When the accession of King Charles III was proclaimed throughout Cambridgeshire (including the City of Ely) on Sunday Sept 11th, it appears that an old tradition was forgotten.
In 1952, I was present as a schoolboy age 13 when newsreel cameras and journalists gathered to report the proclamation of Elizabeth II in the city of Ely, some days after the news was announced in all the other administrative centres of the kingdom. This was explained as an old custom dating back to an oversight when, at some point in the past, the Garter King of Arms forgot to send a proclamation of a new king’s accession to the old palatine county of the Isle of Ely, and the mistake was only rectified several days later.
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