![]() ![]() Technically not bling, but the first big, gold-y thing you’ll see - as the uncrowned king and queen head to Westminster Abbey, along a route about one-third the length of that taken by Queen Elizabeth II for her coronation in 1953 - is the Australian State Coach. The difference - that immensely profitable difference that draws people to London from democracies and republics and dictatorships the world over - is that in Britain, once in a while, these objects emerge from the display cases and come to life again for their purpose: as the living ceremonial ornaments of a singularly surviving monarchy. Museums in Europe are filled with the jeweled relics of kings and queens, the supreme headgear of monarchy. Another crown will sit on the head of his wife, the new queen until now, it has been on display for those 70 years in the Tower of London. It has not been used in 70 years, since it crowned his mother at the last coronation. ![]() On Saturday, one of them will crown the latest king in the 39th coronation at Westminster Abbey. Skip ahead 20 centuries to other British crowns. The oldest crown ever found in England, a dented bronze circlet, turned up two days after Christmas 1988, a full 2,000 years after both it and the man who wore it - now no more than a skull - were buried on a chalk ridge in the county of Kent. ![]()
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