Queen Camilla will create history when she represents her husband at the ... trends now
When Queen Camilla arrives at Worcester Cathedral today for the royal ceremony of distributing gifts on Maundy Thursday, she will be both carrying out an ancient custom and doing it in a unique way.
For while the Maundy tradition can be traced back to medieval times, it is unheard of for a monarch to be represented by a spouse at this church service.
King Charles is unable to attend as he continues with his treatment for an unspecified form of cancer, but he has released a special video message ahead of the service urging the nation to extend the hand of friendship to those in need.
The Maundy ceremony was created hundreds of years ago as a way of commemorating Jesus’s example of service the night before he was crucified.
Last year was the first time that King Charles had distributed Maundy money as King. He gave the coins to 74 men and 74 women, matching his years, in York Minster, on April 6 to thank them for their outstanding Christian service and for making a difference to the lives of people in their local communities.
There are echoes of the Coronation in the Maundy Thursday service, with Handel's Zadok The Priest featuring in both
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby performs the Washing of The Feet ceremony during last year's Maundy Thursday service at Canterbury Cathedral
Bible accounts describe how Jesus gathered with his disciples for a Jewish Passover meal – the Last Supper – and showed great humility by washing their feet.
A medieval ritual developed with the king washing the feet of 12 old men – the same number as Jesus’ apostles, to denote that he was the servant of his people.
Later, it also became the custom for the monarch to give the poor alms on Maundy Thursday, while Henry IV decreed that the number of coins given should reflect the monarch’s own age.
Some took the ceremony very seriously. Mary I is recorded as washing the feet of 41 women in 1556, the year of her 41st birthday. She also gave them 41 pence each plus other gifts of food and clothes.
Later monarchs declined to attend when there was plague or got officials to wash the stinking feet of poor peasants.
By the end of the 17th century, the Lord High Almoner was set out instead to do it.
And so it fell into abeyance as a royal event.
It was not until 1931 that a King got personally involved again, after Princess Marie Louise (a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria) suggested to her cousin, George V, that he might do so.
Marie Louise, daughter of Princess Helena, had already been a great devotee of the ceremony,
