The Meaning of the Coronation

Abstract

T he heart has its reasons which the mind does not sus|>cct. In a survey of street parties in East London nothing was more remarkable than the complete inability of people to say why they thought important the occasion they were honouring with such elaborate ritual, and the newspapers naturally took for granted the behaviour on which this essay is a comment. What is perhaps more strange is that on the monarchy, at a Coronation or any other time, political sdence and phibophy too are silent. About this most august institution there is no serious discussion at all. Some political scientists, as if sure that the end of so many nineteenth century reformers has been achieved, tend to speak as if Britain is now an odd kind of republic,^ which happens to have as its chief functionary a Queen instead of a President. It seems that even the most eminent scholars lose their sureness of touch when they enter the presence of Royalty. Sir Ivor Jennings has nothing to say in his volume on Parliament,* and in his Cabinet Government,* pausing only to note that the Sovereign still possesses considerable influence on legislation and that the King is also an important part of the 'social structure', he gives nearly all his space on this subject to an historical treatment of the Victorian period. The late Professor Harold Laski was more discerning, even though his preferences belong to the more rationalistic phase of recent intellectual history. 'Eulogy of its habits', he says, speaking of the monarchy, 'has reached a level of intensity more comparable with the religious ecstasy of the seventeenth century, when men could still believe in the divine right of kings, than of the scientific temp>er of the twentieth, which has seen three great imperial houses broken, and the King of Spain transformed into a homeless wanderer'.* For the rest, while lightly attributing this change in attitude to the imperial propaganda conducted since Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, he too devotes himself to constitutional history, with special reference to the tangled events of igi i and 1931. Recent British political philosophy is as applicable to a republic as it is to a monarchy, whose place in a modem society is a subject most studiously avoided.' 14 63 2 Edward Shils and Michael ToungKingsley Martin is almost the only modem political writer to concern himself with the theme to which Walter Bagehot gave such prominence when he set out in 1867 to trace 'how the actions of a retired widow and an unemployed youth become of such importance'.' Bagehot firmly recognized that the role ofthe Crown was not so much constitutional as 'psychological'. He supported the monarchy for the precise reason that republicans opposed it: because it enabled the educated ten thousand to go on governing as before. By commanding their unbounded loyalty, it tamed the uncouth 'labourers of Somersetshire* who, in their simplicity, needed a person to symbolize the State. In this way 'the English Monarchy strengthens our government with the strength of reliijion. ... It gi...

Revisiting the Coronation

“…This event is interesting as a case study for two reasons. First, it has for the most part been interpreted as mainly integrative in its effects and from a basically functionalistic perspective (see Shils & Young 1956 (further references are to the 1975 reprint) and Scannell 1996), i.e. it has been interpreted according to the media's own frames and is, thus, interesting to revisit with a new set of theories and concepts.…”

Enacting the sacred: nation and difference in the comparative sociology of the police

“…Yet most of the teaching in sociology was based on large-scale generalizations about society and relied on a top-down approach'. 21 Perhaps because of the confused inheritance noted by Halsey, the widely discussed analysis of the coronation of the Queen by Shils and Young, 22 which draws on the idea of sacredness, finds no place in Banton. Banton says that though he was aware of Shils' use of the sacred he did not make a connection between that and his study of the police.…”

The future orientation of culture and the memory of the past in the making of history

“…To fully understand them, it is undoubtedly necessary to study the functioning of a monarchic state. Shils and Young (1953) have studied the symbolism of the British Empire's political power from this angle, whereas Uspenskij's works reveal the semiotic construction of the Russian Tsarate. Analyses of numerous texts (in the philological sense, i.e.…”