King Charles III opened the new legislative session of Parliament in the U.K. on Wednesday, as London ground to a halt for a day of pomp, ceremony, gun salutes, mock hostage taking, and slammed doors in a series of extraordinary and ancient customs designed to telegraph lawmakers’ independence from the Crown.
The day, many of the mechanics of which would be broadly familiar to a time traveler arriving from the 1700s, began long before the king and queen arrived to the sound of gun salutes in a horse-drawn carriage pulled by six gray horses in the glorious sunshine at around 11 a.m. to deliver the king’s speech (which is not written by him, but by the government, and outlines their program for the legislative session).
By then, the basements of the Houses of Parliament had been ceremonially searched by the Yeomen of the Guard, dressed in their distinctive Tudor-style scarlet uniforms. The symbolic gesture (MI5 isn’t about to delegate national security) commemorates the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, when Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the Westminster Palaces.
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Shortly after that gesture, a member of Parliament was taken “hostage” by the palace, the idea being that it is dangerous for the monarch to enter the Commons. The tradition has its roots in the 1649 execution of King Charles I, killed after opposing Parliament in the English Civil War, and beheaded as a “tyrant and traitor.” Upon the king’s return to Buckingham Palace, the hostage, their role as a symbolic assurance for the monarch’s safety when attending the State Opening of Parliament fulfilled, was released.
Another bizarre tradition sees a ceremonial official who rejoices in the name of Black Rod (the original “black rod” was a symbol of the holder of the office’s power to dispense discipline) walk from the House of Lords to the House of Commons to summon MPs. The door is slammed in Black Rod’s face, who then has to beat the door with their ceremonial staff to gain entry, whereupon the MPs follow Black Rod back to the Lords.
Charles wore his Admiral of the Fleet Royal Naval Number 1 Dress with cap and sword and the Imperial State Crown, while Queen Camilla, who was celebrating her birthday, wore a silk crepe-embroidered dress by Fiona Clare, and the George IV State Diadem, familiar to followers of royal pomp as a favorite accoutrement of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
