It is one thing to watch a coronation or to look at the images that are left or the words that remain long after this most impressive of royal ceremonies has taken place. But what is the experience of those few women who have been crowned as Queen? There are written records from the women themselves though they are rare. But among those who have committed their impressions to paper is Elizabeth, later Queen Mother, whose coronation as consort took place on May 12th 1937.
In a thank you letter to Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, Queen Elizabeth described the impact that the service at Westminster Abbey had had one her. She wrote ''I was more moved and more helped that i could have believed possible....you told us last Sunday evening that we would be helped and we were sustained and carried above the ordinary fear of a great ceremony'.
Those few words highlight for me one of the most fascinating aspects of coronation and queenship. For although it is a spectacle and part of national life, at its heart is a person who experiences the same anxieties and excitement that we all have at important moments in our lives. However, that must all be subsumed into the public persona. Yet it remains there, a secret between the heart and that head that will wear the crown.
And showing her innate sensitivity to her role as a public figure, Queen Elizabeth wrote ''our great hope now, is that as so many millions of people were impressed by the feeling of service and goodness that came from Westminster Abbey, that perhaps that day will result in strength and good feeling in individuals all over the world, and be a calming and strengthening influence on affairs in general''. The letter is signed, in all majesty, as Elizabeth R.
The portraits are by Sir Gerald Festus Kelly and were painted to mark the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937 (Public Domain, Wiki Commons)
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