Recognition, Oath, Anointing and Crowning

The service moves through a fixed sequence of distinct acts, each with its own liturgical weight. The recognition asks the assembled congregation to acknowledge the sovereign, who is then presented at each side of the Abbey in turn; the coronation oath, administered by the Archbishop, binds the monarch to govern according to law and to maintain the Church of England's established status, wording that has been adjusted across the centuries but never abandoned; and the anointing, regarded as the ceremony's most sacred moment, is performed with consecrated oil applied to the head, breast and hands while a canopy shields the act from public view, a screening tradition maintained even in the televised coronations of the modern era.

Investiture follows with the regalia, the orb, sceptres and coronation ring, each carrying symbolic meaning developed and elaborated across the medieval and early modern periods, before St Edward's Crown, used only at the moment of coronation itself, is placed on the sovereign's head to the cry of God Save the King or Queen and gun salutes across the country, after which the lighter Imperial State Crown is worn for the procession out of the Abbey. Coronation is constitutionally distinct from and generally follows some time after accession, which occurs automatically and immediately on the death of the previous monarch, so that Britain is never without a reigning sovereign even while a coronation is still being planned.