The most challenging task for those in secret discussions about the coronation service for Britain’s next monarch is to devise a liturgy that respects tradition and yet reflects the present

More than any other feature of British life, the coronation service symbolises and defines the sacred character of the monarchy and the Christian character of the nation. Packed with religious symbolism, it exudes mystery and magic, binds together Church and State and clearly proclaims the derivation of all power and authority from God and the Christian basis on which government is exercised, justice administered and the state defended.

Writing about the Queen’s coronation in 1953, the liturgist, Edward Ratcliff, noted that “it reflects the persistent English intertwining of sacred and secular, of civil and ecclesiastical. It reflects particularly the historic English conception of the mutual relations of Sovereign, Church and People, and of all three to God. In a word, the English Coronation Service symbolises national continuity considered sub specie Christianitatis”.

Does this still hold good in a country where less than half the population describe themselves as religious believers and only around 10 per cent regularly attend church? While those around her, including in her own close family, seem sometimes to falter and stumble, the Queen remains calm, surefooted and, at 94, a model of robust good health.