The Hidden Anointing of a Queen

On June 2, 1953, inside Westminster Abbey, the most sacred moment of Elizabeth II's coronation was deliberately hidden from view. As the Archbishop of Canterbury poured holy oil from a golden ampulla onto the young queen's hands, breast, and head, a silk canopy was held over her. The BBC cameras, broadcasting to twenty-seven million viewers for the first time in history, were ordered to look away.

Why? Because the anointing was considered too holy to witness — a moment between the sovereign and God alone.

This ancient ritual echoed something far older. When the psalmist declared, "The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand,'" he described a divine enthronement that transcended any earthly ceremony. The one enthroned was no mere monarch but a priest-king "in the order of Melchizedek" — authority sealed not by archbishop or pope, but by the irrevocable oath of the Almighty Himself.

Elizabeth ruled for seventy years, yet her authority was borrowed and temporary. The priest-king of Psalm 110 rules forever, enthroned at the right hand of God, reigning even in the midst of His enemies. No silk canopy hides this anointing. No earthly ceremony confers it. The Most High has spoken, and He will not change His mind.