Thrones, Coronations... and Where to Find Them by Griselda Heppel

Hooray, hooray, the First of May…. and we are five days away from a coronation. 

Not just a coronation, THE coronation.

Not long now....

The first one we’ve had for very nearly 70 years, for 69 years and 11 months, to be precise. (Google tells me Queen Elizabeth II was coronated – coronated? Ye gods – on 2nd June 1953.) 

 So here I am, toying with what to blog about this month, and naturally my mind turned to coronation scenes in fiction, for adults or children. Those many, many examples… er, not. 

I couldn’t think of a single one.

In fact, of all possible celebrations, it’s the least likely to be included in a story.

Winnie-the-Pooh by A A Milne.

Birthdays, oh yes. Winnie-the-Pooh, Spot, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (no, not a great sequence, just what came into my head, sorry).

Weddings make a satisfying end to many a tale (if you’re romantically inclined) or give possibilities for high drama: Jane Eyre, Three Men and a Little Lady, Four Weddings and a Funeral. 

But a coronation is all about spectacle and ceremony, and the last thing you want is high drama. 

A dastardly plot to steal the crown 
jewels is the last thing wanted at a coronation.

Unless you’re writing a thriller in which your hero has to foil a dastardly plot to steal the crown jewels – ah, I’ve got it! Johnny English. Rowan Atkinson’s brilliantly silly James Bond spoof is exactly that, involving a hilarious coronation scene at its climax. 

Not exactly a book, though.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
by C S Lewis.

The closest I can get is the last chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are crowned Kings and Queens of Narnia. In just a few sentences, C S Lewis’s wonderful lyricism evokes an atmosphere of Arthurian Romance:

And that night there was a great feast in Cair Paravel, and revelry and dancing, and gold flashed and wine flowed, and answering to the music inside, but stranger, sweeter, and more piercing, came the music of the sea people.

Sadly King Charles and Queen Camilla will have to make do with the more traditional, two-legged variety of musician, but the singing and playing are bound to be glorious, fish tails or no fish tails. 

Queen Alice in Alice Through the Looking Glass by
Lewis Carroll.

As for the wine and revelry, one would hope all the guests will behave rather better than the ones at the feast for Queen Alice in Alice Through the Looking Glass: 

”Queen Alice’s health!” screamed the Red Queen at the top of her voice, and all the guests began drinking it directly, and very queerly they managed it: some of them put their glasses upon their heads and drank all that trickled down their faces… and three of them (who looked like kangaroos) scrambled into the dish of roast mutton, and began eagerly lapping up the gravy, “just like pigs in a trough!” thought Alice.

Now that's what I call a party. 

Queen Camilla (portrait by Ruth Heppel)

And since both queen and king are about to be crowned, I can’t resist the opportunity to share this super (unashamedly biased, that’s me) portrait of the Queen Consort painted a few years ago by my mother, Ruth Heppel, for Helen and Douglas House, of which Queen Camilla is patron. 

 Vivat Rex! Vivat Regina! 

Portrait painter Ruth Heppel with (the then) Duchess of Cornwall
 at Helen and Douglas House, Oxford
(from The Henley Standard, 13/11/2014)



OUT NOW 

The Fall of a Sparrow by Griselda Heppel

BRONZE WINNER in the Wishing Shelf Awards 2021 

By the author of Ante's Inferno  

WINNER of the People's Book Prize

www.griseldaheppel.com 

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