then they earn the benefits/rewards that come with their station. Ideally, the greatest benefit is proper performance of the duties and meeting all obligations. The highest duty is to the well being of the people of the nation. The nation is the people; the indigenous people who are the nation.
By that standard, this is an empty ceremony, since he sanctions the replacement and dispossession of his nation and his people. He is illegitimate.
Agreed.
I think we found a bug in the Edit function. My edit made my comment replace all other comments on this thread.
As someone who edits a lot, I think (if I correctly understood your observation) that it is just your browser ─ and once you refresh the page all is normal. I noticed this with Chrome. I don’t recall if it occasionally happens with Firefox.
🙂
Thanks for this, Jef. You’ve convinced me to watch this. The world’s reaction to the death of Diana was what brought home to me the mysterious glamor of monarchy. I remember people saying that the global grief was due to her good works. As if to prove that claim’s silliness, Mother Theresa promptly died and put that notion to rest.
To me there’s quite a lot of borrowed sentimental slogans from the mainstream media in this article, but whatever.
We are starved of anything of meaning, so its natural that the conservative instincts of some whites will grab on to this stuff.
I’m not sure where “genuinely magical” ends and “inappropriate giant golden turd” begins, but I say context would influence that.
I more see a stupid old man and his hideous crone adorned in these stupid gold plated trappings – that perhaps meant something once, now monstrously powerless. At what point do these things, wielded, become instruments of institutional capture and white surrender ? But one can read it in different ways.
In any case, this celebration of Charles The Symbolic , which can be characterized by the tidal wave of brown and rainbow sludge that these inbred chinless wonders will never have to deal with themselves doesn’t inspire me personally. I’m tempted to say fuck them.
There was some sympathy for the Queen, but as ‘people’ the British royal family are rich privileged whites rather detached from anything, bestowed with these ceremonial and charity roles. In their current form they’re a holdover from another age.
Whatever their symbolic role, they are not ‘model white people’, and we should never mistake them for that.
Although I have some misgivings about the House of Windsor, I must say that this was a beautiful article.
Thank you!
Very good article, thanks.
In the monarchies, even modern and constitutional, something still remains of the old idea of Sacred King, in democracies there’s nothing like this.
This is an extraordinary article, JC. You’ve put into words what I experienced only viscerally while watching the spectacle and considering the custom. Like you, I too have come to appreciate the significance of monarchy; as you’ve pointed out, the providential aspect of King Charles’ coronation reflects the same providence that gave us each the race we share. I’d not considered that before, certainly hadn’t articulated it.
Thank you. I appreciate the kind words.
I enjoyed that and thank you for putting it together. It was a magnificent spectacle. And given the age of the King I may well see another in my lifetime, that the heirs are all in place gives me some solace that the ‘firm’ will be intact for at least another century with the correct people in place. We can only hope that William comes through and by then I hope we will have passed this era of woke and shoe horning in diversity from everything in public and media life will end. I’m not saying that all our troubles will be gone in the coming years, I’m not that naive, I just hope that the pervasive and perniciousness of woke is gone (or is highly diluted) and we have no one or very little that doesn’t belong at such events.
One can always hope. Absent a white revolt I don’t see the ‘woke’ stuff disappearing until Europeans of pure stock are a tenuous and despised minority in what their forefathers believed were there own lands in effective perpetuity.
I loved the article and the coronation, in spite of the relative unworthiness of the senescent protagonist. It’s a shame they couldn’t have subbed in Bishop Williamson for Justin Welby though, to deliver a few long overdue historical corrections during the ceremony.
Yes, it is in hope more than expectation with which we currently base any future improvement. It is embedded extremely deep and it will be a struggle. To paraphrase Tucker Carlson, this madness can’t continue can it?
I totally agree regarding Welby, a cretinous traitor.
Well this betrayed English woman says he is a stooge, just like his mother was. I can understand why an American such as yourself would be enamoured with the Coronation spectacle but Charles is no king. Doing nothing to stop the genocide of your people is the opposite of power and you have been thoroughly conned if you think otherwise.
I totally agree as a fellow subject of the crown and its constant, and on me largely effective, propaganda. I’d still rather have Charles, with all his woolly thinking, on the throne than President (or King) Rishi.
Excellent article on every point.
If these traditions are preserved perhaps one day a royal will wade back into politics as an active moral force. Until then, the pomp provides a higher reference point to be informed by and aspire to.
In the Coronation Chair, we are meant to realize, sits not a man, but Britain itself.
This is one of the many problems with the coronation, and it’s not just Britain, but all their outposts, Australia and New Zealand especially, who are on the verge of being handed back to their ‘original inhabitants’ but not before the utmost chaos, disorder and death can be inflicted on the builders of said nations.
The ‘pakeha’ (ghosts/NZ whites) watched the pomp which REPRESENTS something, and one can say tradition and that’s fine.
But tradition of what? And how far back can it possibly go? The dawn of the church in the monasteries of Salerno and Marseilles a millennium back?
Go back further for tradition, otherwise it’s not tradition at all, it’s just cheap modernism with golden stuff, absolutely hollow, the illusion is complete with charming, expensive visual prompts for the unaware.
The illusion of royal grandeur and tradition is 100% inversion of Reality from a transcendent perspective.
What’s a real king?
A real king is a man coronated with Gold from God in esoteric biblical terms, and in Reality this means a man who has realised the 33rd degree PHYSIOLOGICALLY.
That is- he has done all that is necessary to achieve Realisation.
A humble gardener does not a true king make. It could, but it hadn’t in Charles’s case, as evidenced by the screens of modesty in the ceremony.
The chrism – not an external oil made from Jerusalem of wherever- but genuine chrism- the oil inside the spine must have been purified, heated and risen along the spinal column. It must have tipped over the 33rd vertebra and ignited the pineal gland.
Not the penile glans- the inversion of a true king- the lower nature.
Take the idea of Brahma with the Lotus or crown chakra, or the Egyptian kings ‘Uraeus’. That is crowning, that is genuine coronation in a genuine sense- the genuine Right to Rule.
They receive their crown from God, so to speak.
They do not have a symbolic ceremony with “priests” rubbing the pretenders dick with olive oil and calling it ‘anointing’.
It was humbling enough for Charles who was probably wondering how many people actually knew what was going on behind the screens with the symbolic dove of peace and the tree hiding his unfortunate situation. He could have realised, but if so he couldn’t have gone along with the ceremony- because it is duty, but it is also false. And God is Truth.
Symbolic power is of extraordinary significance.
Yes it is, absolutely.
It was the anointing of his dick behind a screen that told me quite how powerless the guy is, and symbolically quite how screwed the Red the White and the Blue are.
Until folks start to realise “tradition” is not what we think it is, we’re going down, down, down. It would also work to dump modern tradition from the last thousand years and replace it with something older, like Vedanta, which still has a metaphysic pathway.
Without one we’re doomed and Heaven knows the church is just a corporation on steroids.
Paradoxically, it is because he is powerless that the monarch is so powerful. His power is close to the virile power that Julius Evola speaks of: a power that comes not from doing anything, not from being a man of action, but merely from being; being who he is. Being born to reign, born to embody the nation, born to represent history and tradition.
I like the nod to Britain’s traditional beauty even in its hideous death throes.
But the emperor wears no clothes.
A bit sentimental… I don’t think even Britons take it this seriously.
I think this essay was marvelous. And you are absolutely correct when you say
“This is one of the most important functions of tradition, and of the representatives of tradition, such as the royals: to remind us of greatness, of something greater than ourselves, so that we feel a call to rise, to be better than we are, to be worthy of our history . . . “
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