“The two Canadian Clubs of Ottawa are to be congratulated upon the coronation dinner which they have arranged,” Sir Robert’s message read. “It is an occasion most worthy of this commemoration. In its nine centuries of development, the evolution of the British system of governance has been slow, sometimes painful and often difficult. But it has stood the test of tremendous strain and fierce tempest.”

“In that evolution an un exampled tradition has been developed. The tyrant of the early centuries has become the servant of his people in the highest and noblest sense. Norman Sovereigns and their successors exercised far-reaching feudal powers and prerogatives in the dominance of their subjects. The political genius of the British people has transformed these powers and prerogatives into the firm assurance of the people's liberties. They are now exercised, not for the King's pleasure but for the people's welfare.”

Borden was just getting warmed up and continued.

“Such is the King's compact with his people at the coronation. And yet there rests in the Sovereign an undefined but very real authority which in dangerous. or troublous times does exercise a wholesome and sobering Influence. For, as titular Head of the State, the King is of no party. It is thus that the British people have gained and kept the faith of ordered liberty, even-handed justice and democratic ideal. We, in this Dominion, have inherited that faith; and, in common with the other nations of the Commonwealth, we are bound to maintain it. For this there rests upon each of us an individual responsibility.”

“The most commanding statesman of the nineteenth century gave for his people and for the world the memorable and enduring pledge that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Throughout the Empire and in our great sister-republic that pledge will be fulfilled; for these peoples are not of a quality to be enthralled by dictatorship.

‘We must be free or die,

who speak the tongue,

That Shakespeare spake,

the faith and morals hold

Which Milton held.’

The solemn and stately ceremonial of the coronation is now invested with a truer and higher significance than in the days of the feudal tradition from which it is derived. Each Sovereign is the living symbol of the Empire's unity and majesty of which the Crown is the perpetual symbol. Throughout its vast borders, the Empire's nations and dependencies pledge firm allegiance to our King, confident that, following in the footsteps of his revered and beloved father, he will constantly strive for his people's welfare and for world peace. For him and for our gracious Queen go forth our prayers that they may be blessed with a long and happy reign."

Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.