King Charles kept coronation wobbles at bay just like mother

King Charles revealed he was ‘anxious’ his crown would ‘wobble’ on his head during his coronation last year, so he practised with it as his late mother had done.

King Charles worried his crown would wobble during the coronation. Picture: Getty Images.

The King has revealed that he was “anxious” his crown would “wobble” on his head during his coronation day last year, so he practised with it as his late mother had done.

Charles said in a new documentary: “It’s very important to wear [the crown] for a certain amount of time because you get used to it then.

“But the big one that you are crowned with, the St Edward’s Crown, weighs 5lbs. It is much heavier and taller [than the Imperial State Crown]. So there’s always that feeling of feeling slightly anxious in case it wobbles.”

The comments were made in a documentary in which the King met women from Canada who had attended his mother’s coronation in June 1953.

They were among 50 girls aged 16 and 17 from rural Canada who had been chosen to travel to London for the crowning. A new film, Coronation Girls, follows the women, now in their late eighties, as 12 of the original group make a return journey for the King’s coronation.

Their trip culminated in a visit to Buckingham Palace in December last year, when the King dropped in to share his own memories. Charles, who was four at the time of his mother’s coronation, said: “My grandmother explained things to me while I was there. I can remember it. Well, I can remember quite a lot, particularly what I was dressed in. And what the barber did to me beforehand.” One of the women said his hair was “perfect” but Charles said he “hated it”.

To prepare for his own coronation, he said he followed his mother’s example by practising. The St Edward’s Crown, which has a solid gold frame, is the most important and sacred of the crown jewels. It is twice as heavy as the Imperial Crown, which is worn after the coronation service and for the state opening of parliament. When he was crowned in May last year, the Archbishop of Canterbury had two attempts to place it.

Charles said he could “vividly” recall the lead-up to his mother’s coronation. “I remember it all so well because my sister and I had bathtime in the evening,” he said. “My Mama used to come up at bathtime wearing the crown to practise. Because you have to get used to how heavy it is.”

The King said he was glad to meet the women. “I hadn’t realised you came over all those years ago,” he said.

On their initial trip, Garfield Weston, a Canadian philanthropist, paid for them to be picked up by a steam train before they boarded the Empress of France to sail to Liverpool.

Weston’s six daughters gave the girls lessons in etiquette. They watched the coronation procession from stands in Oxford Street before visiting Coventry Cathedral and Northern Ireland.

At the end of the seven-week trip Weston gave them medallions engraved with a line from a poem by the American author Ella Wheller: “Tis the set of the sails, and not the gales, that determines the way they go.”

In the encounter, recorded before the King’s cancer diagnosis, one of the women invited him to return to Canada.

He replied: “I’m sure I will. If I’m still alive.”

Coronation Girls will be shown in Canada on Boxing Day. A broadcast date has yet to be set for its screening in the UK.

The Times