King Enríkos II was coronated in a lavish ceremony in Nikosia
Giannoula Eliade (@GianEliadeReport4U)
16 March 2086 | Nikosia, Cinyras
King Enríkos II inherited the throne in December 2085 on his birthday when his long-reigning father Loudovíkos after over a quarter of a century on the throne abdicated. Days ago in a surprise announcement the palace said the king had married his long-term partner and who would now be King Christaan.
Cinyras has an absolute monarchy, and the royal family is highly revered by Cinyroite and wields unchallenged power. The King has divine right to govern and in recent months of the young new monarch’s reign has been even compared to being divine in person as well as in position.
Cinyras also has strict laws, called Lese Majesté, which ban criticism of the monarchy. The laws have shielded the royal family from public view and scrutiny. King Enríkos has notably both weaken and strengthen these laws, breaking down the preverbal walls of the Palace of Geroskipou to show off the monarchy, quite literally in his case.
Enríkos, the play boy prince turned Sun King, has single handedly changed Cinyras dramatically in a short period of time from his sensual Palatial fashion, loosening of personal laws in regards to recreational drug usage, sex workers and above all, his use of enrikosvilla as the fortune maker of the kingdom. Along with a military victory in Makonia, the charismatic king has become beloved.
During Saturday's ceremony the 23-year-old king was handed the 2.7kg (6lbs) Helios Crown, or King Enríkos II’s Crown, newly constructed at his orders, which is shaped like the corona of the sun, which he placed on his own head.
Enríkos II is the third child and only legitimate son of King Emeritus Loudovíkos and Queen Mother Sara. He was educated in the Palace of Geroskipou and has been trained at the Royal Military College in Nikosia. He, after becoming King went on to act as an officer in the Cinyroite armed forces and is the supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Cinyras.
King Christaan, who is his husband, is a prince, son of the Empress of the Dutch, the former Viceroy of Dattan, a general famous for his stunning expulsion of the Duke of Alençon from Eacusia and is commander of the King’s personal security unit. He was made a full general in the army in December 2085.
The King of Cinyras awoke at 8:00 a.m. to the sound of a cannonade, he left the Palace of Apellaios at 11:00 a.m. in a white velvet vest with gold embroidery and diamond buttons, a cerulean velvet tunic and a short cerulean coat with satin lining, a wreath of laurel on his brow. The number of onlookers, as estimated by Palace sources, was between fourteen and fifteen thousand, many of whom had held their places all night through intermittent showers that cleared in the morning.
The ceremony started at 9 a.m. when the Synod procession set out from the Apellaios led by a bishop on a mule holding aloft the Orthodox crucifix. The Primate of the Cinyroite Synod, appointed by Enríkos in February, the Archbishop of Nikosia entered the Cathedral of Saint Andreas first, to the anthem Tu es Petrus, and took his seat on a throne near the high altar.
King Enríkos II and King Christaan rode white horses through the streets as part of the parade down from Apellaios before boarding a golden barge and sailing across the Sound to Nikosia, followed by a flotilla of ships and a single warship, the Enríkos II. In Nikosia they mounted a Dattan Elephant (gifts from the Queen Dowager of Kegara) and marched to the cathedral.
Along with them were Princess Adeline and Princess Daphne, and Prince Károlos and Princess Theodosia whose two carriages were each drawn by eight bay horses and escorted by grenadiers à cheval and gendarmes d'élite. Shortly before arriving at the square that held the Cathedral, the King and his husband once again changed his mount, riding a gold painted horse through his Arch of Triumph, honoring his military victory in Makonia.
The two parts of the ceremony were held at different ends of Saint Andreas’ Cathedral to contrast its religious and secular facets. An unmanned balloon, ablaze with three thousand lights in an imperial crown pattern, was launched from the front of Saint Andreas’ during the celebration.
Before entering Saint Andreas, Enríkos II was vested in a long white satin tunic embroidered in gold thread and Christaan similarly wore a white satin empire-style hussar tunic and trousers embroidered in gold thread. During the coronation he was formally clothed in a heavy coronation mantle of cerulean velvet lined with golden suns, the symbol of the House of Milanés, newly chosen by the king.
Christaan was at the same time formally clothed in a similar cerulean velvet mantle embroidered with roses in gold thread, the golden rose being the symbol of the House of Wessex and lined with ermine, which was borne by Duke Loic of Moudros, his brother Count Achille François, nephews of the late Cardinal Étienne François and Count Theofanis Manos.
There were two orchestras with four choruses, numerous military bands playing heroic marches, and over three hundred musicians. A 400-voice choir performed Paisiello's "Mass" and "The Ambrosian Hymn". The newly made Helios Crown was waiting on the altar. While the crown was new, the sceptre belonged to his grandfather, which in turn had been a gift from Philip II of Espana.
The coronation proper began with the singing of the hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, followed by the versicle and several others. During the Litany of the Saints, the King and his husband remained seated, only kneeling knightly for special petitions. The King and his husband were both anointed on their heads and on both hands with chrism–the King with the prayers, "God, the Son of God..." and "God who established light over his people...", with Christaan with the prayer, "God the Father of eternal glory..."—while the antiphon Unxerunt Salomonem Sadoc Sacerdos... ("Zadok the priest...") was sung.
The Mass then began. At Napoleon's request, the collect of Saint Andreas (as the patron of the cathedral) was said in place of the proper collect for the day. After the epistle, the articles of the royal regalia were individually blessed, and delivered to the King and his husband.
The coronation of Enríkos II and Christaan differed in this respect from the pattern observed in other traditional coronation rites: usually, in joint coronations of sovereign and consort, the sovereign is first anointed, invested with the regalia, crowned and enthroned, and only then is a similar but simplified rite of anointing, investiture, coronation and enthronement of the consort performed.
However, for the Coronation of Enríkos II and Christaan, each of those steps was performed jointly, so that Christaan was anointed immediately after Enríkos II, and each item of regalia was delivered to him immediately after being given to him, a procedure that found no precedent either in the in the Cinyroite Ceremonial. This is probably partially rooted in that Christaan has not been titled as consort nor as co-ruler, but as King, though not the King.
For the crowning the formula Coronet vos Deus..., (God crown you with a crown of glory and righteousness...) was recited by the Archbishop of Nikosia while Enríkos turned and removed his laurel wreath and crowned himself and then crowned the kneeling Christian with a small crown, named the Hyacinth Crown (also newly constructed), surmounted by a flower, which he had first placed on his own head.
Enríkos’ choice to place the crown on his own head comes directly from the tradition in Derita, from where the House of Milanés originates, of Emperor’s crowning themselves. Enríkos was symbolizing that he was becoming king based on his own merits and the will of the people, not because of some religious consecration, a point seemed necessary for the agnostic monarch governing a religious people.
The Archbishop of Nikosia , limited in his role by the young king declared “May the King live forever!”, which was repeated through the crowd of guests. After the Mass was finished, the Archbishop of Nikosia retired to the Sacristy, as he objected to presiding over or witnessing the civil oath that followed, due to its contents. With his hands on the Cinyroite Code, the book of law in the kingdom, Enríkos took the oath:
“I swear to reign in righteousness and in glory in the eyes of the law, to reign justly as King and sovereign till my final breath, should my life be short or long, and to govern in the sole interest, happiness and glory of the Cinyroite people.”
After the oath the newly appointed herald of arms, Basile de la Tonneilier proclaimed loudly: "The thrice glorious and thrice august King Enríkos II is crowned and enthroned. Long live the King!" During the people's acclamations Enríkos, surrounded by dignitaries, including two foreign monarchs, the King of Espana and Empress of the Dutch, left the cathedral while the choir sang —"God save our King Enríkos".
Retracing their earlier steps from the Cathedral of Saint Andreas, King Enríkos II and King Christaan rode gold painted horses back to the Sound and rode the battle ship that bears the King’s name to Apellaios, where King Enríkos II meet formally with all the dignitaries of the kingdom and with several foreign ones, with the nobles of Cinyras swearing their undying and eternal loyalty to the King.
King Enríkos II, with King Christaan at his side, meet with King Antonio and Queen Adela of Espana and the two monarchs after formal introductions hugged one another as friends, the later congratulating the former and then the two signed the Treaty of Apellaios, diplomatically mark the eternal friendship between Cinyras and Espana, as the two nations have been friends for decades and shall continue to be for eternity.
King Enríkos II and King Christaan then meet much more formally with Empress Anna Charlotte of the Dutch and her husband, Prince Consort Henrik, former King of Espana, and the two signed the second Treaty of Apellaios, marking equal status mutual diplomatic, economic and military alliance between the two nations, as well as a ceremonial gift giving, the Empress to the King gave the two moons of Aitov and the King to the Empress gave an heirloom sword.
The King then made appointments to his Parlément, appointing his husband to serve as Chief Minister, making him de facto head of government, and making other appointments, including making his sister Minister of Palatial Affairs, the Marquis of Panagou to Minister of Defense. He also made the position of Royal Mistress, held currently by the Duchesse de la Vasseurs to the council as an advisory position.
Finally, King Enríkos II and King Christaan were presented Prince Charles of Scots and Princess Theodosia, who swore their faith and loyalty to the King, Crown and Country. The King then presented them with the Enríkos Coronet, the unofficial crown of the heir apparent to the throne. Enríkos, announcing that Charles de Valois, as the only other living male with blood from both the House of Reev and House of Milanés, through his father and mother respectively, aside from the King, that he is next in line to the throne.
To further formalize this, Enríkos formally adopted Charles, christening him Crown Prince Károlos of Cinyras, and made his sister, Adeline, second-in-line to the throne, officially allowing women to ascend the throne in the event of no further male heirs. With Crown Prince Károlos now officially the King’s son, and the need of heirs to have both Reev and Milanés blood, concerns over the succession have been put to rest.
An official paining of the Coronation of Enríkos II has been commissioned and is to be released upon completion, estimated in three to four years. A Commemorative Medal has also been made, along with many commemorative plates, silverware, and other such commodities to be given out. The King also gave 5,000 astartes to all adult citizens in gift baskets to celebrate the day, made a national holiday for the rest of his reign.
Enríkos popular has hit an all time high in the hours following the grand and spectacular coronation. In the capital and across the kingdom huge portraits of him can now be seen at many buildings and it was notably not made mandatory has it had been for his father’s coronation for state offices to erect them in the weeks leading up to the celebration. Civil servants were asked to wear cerulean- the colour associated with the king. Many ordinary Cinyroite will also be wearing cerulean to show their loyalty to the monarch.