The Lord President of the Council reveals how she prepared to carry the Sword of State for the King’s Coronation.
Penny Mordaunt has said she took a couple of painkillers to help her get through her role of carrying ceremonial swords during the King’s Coronation.
The Tory minister won praise for her stamina, carrying the 17th Century Sword of State and Jewelled Sword of Offering for more than an hour.
Working on the coronation has been a “huge privilege,” Ms Mordaunt said.
She told Nick Robinson’s Political Thinking podcast she enjoyed becoming a hit on social media after the ceremony.
“I was reunited with my phone and found I had become a meme,” she said.
She said she saw photoshopped images on social media of the sword replaced by a kebab the laurel motif on her dress likened to Poundland’s corporate branding.
“I say well done to the Great British public.”
Watch: Penny Mordaunt carries sword ahead of King Charles
Asked if she had been in training, she said: “I was not in the gym for six months prior to this” but added: “You want to make sure you are in good nick.
“I did take a couple of painkillers before just to make sure I was going to be alright.”
Ms Mordaunt said her navy training in Portsmouth also helped her know how to keep her circulation going by “wriggling your toes”.
Anyone hoping to emulate her feat should “practice”, “have a good breakfast”, and “wear comfortable shoes”, she added.
She carried the 17th century Sword of State made for Charles II into Westminster Abbey, and exchanged it for the Jewelled Sword of Offering, which symbolises royal power and the monarch accepting his duty and knightly virtues.
She carried the Jewelled Sword of Offering, with hilt encrusted with diamonds, rubies and emeralds, for the rest of the service and walked with it in front of the King as he left the abbey.
They were two of four swords used in the ceremony, a practice which dates back to the coronation of Richard the Lionheart in 1189.
Notably, Ms Mordaunt becomes the first woman to carry and present the sword.
Leia-ding lady
The run up to the coronation was a “highly emotional time”, she said.
“It is nice to be recognised think I was a bit of a metaphor for everyone on the day – everyone did their bit, everyone did it really well.”
Ms Mordaunt’s dress also sparked numerous comments, with viewers comparing her to Princess Leia from Star Wars on social media.
“That’s not the look I was going for,” she said.
While her predecessors would have worn “formal dress, which is black,” Ms Mordaunt said she wanted to reflect the modern tone of the coronation “with historical references”.
Alongside her role as Leader of the House, Ms Mordaunt is also Lord President of the Privy Council. The role normally requires chairing meetings of the Privy Council, a group of the UK’s most senior politicians charged with presenting business to the King.
“I thought I’m going to buy a modern dress” and then embroider it with the fern motif of the privy council “as a nod to the past”.
In September, then-Prime Minister Liz Truss gave Ms Mordaunt, her one-time rival for the party leadership, the job of Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council.
