The only Australian to play an official role in the coronation of King Charles III lives in the small Victorian town of Wangaratta – but most in the town have never heard of him.
Simon Abney-Hastings, the 15th Earl of Loudon, is one of 13 people appointed to play a ceremonial role at the 6 May ceremony.
In a statement provided to some media outlets, his private secretary, Terence Guthridge, said Abney-Hastings was “delighted” to have been invited to be the bearer of the great golden spurs, a part of the ceremony dating back to the coronation of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), in 1189.
The mayor of the Rural City of Wangaratta, Dean Rees, learned of Abney-Hastings only recently, from media reports. Journalists from Melbourne have been scouting around the town trying to catch a glimpse of the royal, and his face was on the front page of the local independent newspaper, the Wangaratta Chronicle, on Friday.
“We certainly did not know that we had an earl – what is he, the 15th Earl of Loudon?” Rees told Guardian Australia. “He keeps a very low profile.”
Wangaratta is not the easiest town in which to keep a low profile: it has just under 30,000 residents and only three supermarkets. Shoppers trying to navigate the grocery aisles at Woolworths on Saturday morning have to dodge around clusters of people who have stopped for a chat.
The north-east Victorian town had one of the highest growth rates in the state in 2021, due in part to mass regional migration during Melbourne’s extended Covid lockdowns. In the past decade it has undergone a rebranding from an industrial town, powered by employers such as Bruck Textiles, which collapsed in 2014, to a gateway to the Milawa and King Valley wine and food regions.
Rees said Abney-Hastings clearly valued his privacy “and we have got to respect his wishes”.
“He is a resident of Wangaratta and we are very proud to have him,” he said. “I hope he doesn’t have too many issues from the media as to his privacy.”
Abney-Hastings’ desire for privacy does not extend to Facebook, where he regularly updates his 991 followers about the Melbourne Highland Games and Celtic Festival, of of which he is a patron.
He also posted that he was “delighted and sincerely honoured to accept the invitation by the Crown to perform the Bearer of the Great Golden Spurs”.
The gold spurs feature a Tudor rose and a red velvet covered strap, and symbolise knighthood. The set currently in circulation was made in 1661 for Charles II. They were traditionally fastened to the sovereign’s feet but are now just held up to their ankles, then placed on the altar.
The 48-year-old is a direct descendent of George Plantagenet, the brother of Edward IV and Richard III, through his grandmother, Barbara Huddleston Abney-Hastings. Some historians have claimed that Edward was illegitimate and that George, as the eldest legitimate son, should have inherited. In 2004, a Channel 4 documentary entitled Britain’s Real Monarch asserted that Michael Abney-Hastings, the current earl’s father, was, as George Plantagenet’s eldest heir, the rightful king of England.
In a statement to Nine Newspapers, Guthridge acknowledged the claim, saying that “as a direct descendant of George Plantagenet, Simon Abney-Hastings has a right to inherit the throne of England”. But he added that the earl was a loyal supporter of the late Queen and her eldest son and had no intention of asserting himself.
“Indeed, they exchange birthday or Christmas cards each year,” the statement said.
But a claim to the English throne is not enough to make him one of Wangaratta’s most famous residents. That honour, says Rees, is a three-way tie between Nick Cave, who was expelled from Wangaratta high school at the age of 13 and later described it as a “horrible town” that inspired his bleak artistic vision; the Olympic cyclist Dean Woods, who won gold in the team pursuit at Los Angeles in 1984 and whose name and achievements adorn signs welcoming visitors to the town; and the current Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews.
Rex Hartwick, a two-time Wimbledon doubles champion who retired to a property on the outskirts of town, and the bushranger Ned Kelly, who did not even live in Wangaratta but hid out in the Warby Ranges and was arrested in the nearby village of Glenrowan, also rank before Abney-Hastings in a list of Wangaratta royalty.
A ceremonial role in the coronation is not likely to bump him up the list, Rees said.
“He might get some photos over there with the king that might make it into the paper, and it will all slow down from there,” he said.
