Can a coronation be modernized? It may not be that easy

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As the calendar moves ever closer to May 6, more details are emerging about the coronation of King Charles.

There will, among other things, be two golden coaches — one considerably newer and offering a more comfortable ride than the other — to carry Charles and Camilla, the Queen Consort, to and from Westminster Abbey in London. 

There are also far more community representatives and far fewer peers invited to this ceremony than the last one, for Queen Elizabeth in 1953. (Most peers who will attend have also reportedly been advised to come in business attire rather than their traditional velvet coronation robes, something that isn't sitting so well with some.) 

There will also be a shorter procession route back to Buckingham Palace than there was the last time. 

And in answer to one question that loomed large over the whole affair, it emerged the other day that Prince Harry will indeed attend his father's coronation, but on his own, as his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, remains at home with their children in California.

But other questions that have hung over the coronation remain unanswered, and perhaps point to the challenges of planning a Church of England ceremony deeply rooted in 1,000 years of history and tradition while also trying to inject a dose of the modern day into it.

"We don't know what the order of service is," said Bob Morris, a member of the honorary staff of the constitution unit at University College London, in an interview.

"The only change in the service itself that I've been able to find hint of is that the homage might be reduced in length…. That doesn't save a lot of time but it certainly saves some. But we're still looking at the problem of reducing something that took nearly three hours in any substantial way."

While some details about the procession and the extent of the military contingents — more than 6,000 personnel in all — have emerged, "we certainly don't know anything about how they're going to accommodate other faiths at the coronation," said Morris.

"My guess is there might have been some argument about this, that the King would have perhaps been more ambitious than the Church of England. But it's very difficult to see where they could have been inserted actually in the ceremony itself, other than just attending."

What has emerged so far seems to reflect how something like a modern coronation "is a tremendously complex and delicate event to plan and navigate," said Justin Vovk, a royal commentator and a PhD candidate at McMaster University in Hamilton who specializes in the history of the monarchy, in an interview.

"There are so many things to consider, from optics to … precedents and protocols and I think with what we're seeing with the current one is that you need a bit of everything in it." 

Vovk said he thinks all this "is sending this message that in some ways there there will be modernization, but the ceremonies that have provided structure and legitimacy to this important moment in the life cycle of monarchy … are still going to be employed, and that it really sends the message that these are elements that they see as being critical to that continuity, that they do need to keep things familiar."