Coronation Roll of King Charles III - header page.jpeg
This is the Press Association’s photo of the header page for the ‘Coronation Roll’ of King Charles III.
The document is an official record of the proceedings of his coronation - who was there, who did what, of the various oaths that were sworn, and by whom they were sworn.
These records have been produced for the coronations of English monarchs since the coronation of Edward II in 1308.
They have (for obvious reasons) always been handwritten, and have always been written in iron-gall ink, on parchment vellum (animal skins). Because that has always been the most ‘archival’ recording medium.
This Coronation Roll has broken with that tradition, in a reflection of His Majesty’s well-known concern for animal welfare, and for the first time paper has been used.
The paper in question is Fabriano Artistico 100% pure cotton, archival quality watercolour paper. It is entirely free of animal products.
The ink used for the body of the text is ‘carbon black’, but I have not found any mention of any brand, or whether the ink was in fact specially made for the occasion (by burning vegetable oil through a vegetable lamp-wick, and collecting the soot from the flame on a metal dish inserted into the flame, before mixing it into another vegetable oil to make the ink).
The single calligrapher who wrote-out the 69-feet (21-metre) long, ~11500 word document is Stephanie von Werthern-Gill, who says that it took her 56 days to complete. During which time she kept her phone turned off, and took no breaks for weekends, in order to maintain her rhythm. And that she used classical music and breathing exercises to remain calm. At the end of all of that, the only mistake that was found in her manuscript was a single ‘i’ that had not been dotted. Thankfully, this omission was far easier to correct than a spelling error would have been. If all of it is as controlled and as beautiful as the writing on this page, I truly salute her tremendous skill.
The extraordinary illumination on this page was produced by the artist Tim Noad, who also designed the ‘King’s cypher’ for Charles III - the ‘C III R’ monogram design that will appear on all the postboxes and banknotes etc that are produced throughout his reign.
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