What’s An Ermine? Charles & Camilla & Those “Campy” Coronation Capes

My New York Bestie declared the coronation capes to be campy. “And, not campy in a good way,” she added.

“They’re ermine,” I told her.

“What’s an ermine?” she asked. “It’s not like a Dalmatian. Those black spots are too evenly spaced to come from an actual animal.”

“I don’t know what kind of animal,” I replied. “But as soon as I saw those spotted capes, I said to myself: Ermine! The word just appeared in my head.”

“Like a chyron,” said my Bestie (we’d both worked in TV News so she didn’t have to explain that chyrons are the captions that appear under an image on a TV screen.)

“Yes, like a chyron. It’s a word I’m dredging up from some deep subconscious memory,” I added, furiously googling ‘ermine.’

So, This Is Ermine

“It’s a stoat,” I announced, finally finding a description with a picture.

“What’s a stoat?” asked Bestie

Turns out, a stoat or ermine is part of the weasel family to which polecats and ferrets also belong. Appropriate outerwear then, one could say, for Charles who once told Camilla he wanted to “live inside her trousers.” (And, sorry if you don’t get either of those references. I’m not explaining. You can google ferret-legging and/or re-watch Season 5 of The Crown.)

Google also informed me that ermine, prized for its tail of pure white fur with a black tip, is the preferred fur for royalty. According to legend the ermine would rather die than soil its pure white coat, so it came to stand for the (moral) purity of royalty and high nobility. (LOL!)

Also, an ermine’s coat turns white in winter for better camouflage in snow. Only the tip of the tail remains black, possibly to divert swooping predators to the least vulnerable part of its body. In fact, it’s called an ermine when it turns white. In summer, when it’s a tan color, it’s called a stoat.

“So, that’s a lot of ermines in one cape,” observed Bestie. “How does that square with Charles being into the environment and wildlife protection and vegetarianism?”

Best Commentary

It’s tough being a Brit on occasions like this. You’re expected to know answers to such questions. Which brings me to my biggest peeve about the reportage of such occasions — the lack of information and detail that news anchors and TV correspondents bring to pageants these days.

Back in the day, when I was living in London, Richard Dimbleby reporter, broadcaster and journalist covered all major events –like Winston Churchill’s funeral and Queen Elizabeth’s coronation– for the BBC. Known as the Voice of the Nation, he would have had the answers to questions about ermine.

His sotto voce commentary throughout the 1953 coronation gave viewers the entire low-down on the event from inside the Abbey. His detailed descriptions included observations about the guests including a somewhat cheeky reference to the size of the Queen of Tonga (a self-governing British protectorate at the time.)

His commentary also included the colors of everything since viewers in 1953 only had black-and-white sets. Incidentally, if you decide to take a quick look at that coronation and commentary by Dimbleby, you’ll hear that all the “peers of the realm” who attended that coronation also wore ermine capes.

Slimmed-Down Pageant

Not to worry. No guests at Charles’s coronation wore ermine (or tiaras.) What’s more, in the interests of sustainability and their wish to have a slimmed-down coronation,  Charles and Camilla did not have new coronation capes made: Charles wore the coronation robes worn by his grandfather, George VI ; Camilla wore the ermine cape worn by Elizabeth II in 1953.

Which explains why the ermine perhaps looked as if it had lost some of its lustre, which is probably what prompted  Guardian reporter Rachel Cooke to describe Charles and Camilla as looking like “a couple of elderly polar bears on tour.”

Less Bear, More Cat

Not entirely fair. Inside the Abbey, Camilla often looked more like the proverbial cat who swallowed the canary, as if thinking: Ha! They all said I’d never be queen… But, here we are.