50 Untold Tales About the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

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     Have you ever wondered how Coronation Chicken got its name? And did you know that the future First Lady was a newspaper correspondent in 'The Coronation Service'? Here we bring you 50 little-known facts about Queen Elizabeth II's coronation day.

    It dates back to 1937 when 11-year-old Princess Elizabeth crowned her father, King George VI, in a large ceremony, and 16 years later, on June 2, 1953, her own official coronation was to take place.

     The coronation in Westminster Abbey has a history of 900 years and keeping this tradition, the coronation ceremony was completed. But the 1953 coronation itself was unprecedented and unique - it was the first coronation ever televised, watched by 27 million people in the UK alone and millions of viewers around the world.
 

Here we will introduce you to 50 interesting and little-known facts about that remarkable day on June 2, 1953:

1. Westminster Abbey has been planned for every coronation since 1066. Prior to the construction of the abbey, coronations were held in Bath, Oxford and Canterbury wherever convenient.

2. Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. Her Majesty was the twenty-ninth sovereign to be crowned at Westminster Abbey.

3. Queen Elizabeth II is the sixth queen to be crowned at Westminster Abbey in her own right. Before him was Queen Mary. He was coronated and crowned on 1 October 1553.

4. The Queen ascended the throne on 6 February 1952 after the death of her father, King George VI. She was in Kenya at the time and became the first sovereign to be involved abroad in more than 200 years.

5. The Queen's grandmother, Queen Mary, was 81, the first queen to see a grandson ascend the throne. However, he died before the coronation took place.

6. The coronation service used for Queen Elizabeth II descends directly from King Edgar's service in Bath in 973. The original 14th-century service order was written in Latin and was used until the coronation of Elizabeth.

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7. Responsibility for the event was with the incumbent Earl Marshall. The post has been held by the Duke of Norfolk since 1386. The 16th Duke of Norfolk was responsible for the Queen's coronation in 1953 and was also responsible for the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill (1965) and the adornment of The Prince of Wales (1969).

8. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are escorted from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in a Gold State coach - pulled by eight gray gelding horses: Cunningham, Tovey, Noah, Tedder, Eisenhower, Snow White, Tipperary and McCreery.

9. The coronation bouquet was made up of white flowers—including orchids and lilies-of-the-valley from England, stephanotis from Scotland, orchids from Wales, and carnations from Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man.

10. The Duke of Edinburgh wore a full-dress navy uniform for his visit to and from the abbey. While in the abbey, he wore a crown over his uniform and that of his duke.

11. The Queen's coronation dress, designed by British fashion designer Norman Hartnell, was made of white satin and embroidered with the emblem of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth in gold and silver thread.

12. Since the coronation, the Queen has worn the coronation dress six times, including at the opening of parliaments in New Zealand and Australia in 1954.

13. Buckingham Palace's maids, chefs and gardeners gather inside the Grand Hall of Buckingham Palace to watch the Queen leave for Westminster Abbey.

14. The coronation service of the Queen began at 11.15 a.m. and lasted for about three hours.

15. On the way to the coronation, Her Majesty wore the George IV State Diadem - the crown depicted on the stamps. Created in 1820, the Diamond consists of roses, shamrocks, and thistles, along with 1,333 diamonds and 169 pearls.
16. The sovereign's procession was attended by 250 people including church leaders, Commonwealth prime ministers, members of the royal family, civil and military leaders, and the Guard of the Guard.

17. The Archbishop of Canterbury conducted the service, a duty it has performed since the conquest in 1066. For the first time in 1953, a representative of another church, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, also participated.

18. The coronation service fell into six parts: recognition, oath, consecration, adornment (which included the crown), enthronement and tribute.

19. The recipe for anointing oil includes oils of orange, rose, cinnamon, musk and ambergris. Usually a batch is made to perform some coronations, but in May 1941 a bomb destroyed the deanery, so a new batch was made.

20. One of the more notable establishments for the coronation was the annexe at the western end of Westminster Abbey. This provided the necessary space in which processions could form and be overlooked by the crowd.

21. During the adornment, the queen first wore the newly-made colobium sindoni - a loose linen-lawn robe, and then a robe of gold cloth, called a dalmatica or supertunica. The Lord Great Chamberlain presented golden spurs symbolizing valor, after which the Archbishop of Canterbury presented a jeweler's sword, and then arms, golden bracelets of honesty and wisdom. In the end, the Queen put on the stole and robes of the gold Robe Royal and received the orb, the coronation ring, the gloves, and then the scepter.

22. Prince Charles was the first child to witness the coronation of his mother as sovereign. Princess Anne did not take part in the ceremony because she was considered to be very filthy.

23. Prince Charles receives a special hand-painted children's invitation for his mother's coronation.

24. The Queen's coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey was attended by a large number of guests. It is estimated that a total of 8,251 guests attended the coronation ceremony.

25. 129 countries and territories were officially represented in the Coronation Service.

26. Some people in the abbey witnessed his fourth coronation. Princess Mary Louise (Queen Victoria's granddaughter) also witnessed the coronations of King Edward VII (1902), King George V (1911) and King George VI (1937).

27. The Queen is crowned in the St. Edwards Chair, built in 1300 for Edward I, and used at every coronation since that time. It is permanently housed in Westminster Abbey.

28. St. Edward's Crown, made in 1661, was placed at the head of the Queen during the Coronation Service. It is made of pure gold and is solid and weighs four pounds and 12 ounces.

  
29. After the crown, the orb, built in 1661, was the most important piece of the monarchy. It is a globe of gold surrounded by a cross surrounded by a band of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and pearls with a large sapphire on the summit.

30. The Coronation Ring, known as 'The Wedding Ring of England', was traditionally placed on the fourth finger of the Queen's right hand. Created for the coronation of King William IV in 1831, the ring is worn at every coronation, except for Queen Victoria, whose fingers were so small that the ring could not be reduced significantly in size, and a substitute was made.


31. The BBC coverage of the coronation was a breakthrough in broadcast history. It was the first service to be broadcast on television and for most people it was the first time they had seen a program on television.

32. In Britain, 27 million people (out of 36 million population) saw the ceremony on television and 11 million listened on the radio.

33. More than 2,000 journalists and 500 photographers from 92 countries were on the coronation route.

34. Among the many foreign journalists was Jacqueline Bouvier (later First Lady of the United States, Jackie Kennedy), who was working for the Washington Times-Herald at the time.

35. The return route was designed so that the procession could be seen by as many people as possible in London. It took 16,000 participants two hours to complete the 7.2 km route.


36. Many people camped at The Mall to catch a glimpse of the procession, including a family that had left Australia for the occasion in a ketch. Thousands more are celebrated throughout the country and Commonwealth with street parties.

37. The Food Ministry made 82 applications for people to roast oxen if they could prove that, according to tradition, an ox was roasted at a previous coronation - a welcome concession at a time to the meat ration of two shillings a week. Was.

38. The Imperial State Crown, which The Queen wore during her return to Buckingham Palace, consisted of four pearls that were traditionally considered to be earrings of Queen Elizabeth I.

39. When Queen Elizabeth returned to Buckingham Palace after the coronation, the dress she wore was a newly minted purple robe. The credit for creating this dress goes to a team of 12 seamstresses from the Royal School of Needlework. It took a total of 3,500 hours by this team to complete the Queen's embroidered cipher and the range of ears of wheat and olive branches. This silk dress was embroidered with silk thread that came from a silk farm in Lullingstone, Kent.

40. 30,000 men participated in the procession of the Queen
3,600 from the Royal Navy,
16,100 more from the army
7,000 from RAF,
2,000 from the Commonwealth, and
500 from 'colonies'. There were 6,700 reserve and administrative troops, while 1,000 officers and men of the Royal Military Police were procured to assist the Metropolitan Police and 7,000 police were drawn from 75 provincial forces.
 

41. Queen Salote of Tonga won the hearts of the waiting crowd by refusing to lift the roof of her car to safety despite the rain.

 42. The main decoration for the procession was in The Mall with four twin-spanned arches of tubular steel that were illuminated at night. The arches were lifted into place by huge mobile cranes. Beneath the passage were long lines of standards connecting the arches which were mounted with golden crowns and each hung with four scarlet banners bearing the Royal monogram.