The Form and Order of Service that is to be performed and the Ceremonies that are to be observed in
The Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, on Tuesday, the second day of June, 1953

Introduction to this on-line edition

Version

cor1953.html
version 15, 27 September 2022
At the start of the homage correct wording to ‘The Archbishop first shall’ instead of ‘... shall first’
version 14, 14 June 2022
added missing ‘the’ in ‘be filled with the Oil’
‘to be placed by him upon the Altar’ changed to ‘to be by him placed upon the Altar’
At the delivery of the sword, added the words ‘and other Bishops’ after ‘Winchester’
Styled ‘The Glove having been presented ...’ as a rubric
various minor punctuation changes
version 13, 9 October 2019
minor html coding improvements
version 12, 11 March 2017.
Version 12 ‘The LITANY shall be be sung’ omit second ‘be’
version 11, 12 March 2016.
Version 11 correct mark-up for rubric at start of Section VIII
version 10, 6 February 2016.
Version 10 correct spelling in Te Deum to Cherubin and Seraphin; and Day by day we ‘magnify’ thee
version 9, 29 September 2012.
Version 9 fixes another wrongly-nested rubric tag; and inserted missing word ‘before’ in the promise at the end of the Oath; and ‘over her’ in the rubric about the Knights of the Garter at the Anointing; and ‘your’ inserted into ‘Lord your God’ in the prayer ‘Receive this Imperial Robe’; and ‘holy’ into ‘sanctify them unto this holy use’; corrected start of introduction and start of Prayer for Church Militant; and ‘and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort’ the Exhortation ‘Ye that do truly and earnestly repent’; add missing (second) ‘with’ in ‘with majesty and with power’ at the presentation of the Robe Royal; and ‘and to all thy people give thy heavenly grace;’ in the prayer for the Church Militant; change ‘will I’ to ‘I will’ in the Homage
version 8, May 2012. Version 8 fixes minor formatting issue with the prayer and anthem following the ‘God Save the Queen’ acclamation which caused problems on Safari (webkit) browsers
(first change in 10 years)
version 7, April 2002. Version 7 contains more minor formatting improvements, based on the printing of the Order Two (Traditional Language) Eucharist in Common Worship.
version 6, September 1999. Version 6 contains minor formatting improvements.
version 5, June 1999. Version 5 corrects an error in the Collect for Purity
version 4, June 1998. Version 4 contains minor formatting improvements compared with version 3.
...
version 1, 11 April 1994.

The above version number identifies minor corrections and alterations to the formatting. If you notice any errors or possible errors, or have suggestions for improving the format of this text please email me at simon@oremus.org.

Ownership

I do not claim any original ownership in this text. However, I did take some trouble to obtain, retype and format it. As a courtesy I ask you not to redistribute this text without my agreement. In particular this text should not be sold in any form whatsoever.

Some of this material may be considered copyright (or the equivalent) in some countries. Anyone wishing to reproduce this text should establish whether this is the case and seek appropriate permission. As the copyright owner of this particular re-typing, my permission is also necessary.

Sources

I have used various sources for this on-line version of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

The text was originally typed in from a copy of the Order of Service contained in the Official Souvenir published by the King George V Jubilee Trust, photocopied from a copy in the Cambridge Central Library, in April 1994.

In July 1994, I bought a second-hand copy of the somewhat grander Order of Service published by Cambridge University Press.

There are minor variations between these two sources, and also with the version published by Oxford University Press but this on-line version has been checked against the first two of these, though doubtless some minor mistakes remain. To reduce typing, I used an already existing e-text Communion service for much of the service. This was the Rite One Communion Service from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church in the USA. This differs in many small details from the 1662 Service used at the 1953 Coronation, and several errors can be traced to these differences. However, I am grateful to John Goodwin, John Covert, Thomas (formerly Michael) Bushnell and others who made that text available. I am also grateful to Charles Cameron who saw an early version of my text and pointed out several of my errors. Remaining errors are, of course, my own responsibility: if you think you have identified an error in this text please email me simon@oremus.org. I will update the version number associated with this text whenever I publish an updated version.

Layout

Until recently it was customary to print liturgical material, such as prayer books, as solid text, except for such items as headings and versicles and responses. From the 1960s onwards it has become customary to typeset liturgy in short ‘sense’ lines to improve readability, especially with regard to congregational parts, and increasingly also for parts spoken by worship leaders. In the Church of England this trend is seen in the various forms of alternative services published in the 1960s and 1970s (First Alternative Series, Second Alternative Series, and Series 3) culminating in the Alternative Service Book 1980. More recent publications (such as Patterns for Worship and Common Worship) have gone even further.

The sources from which this text is taken are, naturally, from the 1950s, and they are generally set as solid text. This on-line edition instead follows current printing practice. Wherever possible the line breaks are those used in current liturgical printing of the equivalent or similar texts. In particular I have consulted the Eucharist, Rite B, in ASB 1980 which is quite close to the Cranmerian text used at the Coronation, and the order following the pattern of the Book of Common Prayer which is an appendix to the modern language Eucharist Rite A. Subsequent modifications to the layout have been made in consultation with Order Two of the Eucharist in Common Worship, which follows the Prayer Book communion service ‘as commonly used’.