The most profound part of the coronation Saturday will be the anointing of Charles as the head of the Church of England and the intermediary between his subjects and God. This anointing with oil sanctified at Jerusalem is echoed in the Declaration of Independence that is the basis of America’s own legitimacy. It marks not only that all men are created equal but that they are endowed “by their creator” with rights that are hence inalienable. 

It’s amazing to us that the polls, as our Stephen MacLean reports, are hearing, particularly from young Britons, indications of indifference to this rite. It is inspiring, nonetheless, that when Britons actually voted on independence, as they did in June of 2016, they declared for independence by such a wide margin that even a Parliament riddled with Remainers felt duty bound to bow to the popular will. The Queen was no doubt greatly relieved.

It is, after all, thanks to Brexit that Charles will receive the crown of a sovereign Britain. Yet it is the anointing, not the crowning, that is “the most sacred part” of the coronation service, notes the website of Westminster Abbey, adding that a canopy will be held over Charles “to shield this part of the ceremony from the congregation.” As we have noted, the tradition of anointing goes back to England’s earliest kings and is grounded in the Torah.

In Exodus God instructs Moses to “anoint” Aaron and his sons “and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office.” The kings of Israel, too, were anointed, and Handel’s first Coronation Anthem — which will be heard tomorrow — limns the story of “Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet,” who anointed Solomon, after which “they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon.”

Anointing kings with oil came to illustrate “the sacredness of royal power,” historian Neville Figgis explained. This led to the idea, especially in continental monarchies, of a “Divine Right of Kings” to rule without restraint. In England, though, the link between sacred and profane power instead evolved to become “a theory of obligation,” historian Glenn Burgess writes, demonstrating “to both rulers and subjects their duties before God.”

The idea that the king serves under a higher authority — God — will be underscored when the Archbishop of Canterbury anoints Charles, in a moment that will not be televised, saying “Be thy head anointed with holy oil: as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed.” The Archbishop, too, will place the crown on Charles’ head, unlike Napoleon’s coronation, when he signaled his tyranny by seizing the crown from the Pope and placing it on his own tête.

By contrast, the rise of representative government in England led to the understanding that its kings and queens, while anointed with sacred authority, are “kept within legal bounds by the nature of the English constitution,” Mr. Burgess explains. That limit on state authority helped shape our Declaration of Independence, with its assurance that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

So it is that free governments are subordinated to God. Yet in Britain, this delicate balance of power was for a time thrown off kilter by the encroachment of the European Union, which sought to impose a new, supra-national — and purely secular — authority over much of British life. Throwing off that continental yoke in 2016 restored the independent United Kingdom of which Charles will on Saturday receive the crown. 

All the more perplexing, then, that many young Britons seem less than enthused about the coronation. Then again, it’s typical that people get more concerned about civil liberties and affairs of state as they grow older. We find it hard to imagine that today’s youth will be as blasé as all the recent polls suggest when Westminster Abbey again resounds to the strains of “Zadok the priest” and Charles’ grandson is anointed George VII.

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This editorial has been corrected for an error of syntax that made it into the bulldog.