The symbol always represents a reality that goes beyond what it uses. It alludes to a transcendent reality that becomes perceptible through an instrument, which in this way becomes a mediator between what is seen and what is not seen. It is an ideal come true. It alludes to something more than it seems. A flag is more than just a piece of cloth. A crown is more than just a hat. A king is more than a person. And a coronation is more than just a ceremony.
This weekend we have been able to attend the essential event of British identity. Its basis is the coronation ceremony, based on the ordination of bishops, who crowned Charlemagne at Christmas in the year 800 in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. England came through the Church in 973, when Saint Dustan crowned Egdar the Peaceful king in Bath Abbey, whose name refers to the purification bath that preceded the investiture of knights. That is exactly what I was able to see: a religious ceremony, halfway between a confirmation and an ordination, in which a normal person becomes an institution, a mediator between people and territories, thanks to the anointing with the sacred oil. In short, in God's representative on earth for the temporal order, an envoy modeled after King David.
However, for that symbol to be effective it must be understandable by those who see it. The symbol must become a sign in order to return to being a symbol. It must be significant. And that is where the new king has known how to take advantage of his 64 years as Prince of Wales. A time of waiting, which seemed endless, in which he got to know the British society of his time in depth, assuming all the agenda that his parents considered residual: visits to entities and meetings with groups kicking the territory, while their parents They dedicated themselves to despatching with their government and alternating with other heads of state. And that has been the master move of Carlos III, aware of what the United Kingdom had completely changed in the 70-year reign of his mother.
Unlike her, he has not limited himself to shortening the ceremony and the attendees by half, but has introduced a bold change based on the metaphor. It was no longer about making technological changes, as her mother did with television, now changing cameras for drones, for example. It was something more significant. Without altering the songs, they have been sung in the languages of the UK's four nations, including a black gospel choir and a Greek Orthodox choir. Without altering the readings, a Hindu has read the gospel epistle and a woman has read one of the key prophecies in Judaism. Without altering her roles, she has been given the sword by a politician, a nurse has given her the orb, and not the nobility but religious, cultural, social, and economic leaders have paid homage to her. Those were today the real crown jewels.
We have seen a ceremony that is more religious than political, in which the representatives of the nations that make up the United Kingdom agree to serve those who have previously promised to serve them by respecting their laws and customs. It is a pact between the king and the nation of him putting God as witness, with a liturgy ordered towards the climax of the anointing.
In his oath he has assumed his status as Defender of the Faith adding to the Anglican the rest of the creeds. The royal attributes have been given to him by servants of society and not only by servants of the state. And before them he has highlighted that the privilege of power is accompanied by the obligation to serve, typical of a deep believer like him, who has subtly made his family ask Wallis Simpson for forgiveness in the figure of Camilla Shand, making her queen consort. Such a believer that, with another Christian metaphor, he has sacrificed his own son Enrique, located in the third row like his uncle Andrés, for the salvation of the institution.
In fact, those are the challenges you face: maintaining the unity of your family, the unity of society, the unity of your kingdom, and the unity of the Commonwealth. And he has given transparency to his heritage. All this so that the monarchy continues to be appreciated by the citizens of his time. For this, the sign has to become a symbol again: neutral and exemplary. "For them to believe in you, they have to see you," Prince Felipe recommended to his young wife. That is the essence of the monarchy: the balance between mysticism and proximity, as in the dramaturgy of bullfighting, it is a question of showcasing oneself to later withdraw and provoke the morbid and admirable attraction for the institution.
Many commentators fill their chronicles with the expression "pomp and circumstance", which is nothing more than an expression taken from Shakespeare's Othello in 1603, just the year in which the kingdoms of England and Scotland merged into Great Britain. . But that expression falls short. I once asked the same question of a seasoned British diplomat and the nobleman who bears the oldest title in England: What is monarchy to you? “The essence of the nation. The permanence of our identity. And the basis of consensus and stability”.
If I were a foreign investor, I would trust that country of consensus and stability more than one of viscerality and disruption. It is true that our country has a better climate and gastronomy, but man does not live on bread alone, especially in the 21st century. With a country that dedicates 2.5% to research, that since 1944 has had only three educational laws, that has four universities among the ten best, that promotes the social elevator, that has its own EU (the Commonwealth) and has promoted an own NATO (the AUKUS), the Carolina era opens before us, which without being easy promises to be in some aspects like the Victorian era.
