They should have stuck to paper crowns! Christmas is a time for thanksgiving and merriment, not for coronations as these royals discovered – with disastrous consequences…

The royal family is all about tradition, especially at this time of year. But there’s one Christmas tradition they gave up long ago: a coronation.

King Charles chose May for his accession to the throne earlier this year. For his mother, Elizabeth, it was June.

Generation after generation of their ancestors preferred the summer months. No one ever talks about Christmas.

And with good reason: the two monarchs who tried it soon realized their mistake.

Take William the Conqueror, crowned on Christmas Day at Westminster Abbey in 1066. What should have been a wonderful state event turned into a disorderly riot.

The ceremony took place just months after the Battle of Hastings and with the Anglo-Saxons at the mercy of the victorious Normans, Britain was still in disarray.

Yet William had prevailed – and wanted the crown to fall on his head.

Plans were made for a grand and lavish party, but on that day a single misunderstanding led to pandemonium.

It started happily enough, with a crowd gathering outside the abbey – not all that different from King Charles’ coronation in May this year – and the ceremony, remnants of which still survive in the current order of service – began.

However, during what is known as the Acclamation and Recognition, “Norman soldiers outside Westminster Abbey, who were unfamiliar with the ceremony, were alarmed to hear all this cheering and shouting from within,” says Charles Farris, historian at Historic Royal Palaces.

‘There is a bit of panic. They are not sure if there is foul play. They start attacking people and setting some buildings on fire. There’s a riot.’

The ancient chronicler Orderis Vitalis takes over the story.

“The people who had rejoiced in the church fell into confusion, and a crowd of men and women of every rank and status, compelled by this disaster, rushed out of the church.

‘Only the bishops and clergy, together with the monks, remained standing terrified before the altar – and only just managed to complete the rite of consecration over the violently trembling king.’

Compared to the 2,300 people who crowded Westminster Abbey for Charles’s accession, by the end of the proceedings there was virtually no one left in the abbey to see this unique moment in Britain’s history when an invader was crowned.

Instead, blood was shed, houses and shops were looted and burned, and the big day was ruined.

No wonder only one other king attempted his coronation on Christmas Day.

This was King Edmund, who reigned from 855 until his death in 869.

He picked up the idea of ​​a Christmas coronation from Charlemagne, the powerful emperor who had ruled much of Western Europe in previous years.

Unfortunately for Edmund, he was less fortunate than the brave Charlemagne; the Vikings invaded shortly afterwards and pierced him with arrows.

Yet it’s not just Christmas Day that’s doomed when it comes to coronations.

There were so many spectators at Edward II’s coronation in 1307 that part of the wall behind the abbey’s high altar collapsed, killing one knight and injuring many more.

George II’s consort, Queen Caroline, wore so many hired jewels at his coronation in 1727 that they noticeably ‘rattled around the abbey’ and a special pulley had to be devised to lift the royal skirt when the owner had to kneel in prayer .

Meanwhile, in 1761, George III and his wife, Queen Charlotte, refrained from a procession and were carried to the abbey on his and her litters, with one witness complaining that they looked like a few commoners going to the theatre.

Everything came too late, and by the time the Archbishop arrived to deliver his sermon, it was drowned out by the clatter of cutlery and the clinking of glasses as hungry colleagues sat down to eat mid-service.

George IV’s coronation in 1821 was marred by his queen, Caroline of Brunswick, from whom he was separated, as she noisily tried to enter the abbey – where she was excluded. Courtiers had to barricade the doors to keep her out.

In contrast, George IV’s successor, the money-grubbing William IV, held such a small-scale ceremony that it was called the ‘Half-Crown Nation’.

Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838 was largely underrehearsed. Her bridesmaids kept tripping over their trains, and the bishops lost their way during the service.

Even worse, the coronation ring was made for the wrong finger.

“Something is lost in translation when they address the request to the goldsmith,” wrote one historian. ‘Intended for the third finger, the ring was custom made for her little finger.

‘So the ring was too small. When it got to the part of the ceremony where the Archbishop of Canterbury put it on her finger, it didn’t fit. But determined to follow protocol, he pushed it forward.

The queen later wrote in her diary that she had to freeze her finger to get it off. And it was very painful.’