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spurs to Lords Hastings and Churston; the various swords of Justice, Mercy and State to
the Dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry, the Earl of Home, the Duke of Northumberland
and the Marquess of Salisbury; the Rod with the Dove to the Duke of Richmond and
Gordon; the Orb to Earl Alexander of Tunis; St Edward’s Crown to the Lord High
Steward; the Paten, Chalice and Bible to the Bishops of London, Winchester and
Norwich.
At 11.15 to the tune of the anthem ‘I was glad when they said unto me, We will go
into the House of the Lord’, Elizabeth entered the Abbey through the west door, the focus
of 7,500 people crowded within its walls and of millions watching on television.
Acclaimed by the boys of Westminster School with shouts of ‘Vivat Regina’, she walked
slowly up the aisle preceded by a huge procession of church dignitaries, the officers of
the Orders of Knighthood, the Garter Knights who were to hold the canopy above the
Queen for her anointing, the Lord Privy Seal, the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth
followed by Churchill, the Archbishop of York, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, both Archbishops preceded by their episcopal crosses, a clutch of high
officers of the College of Heralds including Lyon King of Arms, Norfolk Herald
Extraordinary, and royal expert Dermot Morrah in his office as Somerset Herald
Extraordinary. Immediately after them walked the Duke of Edinburgh wearing his peer’s
robes and followed by a page carrying his coronet; he was flanked on his left by an
official entitled the Harbinger with three Gentlemen-at-Arms and on his right by the
Standard Bearer also with three Gentlemen-at-Arms, and followed by the officers of his
household, dubbed ‘the Duke’s Beasts’ – Boy Browning, Mike Parker and Peter Horsley.
The peers and bishops carrying the regalia followed, with the traditional high court
officials and the chief members of the College of Heralds, Norroy and Ulster King of
Arms, Clarenceux King of Arms, Garter Principal King of Arms, the Earl Marshal, the
Lord High Steward of Ireland, the High Constable of Scotland, the Great Steward of
Scotland and the Lord High Constable of England. Behind them at last came Elizabeth,
still wearing her diadem and her ‘royal robe’ of crimson velvet trimmed with ermine and
bordered with gold lace, the huge train borne by her Mistress of the Robes, the Dowager
Duchess of Devonshire, and her six maids of honour, all the daughters of dukes, earls or
marquesses, and, with the exception of Lady Anne Coke and Lady Moyra Hamilton, with
resoundingly double- and triple-barrelled names: Lady Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart,
Lady Mary Baillie-Hamilton, Lady Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, Lady
Rosemary Spencer-Churchill. Beside her walked the Bishops of Durham and Bath and
Wells, her ‘supporters’ according to a tradition established at the Coronation of Richard
I in 1189. Bringing up the rear were her ladies-in-waiting – under the title of Ladies of
the Bedchamber and Women of the Bedchamber – and the officials of her household,
including Lascelles, and, as her equerries, her Assistant Private Secretary, Michael
Adeane, Peter Townsend, Lord (Patrick) Plunket, one of her favourites, and Viscount
Althorp, father of the as-yet-unborn future Princess of Wales. Prince Charles himself,
now aged four and a half, had been brought in by his nanny through a side door to sit
between his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, and Princess Margaret, ‘Aunt Mar got’. His