King Charles' coronation: William Shakespeare would love the Windsor family's dramas – Susan Morrison

My mother remembers the last coronation 70 years ago, chiefly because she was sent to a neighbour’s house to watch it on a newly acquired telly.

She was bored rigid. To rub salt into the wound, her pals were outside whizzing about on bikes and playing peevers. So, we haven’t had much practice in this coronation lark recently.

In the past, you generally didn’t have to wait too long before the incumbent either shuffled off the mortal coil or was offed by someone who thought they could do the job better. Poor little Lady Jane Grey didn’t even get as far as crowning, being queen for only nine short days.

James the Second and Seventh only managed just under four years before being run out of town like a dodgy card sharp, and Richard the Third less than three before he wound up under a car park in Leicester, which really shouldn’t happen to a king.

The Archbish of Canterbury must have kept a handy supply of consecrated oil in the cupboard ready for a quick anointing. It’s basically just very upmarket olive oil. It might have been blessed by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, but that wouldn’t have improved its shelf-life. Willing to bet a king or two got slathered in stinking gunk well past its best-before date. Might have finished a few kings off.

Now, I’m not suggesting that anything untoward will happen to the newest King Charles, but remember things didn’t go well for the first one. Who knows what royal plotting might occur? Shakespeare would have had a ball with this current crop.

He has his perfect villain, that spurned battle-hardened warrior brother sulking in the shadows, if by shadows you mean the glare of prime-time television chats with Oprah and a six-part Netflix documentary whilst he tells the world he just wants to be left in peace with his family, his title and his wife, that latest lady villain of the Royal Soap opera.

Old Bill Shakespeare would have rubbed his hands with glee. Why, Megan Markle could turn out to be the new Lady MacBeth.