Royalists, rozzers and rain: Charles III Coronation in pictures

Did you know that 40 mon­archs have had their Coro­na­tion in West­min­ster Abbey? And that every Coro­na­tion since William the Con­quer­er’s in 1066 has tak­en place there? Did you know that each part of the cer­e­mo­ny has its own name, some of which have not changed for a mil­len­nia?

Like me, you may be one of mil­lions to have a myr­i­ad of pieces of use­less Roy­al triv­ia thrust upon you in the last few days as the media worked them­selves into a fren­zy and ran out of inter­est­ing ways to cov­er the plac­ing of a very expen­sive hat on the head of a very old man.

The eight months that have passed between the death of Eliz­a­beth II and the Coro­na­tion of Charles III have, for many, been some of the most dif­fi­cult in liv­ing mem­o­ry. A per­fect storm formed over win­ter, dri­ven by a cost of liv­ing cri­sis, a weak­ened econ­o­my, and years of cuts and under­fund­ing. More food bank parcels than ever before were giv­en out in the 12 months up to March 2023, and for the first time a nation­al­ly co-ordi­nat­ed effort to pro­vide ​‘warm banks’ – places where peo­ple could go and keep warm for free – saw the open­ing over 4,000 spaces.

Despite her­culean efforts, there were still those who could not be reached. Last month, an inquest into the death of a 87-year-old grand­moth­er in Rochdale heard that the pen­sion­er died from hypother­mia after refus­ing to put her heat­ing on, fear­ing high ener­gy costs. 

Sto­ries of pain, hor­ror and suf­fer­ing from the last few months con­tin­ue to come to light, but they would not deter the Roy­als push­ing ahead with a lav­ish Coro­na­tion. The parade, com­plete with brand new gold car­riage, is report­ed to be cost­ing the pub­lic £250 million. 

Some rev­ellers were in situ as ear­ly as six days before the event, brav­ing tor­ren­tial down­pours under tents and tar­pau­lin. As the day of the cer­e­mo­ny drew into view, more crowds began to gath­er along the route of the parade. Union Jacks, fake crowns and joy­ful syco­phancy flood­ed the streets of West­min­ster, though all was not nec­es­sar­i­ly well.

At 7am on the morn­ing of Sat­ur­day 6^th May, a num­ber of mem­bers of staff from the anti-monar­chist cam­paign group Repub­lic, includ­ing their CEO Gra­ham Smith, were arrest­ed by Met­ro­pol­i­tan police offi­cers. Their arrests, which hap­pened as the staff mem­bers unloaded plac­ards from a van close to the agreed site of their protest, came after exten­sive con­ver­sa­tions between Repub­lic and the Met in order to facil­i­tate the anti-coro­na­tion protest. 

The group, which is the coun­try’s largest repub­li­can organ­i­sa­tion, released guid­ance to sup­port­ers ahead of the event detail­ing these con­ver­sa­tions, stat­ing they had received assur­ances from the city’s police force that the protests would be able to go ahead. In the days up to the Coro­na­tion, the Met released state­ments to sim­i­lar effect. 

Through­out the day of the Coro­na­tion, reports of arrests and deten­tions on the Mall and in Trafal­gar Square, as well as fur­ther across the city, con­tin­ued to drip through. 

In state­ment released at 5pm, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police report­ed that they had made 52 arrests for offences includ­ing affray, pub­lic order offences, breach of the peace and con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nuisance. 

Com­man­der Karen Find­lay, who led the polic­ing oper­a­tion, stat­ed: ​“We absolute­ly under­stand pub­lic con­cern fol­low­ing the arrests we made this morn­ing. Protest is law­ful and it can be dis­rup­tive. We have policed numer­ous protests with­out inter­ven­tion in the build-up to the Coro­na­tion, and dur­ing it. Our duty is to do so in a pro­por­tion­ate man­ner in line with rel­e­vant leg­is­la­tion. We also have a duty to inter­vene when protest becomes crim­i­nal and may cause seri­ous dis­rup­tion.

​“This depends on the con­text. The Coro­na­tion is a once in a gen­er­a­tion event and that is a key con­sid­er­a­tion in our assess­ment. A protest involv­ing large num­bers has gone ahead today with police knowl­edge and no inter­ven­tion.”

As the protest referred to in Find­lay’s state­ment wrapped up, its organ­is­ers remained in police cus­tody, only being released late into the evening. The fol­low­ing morn­ing Smith released a state­ment on Repub­lic’s web­site:

​“Yes­ter­day, as we pre­pared for a peace­ful and law­ful protest, a num­ber of Repub­lic’s team were arrest­ed and detained for the rest of the day.

These arrests are a direct attack on our democ­ra­cy and the fun­da­men­tal rights of every per­son in the coun­try. Each and every police offi­cer involved on the ground should hang their heads in shame. They showed no judge­ment, no com­mon sense and no basic decen­cy. This was a heavy hand­ed action which had the appear­ance of a pre-deter­mined arrest that would have occurred regard­less of the evi­dence or our actions.”

As the fall­out con­tin­ues, ques­tions weigh heavy around the con­duct of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan police force, as well the health of a democ­ra­cy in which basic dis­sent is unable to be expressed. 

It was, in many ways, a day of con­tra­dic­tions. A lav­ish dis­play of wealth and priv­i­lege on the streets of a city where mil­lions are in pover­ty. An out­pour­ing of joy and excite­ment play­ing out next to bru­tal repres­sion of basic human rights. The cel­e­bra­tion of an ancient and unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic form of gov­ern­ment by cham­pi­ons of democ­ra­cy. Huck pho­tog­ra­phy Theo McIn­ness was on site to cap­ture all that and more.