How the culture war could affect the Coronation

Until the death of the Queen, one source has told The Telegraph, plans for the Coronation were sketched out rather than signed-off. It has “deliberately been kept quite unplanned to ensure it can best reflect the climate at the time at which it happens”, they say.

“There will be people in the Palace who are acutely aware of wanting to reflect tradition whilst being sensitive to the issues around today. The general culture of pomp and circumstance which surrounds a coronation will need to be in tune with the times.”

The major battle for the King himself has already been won. His personal wish that his wife will be crowned alongside him has already come to pass, thanks to the support of his late mother and the slow-burning 20-year strategy to allay public concerns about the former Camilla Parker-Bowles. The clever compromise of calling her Queen Consort as the public gets used to a new era will phase out and, by the time they are in the Abbey, Queen Camilla it will be.

Having secured that, a Palace veteran suggests, there is little appetite for waging unnecessary wars on other fronts. “Does anyone want a row over diamonds distracting from the Coronation?” they say. “No.” If the Koh-i-Noor is out, either prised from its current position on the Queen Mother’s crown to be replaced by another large gem or the crown abandoned entirely, what may be in?

The older crowns of Queens Adelaide, Alexandra or Mary could be repurposed, the definition of “crown” stretched to include a slightly (very slightly) more low-key tiara, or – as per true Queen Consort tradition – a new headpiece created in Camilla’s honour. “Why not go the whole hog with an eco-diamond?” wondered one source, mischievously. “Find something sustainably sourced? Grow one in a lab?”

And of the other costume and decor on the day? The Coronation robes of peers have already been cut in favour of lounge suits, reducing the fur-to-fabric ratio, but what of the King and Queen’s own Robes of State? Charles could use his grandfather’s and Camilla the Queen Mother’s, winning brownie points for “recycling” them in tact or even replacing ermine with fake fur in a virtuous gesture which may prove more ecological trouble than it’s worth given the original already exists.

Similarly the Coronation oil, used to anoint the King, is already made to a recipe including civet – a scented “glandular secretion” from a delicate area of an African cat – and ambergris, the “floating gold” from the stomach of a sperm whale.

The Queen Consort’s sceptre is an ivory rod topped with a decorative dove and the Abbey’s Ivory Cross is carved from a tusk. None can be undone, but all can be criticised by observers with enough energy.