The Bishop of Durham's intimate role at the coronation ceremony

“I think that the early part of the service has the biggest potential,” says the Right Reverend Paul Butler, who became Bishop of Durham in 2014. “The King and Queen have very long trains and I have to make sure I avoid treading on the King’s train. That particular cloak comes off after a little while but the possibility in the first stages of tripping up on it are real.”

The Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Paul Butler, in Durham Cathedral

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He will want to do better than the Bishop of Durham who so failed to assist Queen Victoria at her five-hour long coronation in 1838 that she called him “remarkably maladroit”.

The Bishop of Lindisfarne – the predecessor of the Bishop of Durham – is known to have been at the coronation of King Edgar the Peaceful in 973. It was held at Bath Abbey, and so in today’s ceremony, the Bishop of Bath and Wells will be at the King’s left hand while the Bishop of Durham is at his right hand – they are his 'Bishops Assistant'.

The first coronation of which there is a detailed description is that of Richard the Lionheart at Westminster Abbey on September 3, 1189, which tells how Bishop Hugh de Puiset of Durham and Bishop Reginald of Bath and Wells were always at the king’s side while he was anointed and crowned, leading him to his throne and then, at the end of the service, out of the abbey and back to his chamber where they feasted at his table that night.

Queen Elizabeth II leaves Westminster Abbey at the end of her coronation in 1953 with the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Michael Ramsey, at her right hand side

“My role is just about the same,” says Bishop Paul. “In essence it means being at the King's right hand throughout virtually the entire ceremony. I, along with the Bishop of Bath and Wells, will meet him at the Westgate when he arrives, we will escort him all the way up through the nave and the choir to his seat, then we stand to his right and his left. When he moves to the coronation chair we move with him, we assist him through the whole giving of the regalia, and we help with getting cloaks on and cloaks off. Once he is crowned, it is our job to literally help him stand up – the crown has to stay on his head.

“It's a very practical support – making sure he's got the right words at the right time, helping him get to the right place in the right way, escorting him out at the end of the service when he and the Queen go off in their carriage. Then our job is done.”

No feasting for the Bishops Assistant in 2023, though. “We're both pretty convinced that we'll be in desperate need of some water because we would have been on our feet for three hours – we will be desperate for coffee,” says Bishop Paul.

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The Coronation of Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey, on June 28, 1838, by Sir George Hayter. The Queen labelled the Bishop of Durham "remarkably maladroit" because he didn't know what was going on

His answer about making sure the King has the “right words at the right time” is perhaps subconsciously revealing because that was Bishop Edward Maltby’s greatest crime in 1838.

There had been no rehearsals for Victoria’s coronation. The Archbishop painfully rammed a ring designed for her fifth finger onto her fourth; a peer toppled down some steps in front of her; she was handed the orb at the wrong moment and so was left wafting it around uncertainly; the Bishop of Bath and Wells turned over two pages in the order book and so she returned to her seat only to be called back again, and all the time the Bishop of Durham – who was supposed to be guiding her – didn’t have a clue what was supposed to be going on.

Victoria wrote in her diary: “The Bishop of Durham stood on one side near me, but he was, as Lord Melbourne (the Prime Minister) had told me, remarkably ‘maladroit’, and never could tell me what was to take place.”

To avoid that fate, the bishop has been in so many rehearsals that he feels like a footballer who takes countless spot kicks so that when the shoot-out comes, he doesn’t blaze the ball over the bar.

“You take a thousand penalties so that on the day you get it right,” he says.

“We've had a couple of rehearsals at Buckingham Palace in person with the King and the Queen – they’ve mocked up the front of the abbey in there but it’s a very accurate mock up so everything is at the right distance, the same sort of seats that will be used and also mock-up regalia,” he says.

This week, rehearsals have moved to the abbey, with Charles having to do extra practice at home.

“I'm quite sure the King will have been practising wearing the crown – it is very heavy and you can't just suddenly on the day wear it,” says Bishop Paul.

The Bishop of Durham's Coronation Cope was made in 1902 for Bishop Handley Moule to wear at the coronation of King Edward VII. It was then worn by Bishops of Durham at the coronations of 1911, 1937 and 1953, but it is too fragile now to leave Durham. Pictures courtesy of Durham Cathedral

Above and below: Details from the 1902 Bishop's Cope. Pictures courtesy of Durham Cathedral

On the day, Bishop Paul will not be wearing the Coronation Cope that his predecessors wore in each of the four coronations of the 20th Century. Made in 1902, it is now kept in Durham Cathedral and is too fragile to withstand a 21st Century coronation. Instead all the bishops who have a role in the service will be wearing matching, 80-year-old copes borrowed from Westminster Cathedral – “that’s good ecumenical recycling”, he says.

Charles has updated the coronation service so that it focuses on him being called to serve the people, and so that it represents the multi-racial and multi-faith country. This has meant many of the ancient roles – the Chief Larderer, the Herb Strewer – have fallen by the wayside, but the bishop’s is one of 13 ceremonial roles to survive.

“It is a huge honour and privilege,” he says. “I do sometimes wonder how on earth this little boy from Chessington in Surrey ended up being the person who's privileged to do this.”

Charles and Camilla in an official portrait released a week before the coronation

This week in London, his portrait will be officially unveiled before it comes back to Auckland Castle for permanent display.

“I never thought I’d have my portrait painted, but when all of your predecessors have been painted since the 14th Century you can't break the chain,” he says. “Just outside the feretory in Durham Cathedral, where Cuthbert is buried, there's a great big marble slab and it has all the Bishops of Durham right the way back to 995, and prior to that there were the Bishops of Lindisfarne back to 632. I sometimes stand there and run my eye down, and I do feel the weight of the history.”

The Rt Rev Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham

Charles, of course, has his own equally long lineage running down through the centuries and, despite the words of his great-great-great-grandmother Victoria, most of his ancestors have been pleased to have the Bishop of Durham at their right hand at one of the most important ceremonies of their reign.

“I’ve met him once a year at the board meeting of the Step Up to Serve charity and I always found him very personable, but you don't really realise until you start doing rehearsals for the coronation quite how intimately engaged you are with him because you're physically next to him and assisting him putting things on taking them off,” he says, “but he's very easy to talk to and he tells us he's very grateful that he has two Bishops Assistant to guide him.”