Ailing George VI could barely stand. The Archbishop seemed about to drop the baby. Yet  through it all, Prince Charles ‘lay quiet as a mouse’ – the Christening of a King on this day 75 years ago

• The chapel was bombed so they had to use the Music Room at the Palace
• Princess Margaret had joked to friends that she was now ‘Charley’s Aunt’ 
• Don’t miss our brilliant new podcast, The Crown: Fact or Fiction with Robert Hardman and Natasha Livingstone. Listen now on Spotify , Apple or wherever you get your podcasts 

The future King Charles III was baptised Charles Philip Arthur George at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday December 15, 1948.

Buckingham Palace released the baby’s names the previous evening and there was much comment in the newspapers about the unusual choice of Charles as first name. 

One of the baby’s godparents – Haakon VII, King of Norway had been born Prince Charles of Denmark – and it also no doubt appealed to the alpha male Prince Philip that Charles is old English for a ‘free man’ as well as French for ‘manly.’ 

(Aptly for both men, Philip is Greek for ‘horse-loving’)

The Royal Family pose for a photograph after the christening of Princess Elizabeth’s baby son, Charles. The baby’s grandfather, King George VI and great grandmother, Queen Mary are present

The birth certificate of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales.

The King and Queen survey bomb damage, Buckingham Palace, London, WWII, 1940. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth looking at the aftermath of a German bombing raid on 11 September 1940 which destroyed the palace chapel

Marion Crawford, known as Crawfie, who was Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret’s nanny

Newspapers also pointed out that the future king wouldn’t necessarily reign as King Charles III, since his grandfather, George VI, had been born Prince Albert of York and King Edward VII had also been baptised Albert Edward.

Philip had registered his four-week-old son’s birth on the morning of the christening. Mr John Stanley Clare, Registrar of Births at Caxton Hall, Westminster, travelled to the palace to enter the details. He was accompanied by two women officials from the Ministry of Food who handed the Duke and Princess Elizabeth a child’s green ration book.

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The ceremony was held in the Music Room overlooking the palace gardens. The palace chapel, where royal christenings, up to and including that of Princess Alexandra in 1937, were often held, had been destroyed by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz.

Marion Crawford, Elizabeth’s former governess, recalled ‘about thirty chairs were set out in rows as if in a chapel’.

She also noticed the silver-gilt Lily Font had been sent from Windsor Castle and ‘was decorated with white carnations and gardenias.’ 

The Music Room was later used for other royal baptisms including those of Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips and of Prince William who was christened there on the Queen Mother’s 82 birthday – 4 August 1982.

The royal party sat on the front row. The baby had eight ‘sponsors’ as godparents of royal babies were termed.

They were all royal relations: King George VI, (grandfather), Princess Margaret (aunt), Queen Mary (great grandmother), the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven (Prince Philip’s grandmother), Lady Brabourne (Philip’s first cousin, later Countess Mountbatten of Burma, and the Hon David Bowes Lyon (the Queen Mother’s younger brother). 

Baby Charles had his first encounter with the British press at the photo call in the White Drawing Room where photos and news reel footage documented the christening. Back row from the left: Patricia Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne; Prince Philip; King George VI; David Bowes Lyon; Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone; Princess Margaret. Front row from the left: Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (also Marchioness of Milford Haven and  Prince Philip’s grandmother); Princess Elizabeth with baby Charles; Queen Mary

Queen Mary the Queen Mother holds her great grandson Prince Charles after his christening at Buckingham Palace

The centre pages of the Daily Graphic celebrate the  Christening

Prince Philip represented another godparent, his uncle Prince George of Greece, and Queen Mary’s brother, the Earl of Athlone, stood in for the King of Norway.

Princess Margaret – who had jokingly told friends that she was now ‘Charley’s Aunt’ – carried her nephew into the room and handing him to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher, while at the same time announcing the names. 

To Crawfie’s concern, the Archbishop ‘took the baby in the crook of his arm’ which she thought unsafe ‘as if the slightest movement would dislodge’ him. 

Charles, she recalled ‘lay quiet as a mouse’ as the cleric ‘poured three very ample shellfulls of water over the baby’s head.’

Music was provided ten choristers from the Chapels Royal accompanied by their organist playing the French grand piano. 

The small congregation and choir sand two hymns chosen by Princess Elizabeth: ‘Holy, Holy Holy’ and ‘O Worship The King.’

Crawfie was ‘a little concerned about Princess Elizabeth. She did not look very well. She was wearing a cherry-coloured coat and hat, but she seemed to me to be a little tired.’ 

It had clearly taken her a while to recover from the birth and the evening before she was a notable absentee from the palace staff Christmas dance attended by her mother and sister in the state apartments.

Elizabeth must also have been worried about her father’s declining health. King George had been diagnosed with arteriosclerosis and was suffering from cramps in his legs and feet. 

His doctors feared his poor circulation may lead to gangrene and a possible amputation. 

Crawfie said she was was ‘a little concerned about Princess Elizabeth. She did not look very well. She was wearing a cherry-coloured coat and hat, but she seemed to me to be a little tired.’ It had clearly taken her a while to recover from the birth

Irene Podd putting the finishing touches to the cake for the christening of Prince Charles, at the McVitie and Price works in Harlesden, London

Dr Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury in a 1954 portrait

Queen Elizabeth II (right) is crowned by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Geoffrey Fisher

He rested his feet on a footstool during the half hour service but insisted on standing for the photographs.

Baby Charles had his first encounter with the British press at the photo call in the White Drawing Room where photos and news reel footage documented the christening. 

Such was the interest across the Atlantic for pictures of the event that American media organisations chartered a 43-seater BOAC air liner at a cost of £10,000, paid in dollars, to transport the one-pound package of photos to New York to catch the early editions of the evening papers.

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