King Charles' Coronation Should Be Britain’s Last
The country needs to grapple with urgent challenges of the present and future instead of lavishly reenacting its past.
So help us.
Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Images EuropeOn Saturday, a 74-year-old British man will formally assume a job that was promised to him when he was born — a strange event by itself in a country with record levels of underemployment and a severe cost-of-living crisis. But the coronation of King Charles III, one of the world’s richest men, will also be funded by the taxpayer — estimates are running over $100 million — and commemorated with a national holiday.
Moreover, as the new king receives the sovereign’s orb, sceptre and coronation ring, and is anointed with oil specially sacralized in Jerusalem, his subjects around the UK and abroad will be invited to say the words, “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to your majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.”