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Being there is better.
I didn’t see much of the coronation of King Charles III and neither did many of the 2,300 or so other guests inside Westminster Abbey. We were too far away, or were seated behind the choir, or had our view blocked by a guardsman in a plumed helmet. But we heard it — and felt it — in a way that just wasn’t possible for those watching on television.
It was in the moment the choir, organ and orchestra blasted out “Zadok the Priest,” Handel’s coronation anthem, so boldly that it startled me even though I knew it was coming. It was in the gusto with which the congregation shouted “God save the king!” after Charles was crowned. And it was in the joyous fanfare blown by trumpeters in the balcony where just a few months ago a lone bagpiper bid farewell to Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
This was a moment of celebration for Charles and his supporters, a stark contrast to the day in September when the nation mourned the death of a queen who had reigned for 70 years.
But there was also a sense of the torch being passed in the place where the kings and queens of England have been crowned for 1,000 years.
