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priest and Nathan the prophet, so be thou anointed, blessed and consecrated Queen over
the peoples whom the Lord thy God hath given thee to govern.’ The Knights removed the
canopy and the Mistress of the Robes helped her put on a simple white dress and then a
tunic and girdle of cloth of gold. There followed a good deal of dressing and undressing
in robes, presentation of swords, spurs, armils, the orb, the sceptre and the ring, before
the actual coronation with St Edward’s Crown as she sat in St Edward’s Chair.
At this moment all the peeresses, a forest of white-gloved arms and glittering jewels,
placed their coronets on their heads in unison. Then Elizabeth took her place on a
throne on a dais to receive the homage performed in person by the Archbishop, the Duke
of Edinburgh, the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, and the senior peer on behalf of his
peers. Philip knelt before her and placing his hands between hers, vowed, ‘I, Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, do become your liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship;
and faith and truth will I bear unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folks. So
help me God.’ Then he rose, touched her crown and kissed her left cheek – no mean feat
when she had the bulky crown upon her head. When the homage was over, the drums
beat and the trumpets sounded, while the congregation shouted ‘God Save Queen
Elizabeth, Long Live Queen Elizabeth, May the Queen live for ever’. Finally Elizabeth
came down from her throne to the singing of the Te Deum and in St Edward’s Chapel
took off the royal robe of red velvet and replaced it with her previous robe of purple
velvet, changed St Edward’s Crown for the lighter but more impressive Imperial State
Crown studded with, among other precious stones, the Black Prince’s Ruby, Queen
Elizabeth I’s pearl earrings, the Stuart sapphire from Charles II’s crown and part of the
huge Cullinan diamond, and, carrying the sceptre in her right hand and the orb in her
left, proceeded to the west door while choir and congregation sang the national anthem.
There had been a few mistakes during the ceremony just as there had been at her
father’s Coronation. Elizabeth had forgotten to curtsey at the agreed point,
disappointing her Maids of Honour who had spent hours getting it right. Archbishop
Fisher moved forward at the wrong moment, throwing the elaborate ceremonial out of
kilter, and the Dean of Westminster had provided the wrong dish for the Queen’s
offering of a small bag of gold. ‘A really vast thing,’ the Archbishop complained. ‘I could
only just lift it… When I turned to the Queen it was so far across I could not get
anywhere near her and she had to stretch into the middle with her little bag…’
England’s premier baron, Mowbray Segrave and Stourton, provided a touch of comic
relief: ‘He came down from his homage all over the place, bunching up his robe and, as
the Queen said, with moth balls and pieces of ermine flying all over the place’, while the
Duchess of Norfolk noted that when he did his homage, ‘he had filthy hands and he
looked straight out of comic opera’. 28
Elizabeth’s ordeal was over. There had been one moment when she had seemed to feel
the strain; at 12.20 p.m. just over an hour into the service as the sword of state was
delivered to her, she was seen to pass her hand over her forehead and eyes and glance
round to her right, as if, Tom Driberg, MP, who was observing the ceremony for Picture
Post, thought, she was looking at her husband or perhaps her son. The moment passed;