How and why Britain's greatest inventions of royal ritual and pageantry came about

Queen's royal procession, 1965 opening of parliament. Photo: Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Historian David Cannadine begins his chapter in ‘ The Invention of Tradition ‘, the 1983 book edited by two Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, by discussing what it means to enjoy over-the-top pageantry.

He quotes ‘The Black Book’, an 1820 critique of the English Establishment, which reads: “Pageantry and show, the parade of crowns and coronets, of gold keys, sticks, white wands and black rods; of ermine and lawn, maces and wigs, are ridiculous when men become enlightened, when they have learned that the real object of government is to confer the greatest happiness on the people at the least expense.”

And yet, by the 1980s, Britain had become “better educated” but was still not inured to the pull of pageantry. In actual fact, it had become even more attached to pomp and royal flummery. “With the possible exception of the papacy, no head of state is surrounded by more popular ritual than Queen Elizabeth I…