In a moment, Queen Elizabeth will be holding both the Royal Sceptre and the Rod of Mercy and Equity in her grasp.  She will be fixed and transfixed by the power she holds in her hands, the power to bless and protect.  Others are brilliantly clothed, others wear robes and mantles and sparkling jewels, and in the moment when St. Edward’s crown in placed upon Her Majesty’s head, the peers may don their coronets, but only the Queen will sit enthroned with double-fisted authority.

Today, all that authority is vested by the people and worked out in Parliament.  Yet, by the people’s choice, warrants and medals are issued in her name.  Warriors fight and postal workers deliver the mail in her name.  They choose to honor and respect Her Majesty’s majesty.  Very little of what she does, very little, comes of her own volition, but everything she does issues from theirs.  She has much less power than an American President, though he may wish he had nearly as much influence.

Before the Rod and Sceptre are delivered from the Altar, as has been done from antiquity, she receives a Glove.  Lord Woolton, one of the newest peers at that time, came and knelt before Elizabeth and presented to her a glove for her right hand, the symbol of the abolished Danegeld.  This glove reminds her, even in such a glorious moment, superlative beyond measure, to have a gentle hand in taxation.  In this ceremony within the Ceremony, barons of old had kept their place in the Coronation in perpetuity, reminding the Monarch that without their supervision, their management of lands and lakes and laborers, there would be no England over which to rule.

No British monarch can set or establish taxation in this day, but once again, at the Coronation, Majesty represents fealty to the people.  Elizabeth and her family have further taken only very paltry cost-of-living style honorariums from the government, considering the expenses of their travel, entertainment, staff, and such matters, and the Windsors have themselves submitted to taxation.

Sometimes, in the places where we reign, be it over pre-school children or five-star financial conglomerates, sometimes what we DO NOT ASK of others will tell our tale.

The Royal Scepter, the Scepter With the Cross, was presented to Elizabeth simultaneously with the Scepter of Mercy.  The first is ornamented with the Cullinan Diamond, Cullinan I, the Great Star of Africa, the second largest diamond in the world.  It was a potent illustration that she was given to reign in the steadfastness of “Kingly power and justice.”  The Rod with the Dove, bespoke the powerful injunction that justice was to be so executed that she would never forget equity and mercy.  “Be so merciful that you be not too remiss; so execute justice that you forget not mercy  Punish the wicked protect and cherish the just, and lead your people in the way wherein they should go.”

Elizabeth was still seated in King Edward’s Chair, facing the altar, not the audience.  Not yet enthroned, she was in her rightful, royal place in the high-backed chair where centuries of Monarchs, her relatives of old and of late, had been seated.  At that point in the ceremony, even her husband, Duke of Edinburgh, could not see her face.

The Swords and the Sceptres, the Orb and Armills, the Spurs and the Ring and the Glove had come to her one by one from the Altar of God.  Her head was still bare; she was wearing emblazoned gold on top of silk on top of linen over beaded and embroidered splendor, but very few saw the calm, resolute, certain, ready, God-fearing humility that those nearest her believed to have been apparent.

Strength and resolve adorned her more majestically than her robes and regalia. She would fulfill her destiny by the grace and in the reverential fear of the Lord.  Clothed in majesty, seated in glorious purpose, having every right to be where she had been chosen to be, she was no usurper.

All that took place that day, and the essential purpose of this volume, was the extremely evocative representation on earth of heavenly majesty, and that majesty ever and always under God and under Him alone.  Hear these words, then, today, and tomorrow we will see her crowned . . . we are

“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ; grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  (1 Peter 1:2-5)

We, at the right hand of God in Christ Jesus, are not usurpers, either.

The Scepter With the Cross, Wikipedia