Crowning glories: how portraits of British monarchs with their coronation regalia have changed over 600 years

Before 1066, there was no established venue for the coronation of an English monarch: kings had been crowned at locations ranging from Bath Abbey to Winchester Cathedral. But on Christmas Day 1066, a precedent was set which has lasted almost a millennium: that coronation ceremonies take place at Westminster Abbey in London.

William I, better known as William the Conqueror, was the first in a long line of monarchs to be crowned there. On 6 May 2023, Charles III will be the 40th. There are competing theories as to why William I chose Westminster Abbey, though it was presumably to do with the fact that the church had been built by his predecessor, Edward the Confessor (who was also buried there), and the French-born king wished to legitimise his succession by creating a sense of continuity between them.

Continuity is a key concept in any discussion of the coronation. Relatively little has changed about the ceremony across the ages, certainly since the Liber Regalis (or ‘Royal Book’) was written in the 14th century. Despite a few tweaks — such as the substitution of English for Latin from the time of James I’s ceremony in 1603 — this has been the blueprint for all coronations.

A new monarch assumes the throne immediately upon the previous ruler’s death. The coronation is held a respectful amount of time afterwards, to allow due mourning to take place, and marks the formal investiture of the new king or queen with regal powers.

Stages of the ceremony include his or her anointing with holy oil, and crowning with the historic St Edward’s Crown.

Coronation portraiture has long had an important function, too — even though it isn’t mentioned in Liber Regalis  and hasn’t traditionally formed part of the big day itself.

One famous exception was Cecil Beaton’s set of photographs of Queen Elizabeth II on the day of her coronation in 1953. Previous monarchs had been depicted in an older, more time-consuming medium — painting — which involved numerous sittings over the course of weeks and months. The resulting canvases do succeed, however, in giving the impression of rulers on their coronation day.

‘First and foremost, they’re about power,’ says Alison Smith, chief curator at the National Portrait Gallery. ‘Coronation portraits are meant to capture the monarch in a display of power, at a defining moment in their reign.’

The panel painting of Richard II from the 1390s, the earliest known portrait of any English monarch, is a fine example. Seen against a gilt background, the king wears a green tunic decorated with the letter ‘R’; a crimson robe lined with ermine; an ermine cape; vermilion socks; and a pair of gold-embroidered shoes.

The portrait recalls so-called ‘Christ in Majesty’ images from early Christianity, which depict Christ on a throne as the almighty ruler. The point, presumably, was to underscore the idea of Richard’s divine right to rule.

‘Coronation portraits exist as propaganda,’ says Smith. ‘In the days before photography and video, they proved an important way of propagating the royal image and enhancing the authority of kingship.’

This entailed several copies of an original or prototype portrait being painted, which were sent to palaces around the country and embassies around the world. The image of Elizabeth I known as ‘The Coronation Portrait’, for example, was — according to dendrochronological analysis of the wooden panel on which it’s painted — actually executed many years after her coronation, which took place in 1559.

In other words, it is a copy of a now-lost original. The picture captures Elizabeth I with a crown on her head and her hair worn loose, as was traditional for the coronation of a queen. She also wears a gold mantle, emblazoned all over with the emblem of the Tudor rose.

This emblem asserted Tudor pre-eminence only decades after the house had assumed the throne, in what many saw as dubious circumstances, following the Wars of the Roses.

In other portraits, the messaging is more subtle: for instance, in Allan Ramsay’s depiction of George III (below; the prime version of this work is in the Royal Collection), a classical column rising beside the king is meant to represent his strong and solid leadership.

Another portrait worth mentioning in this context is that of James I by Paul van Somer. The monarch is seen in coronation robes, standing by a window in Whitehall Palace with a view towards the Banqueting House. The latter building didn’t actually exist at the time of James’s coronation (1603) — it hadn’t even been designed.

The king commissioned the construction of the Banqueting House several years into his reign, and seems to have been so proud of the result that, in the early 1620s, he had himself painted in front of it. Van Somer’s picture can’t, then, be considered a coronation portrait per se, but it’s notable that James saw the PR value in connecting himself, his coronation, and a great architectural achievement of his rule.

As centuries passed, the pictures became more naturalistic and the belief in the divine right of kings waned. However, as Smith points out, ‘Coronation portraiture, like the coronation itself, has shown a strong sense of continuity over time. It contains symbols of the monarchy which have persisted as signifiers of its power across the ages.’

These symbols include the crown, of course (which since its 1661 redesign has included a velvet cap) — as well as the sovereign’s sceptre and orb. The former represents a monarch’s authority over his or her subjects; the latter is a globe surmounted by a cross, stressing that royal power on Earth derives from God.

Crowns, sceptres and orbs duly recur throughout coronation portraiture. (No single item of dress recurs in the same way, largely because the monarch has to change into a series of different robes during the ceremony.)

It’s doubtful whether every monarch had a coronation portrait done. Such pictures certainly don’t survive for every monarch. There are also cases where a state portrait depicts the ruler with coronation regalia, but not actually on the occasion of his or her crowning. All of which is to say that there’s fluidity to any notion of coronation portraiture.

Sir Luke Fildes’s picture of Edward VII from around 1902 has many hallmarks of the so-called ‘swagger portrait’, which was popular then. The king cuts an eye-catching figure, standing raised on a dais, chest puffed out, holding the sceptre in his right hand and wearing the Robe of State over his field-marshal’s uniform.

Painted around 40 years later, Gerald Festus Kelly’s portrait of George VI is a more restrained affair. The king is further away from the viewer — one might even say withdrawn — part of a scene that is sparser and more spacious overall. It’s hard not think of this in terms of George VI’s retiring nature: he was the famously shy prince thrust unexpectedly onto the throne by the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII.

Variation between portraits, then, can be put down to differences in the artists, the subjects and the times of their creation. Cecil Beaton’s photographs of George VI’s daughter, Elizabeth II, are invested with Hollywood-style, 1950s glamour — not just through the resplendent regalia, but through the theatricality of the young queen being shot against a stunning, painted backdrop of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. (She was actually sitting in a quiet room in Buckingham Palace.)

One waits to see what Charles III’s coronation portraiture will look like. No artist has yet been announced for the task, though Smith predicts the result will be ‘elegant in an unassuming way, without any pomp and circumstance. The king is aware of the economic difficulties being faced by many right now and, I think, wishes to be seen as a people’s monarch.’

If Smith is right, then King Charles III will be merely the latest monarch whose coronation portraiture amounts to a lot more than just a straightforward depiction.