60 th anniversary of the Queen Elizabeth II.coronation

60 th anniversary of the Queen Elizabeth II.coronation….

Queen Elizabeth takes coronation oath, 2^nd June,1953.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/2/newsid_2654000/2654501.stm

BBC - Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0wuIcGSD8g

Crowning of Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULFG4DNpKgE 1.

A rare documentary of Elizabeth II's coronation presented by David Suchet.

Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second in 1953

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORMN48SdQJE 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwzOHVx8LV8 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBQ3E_Yss6E 4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbg8R-88nvM 5.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8hDPGPV-k0 6.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HAXgmeXglk 7.

Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (Part 2)

Date: June 2, 1953

In Westminster Abbey, where English kings and queens have been crowned for 900 years, Elizabeth triumphantly receives her crown on June 2, 1953. Indeed, there were more than 200 microphones in the Abbey and along the procession routes, with 750 commentators broadcasting in 39 languages.

The Archbishop of Canterbury administers the Oath, and presents "Queen Elizabeth, your undoubted Queen," meaning by hereditary right. The people respond with shouts of "God Save Queen Elizabeth." Elizabeth solemnly promised and swore "to govern the People of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon."

The procession of the royal coach through Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace is a spectacle unlike any England has ever seen.

photos

http://www.google.hr/search?q=the+queen+elizabeth+ii+coronation+crown+of+1953&client=opera&hs=mFF&channel=suggest&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=j--QUdGYAuyu4QTt6IDQDg&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=991&bih=651

 

QUEEN VICTORIA’S COLLET NECKLACE

http://blog.londonconnection.com/2010/05/19/queen-victorias-collet-necklace/

BRITISH HISTORY,The Royal Family,

You can't televise the Coronation - the Queen licks her lips! How church leaders and politicians feared Her Majesty's insistence at showing ceremony on TV would embarrass Royal Family

 

The Queen made final decision for the whole ceremony to be televised

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334407/Queens-Coronation-You-televise-Coronation--Queen-licks-lips--Sixty-years-ago-today-nation-gathered-round-TV-sets-But-scenes-panic-reigned.html

 

Shortly after 12.30 on a wet afternoon on June 2, 1953, the Archbishop of Canterbury raised St Edward’s Crown high above the head of the young Queen Elizabeth II, seated in King Edward’s Chair.

 

 The great Abbey went silent.

 

The Archbishop held the crown aloft for a moment and then lowered it on to the Queen’s head, placing it first on her forehead and then pressing it down at the back.

 

He then raised his arms high with a little flourish. A great cry went up: ‘God Save the Queen!’ The Abbey resounded with fanfares and shouts of acclaim.

It was the moment everyone had been waiting for.

 

And for the first time in history, it was shared with most of Great Britain through the medium of television, figures seen on tiny screens in flickering black and white by groups gathered round television sets in their front rooms.

 

Later it was seen right across the globe, after canisters of film were rushed to aeroplanes and flown to the USA, Canada and far corners of the Commonwealth.

 

There is no doubt that the Coronation, which took place 60 years ago today, was a milestone in the history of television.

 

 

Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, who judged TV ‘an extravagance and a supreme time-waster’ confessed that the coverage had been a triumph. 

 

Thousands of families, my own parents included, invested in television sets specially for the day and 27 million viewers, enjoyed the ceremony in a way that had never been possible before.

 

When the wedding of Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent, was transmitted over the wireless in 1934, the prelates worried that the service might have been heard by men wearing hats in public houses – it was an inherent suspicion of broadcasting that took decades to overcome.

 

The Coronation was the first great national event to be televised and set a template for decades to come. It was a turning point for the Monarchy. 

 

Yet the question as to whether the service should be televised was a divisive issue, a drama encompassing the most senior figures in the land, including Sir Winston Churchill (then Prime Minister for a second time), the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk, the Cabinet, the Coronation Joint Committee and, indeed, the Queen herself.

 

 

Voice of the Coronation: Richard Dimbleby commentated with John Snagge from booths in Westminster Abbey

 

From the commanding heights of Church and politics, live coverage was felt to be an unseemly intrusion upon a sacred service and into the heart of majesty.

 

There was also a very real fear that things could go embarrassingly wrong before the gaze of the live camera and the curious eyes of the world.

 

Late in 1952, John Colville, Private Secretary to Churchill and previously to the Queen as Princess Elizabeth, had briefed the Prime Minister that ‘live television would not only add considerably to the strain on The Queen (who does not herself want television) but would mean that any mistakes, unintentional incidents or undignified behaviour by the spectators would be seen by millions of people without any possibility of cutting or censorship’.

 

It was feared it would make a long and stressful ceremony intolerable for the Queen, while Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, worried about close-ups, noting that the Queen had a habit of licking her lips.

 

So the Cabinet decreed that the departure from Westminster Abbey could be filmed but no part of the service, expecting limited highlights to be slotted into the television schedules.

 

As late as August 4, 1952, the Duke of Norfolk, who as Earl Marshal was arranging the service, was holding firm.

 

‘Live television goes straight to the world and any mistakes can never be rectified,’ he said.

 

The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, warned, presciently, that it would let the genie out of the bottle.

 

‘May this not be an awkward precedent? If the Coronation ceremony is televised, what argument will remain for refusing television facilities of [for example] Royal funerals or weddings, religious services and even proceedings in the House of Commons?’

 

When on October 20 it was announced that television coverage would be restricted with an edited film of the ceremony shown later, there was an instant uproar.

 

 

Close-up: Strict rules about how far cameras could zoom in on the Queen were broken during the filming

 

 

 

Solemn: Politicians and church leaders felt the occasion was too sacred to be shown on television. Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury called TV: 'a supreme time-waster

 

 

Watched: There were four cameras in the Abbey and 26 microphone points, most of which were beside the altar

 

BBC viewers protested in droves. MPs asked questions in Parliament. In a guarded statement, Churchill agreed to reopen discussions.

 

The Archbishop was still worried that, beyond the reverential hush of the Abbey, the prayer of consecration at the heart of the service would be viewed by boisterous crowds. 

 

The television lights were another problem. They were hot and the Archbishop was concerned since he and many of the participants in the ceremony, were lacking hair.

 

The bright lights would cause their bald heads to glisten with perspiration and perhaps even redden.

 

It was suggested that a mitre could literally save his skin, but it proved impossible for mitres to be worn as the Bishops would need chaplains to carry them. So bald tonsures went unprotected.

 

The tide was turning, however. The BBC was determined to get the decision reversed.

 

Churchill admitted to the Cabinet that it was hard to defend a decision to discriminate between film and television, although he still believed that ‘the spiritual parts of the proceedings’, in particular the anointing and the prayer of consecration, should be excluded, and there should be no close-ups of the Queen.

 

The final decision rested with the Queen and her advisers.

 

Whereas there is no doubt that she had not been keen on the idea at first, she is credited with having the foresight to change her mind.

 

Sir John Colville claimed that the Queen had told Churchill that ‘all her subjects should have an opportunity of seeing it’.

 

 

Royal couple: Filing and photographing the event took months of planning and was a milestone in the development of live television

 

On December 8 the Earl Marshal announced that most of the Coronation would, after all, be televised. No one regretted the decision.

 

The matter of who would be invited to appear before the cameras was almost as controversial.

 

Bankrupt peers were not invited, nor were notorious, albeit unconvicted, peers and certainly not peers who had ‘fled the Realm in order to avoid criminal proceedings, whether for a felony or a misdemeanour’.

 

The senior peer in each category traditionally does homage to the monarch on behalf of the other peers of his rank.

 

The privilege of doing homage for the Marquesses was granted to the Marquess of Huntly, because the premier Marquess, the Marquess of Winchester, was a bankrupt.

 

This did not prevent his Indian wife commissioning a portrait of herself by Frank  O. Salisbury, showing her adorned in a golden sari and Coronation robes she was not allowed to wear.

 

And there was more trouble in store for Monty Winchester. He had been nearly 90 when he married Bapsy. Rather unsportingly she sued him for non-consummation.

 

The eccentric 5th Lord Rayleigh did not receive a summons.

 

As he had lately stood up in church on his 7,000-acre Essex estate and declared ‘I am the King of England’, there was cause for concern.

 

Fearing that he might disrupt the Coronation, his family had him spirited away to the West of Ireland and made sure that he missed every train that might reach a boat at Dublin.

 

The Duke of Windsor was neither a bankrupt nor a felon but he was not summoned.

 

The Queen raised the question with the Archbishop of Canterbury and it was agreed that ‘it would create a very difficult situation for everybody, and if he had not the wits to see that for himself, then he ought to be told it’. He was.

 

In April 1953 the Earl Marshal sent summonses to the chosen peers with the words ‘Right Trusty and Well-Beloved Cousins’.

 

They were given admission tickets, car parking instructions and details of lunching plans.

 

Covering the Coronation on radio and television took months of planning.

 

There would be four cameras in the Abbey, one above the high altar, one by the south transept, one in the organ loft and one at the west end.

 

There were 26 microphone points, most of them near the Queen’s throne.

 

 

Global phenomenon: BBC recordings were to be flown to Canada in Canberra bombers and on to the United States so that it could be seen within hours of the event

 

John Snagge – the voice of the Boat Race – was surprised to be chosen to commentate for the BBC Home Service. He had expected the job to go to a clergyman.

 

Snagge was particularly worried about what he would do if the Queen fainted.

 

He was to operate from a minute, unventilated box in the triforium (a gallery above the nave).

 

Later he said: ‘We were packed in like a couple of sardines.’ On the day it was estimated that 83 per cent of the population listened to his commentary.

 

Above him, in slightly more comfort, was the ample figure of television commentator Richard Dimbleby. He lived on a yacht in the Thames during the run-up to the big day.

 

Below Dimbleby and Snagge were the television cameramen, again in cramped surroundings. And there were overseas commentators.

 

The Postmaster-General asked that television coverage should be extended more widely over Britain for the event, but it proved impossible to expand coverage to Southampton, Plymouth or Aberdeen in time for June.

 

Plans were made so that the ceremony could be seen on television in France (a small but well-publicised effect being that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were able to watch it), West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and other European countries.

 

BBC recordings were to be flown to Canada in Canberra bombers and on to the United States so that it could  be seen within hours of the event.

 

A number of televisions were installed in churches so that the congregation could watch and ‘surround the Queen with their prayers’, as one rector put it.

 

In the event, it could hardly have gone more smoothly. The only visible mistake, and then only to those in the know, was that the Queen forgot to curtsey with her maids of honour at the north pillar of the Abbey.

 

 

 

Celebration: These stamps have been designed to commemorate the Queen, 60 years on form her Coronation

 

 

 

 

Public service: The stamps depict the Queen at different stages in her reign

 

Yet the opportunities for embarrassment, even outright farce, were legion. Iain Tennant, a Gold Staff Officer helping to seat the congregation, sat down on some steps by the choir stalls and, as he did so, his trousers split up the back.

 

A nearby peeress said to him: ‘If you want a needle and thread, I have one on my coronet.’

 

The Queen’s anticipated arrival had the congregation in a state of intense expectation.

 

There was a sudden ‘uproar from nowhere’ which prompted the entire congregation to rise to their feet in unison.

 

They thought the Queen had arrived, only to be confronted by a troupe of carpet sweepers undertaking a last minute brush-up.

 

Earlier, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein had been spotted sitting in the annexe in his Garter robes reading about Hillary conquering Mount Everest in The Times.

 

Audrey Russell, one of the BBC commentators, noticed that as the peers put on their coronets, one of them had forgotten that he had used it to hold his sandwiches.

 

‘He heard a soft thud and, looking down, saw a plastic-covered triangular package at his feet,’ she recalled.

 

The Coronation thrilled everyone who saw it, but at one point the press saw too much.

 

Journalists spotted that Princess Margaret had picked a piece of fluff from the shoulder of Group Captain Peter Townsend’s jacket.

 

The incident was reported in the foreign press. Speculation grew and the story that the Princess was in love with her father’s equerry broke a mere 11 days after the great ceremony. A furore followed.

 

Audrey was aware that a tiny piece of red ribbon had been stitched into the blue carpet ten yards from the Great West Door.

 

This was an important marker. It would take the Queen exactly 55 seconds to walk from that spot to the Gothic Archway, so that was the point at which Audrey’s wireless commentary was to end and the State Trumpeters were to sound their fanfare.

 

To her horror, she noticed a young Gold Staff Officer kneel down and snip the red ribbon away.

 

In the annexe the Queen turned to the six Maids of Honour who would carry her train and asked: ‘Ready girls?’

 

 

Performing to the nation: The Queens Maids of Honour. From left to right: Lady Moyra Hamilton, Lady Jane Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Lady Anne Coke, Lady Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, Lady Rosemary Spencer-Churchill and Lady Mary Baillie-Hamilton

 

 

Famous balcony: Viewers have growm accustomed to scenes of the Royal Family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace

 

 

 

 

 

Stunning images: These stills taken from BBC coverage of the Queen's Coronation have stood the test of time

 

Audrey waited nervously, but everyone was well rehearsed and the fanfares sounded exactly as the Queen reached the point where the ribbon should have been. Off they went at 11.15.

 

Later, the Queen discussed the funny moments of the ceremony with the Archbishop, in particular an incident involving Lord Mowbray, who came down the steps from his homage bunching up his robe and tripping over it and, as the Queen said, with moth balls and pieces of ermine flying in all directions.

 

As the Queen left the chapel in the procession that would lead to the Great West Door, two verses of the National Anthem were sung.

 

Up until now there had been no close-ups of the Queen on television, as officially agreed.

 

But as she emerged from St Edward’s Chapel, the cameras moved in closer and closer.

 

A BBC engineer, Ben Shaw, was waiting in the wings with a button that he could press to eliminate any images that broke the rules – and these images broke every rule in the book.

 

Shaw watched and he waited but he just did not have the heart to press the button. He served the nation well.

 

The resulting moving pictures of the Queen were stunning – exceptionally so for 1953.

 

No one seemed to mind the breach. The Dean of Westminster was pleased with the way it had gone, able to go through the service ‘oblivious of the fact that millions of eyes were watching the proceedings’.

 

The only hazard had been that his bald head required powdering from time to time. 

 

The Archbishop wrote to George Barnes, Director of Television at the BBC: ‘You know that I am no great supporter of TV, regarding it as an extravagance, and a supreme time -waster.

 

'But I freely say that thanks to TV the Coronation Service got into countless homes and brought to the viewers a realisation of the Queen’s burden, the Queen’s dedication, God’s presence and God’s consecration, of religion and of themselves.’

 

The service was intensely moving for the Queen. After the long procession back through London and the balcony appearances, she could be sure she had the affirmation and support of the British people and those in the wider Commonwealth.

 

Recently there has been talk of abdication and transition. Yet she will not abdicate because she was anointed as Queen in Westminster Abbey.

 

She promised then and has re-iterated many times since that she will serve for her whole life.

 

There are other consequences, too, from that wet June day. The successful televising of the Coronation has irrevocably changed the relationship between monarch and people.

 

The great moments of the Queen’s reign, and some of the unhappier ones too, have been relayed to us on screen.

 

She has taken her place at the heart of a living drama.

 

Even the humblest of the Queen’s subjects can feel a part of the great occasions of state – and exercise a scrutiny that would once have been unthinkable.

 

In every sense, it was a day to remember.

 

 

 

Palace plot that almost stopped her from being Queen: On the 60th anniversary of the Coronation, explosive documents reveal how her uncle Edward VIII wanted to regain throne after his abdication

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334185/Documents-reveal-Queen-Elizabeths-uncle-Edward-VIII-wanted-regain-throne-abdication.html

Queen arrives alone at £1bn BBC centre to make a broadcast to the nation

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337352/Queen-arrives-BBC-make-live-broadcast-nation-Prince-Philip-hospital-awaiting-operation.html

 

Hours before hospital dash, Prince Philip was as boisterous and chatty as ever

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337195/Prince-Philip-Duke-Edinburgh-Hours-hospital-dash-Philip-boisterous-chatty-ever.html

 

Prince Philip Enters Hospital in London for Surgery

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/world/europe/prince-philip.html?ref=global-home

 

This week, Prince Philip accompanied the 87-year-old queen at a ceremony at Westminster Abbey to commemorate the 60th anniversary of her formal coronation on June 2, 1953. She ascended to the throne after the death of her father, King George VI, in February 1952.

The prince and the queen have been married since 1947.

 Prince Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, routinely accompanies the queen on official engagements, usually walking a deferential single pace behind her and off to one side. One of the monarch’s first appearances after his hospitalization was to inaugurate a revamped headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation in central London, where she appeared alone on Friday save for her aides.

She did not refer directly to Prince Philip’s surgery but said she recalled a first visit to the same building shortly after World War II and another with her husband shortly before her coronation.

 “I was struck then, as I am now, by the sheer pace of change which has transformed your industry over the past 60 years, years during which broadcasting has enriched our lives in so many ways,” she said.