Millions across the country have been waiting in anticipation for plans to be unveiled for the Coronation of King Charles III.
The event will see the King honour centuries of tradition but it will also come with modernised twists such as a special emoji to mark the occasion. The Crown Jewels are understood to be playing a central role during the religious service that will take place at Westminster Abbey on May 6.
The procession will also feature hundreds of members of the Armed Forces from across the UK, Commonwealth and British Overseas Territories, as well as the Sovereign’s Bodyguard and Royal Watermen. His Majesty has also been on board with introducing a Twitter emoji which will be used alongside a series of hashtags across the bank holiday weekend.
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The ceremony, which will begin at 11am, will see treasures such as the Crown Jewels on display including the Sovereign’s Orb, the Golden Spurs, bracelets known as armills, two maces, five swords, the Sovereign’s Ring, the the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross and the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Dove, the Mirror reports.
Charles, 74, will be crowned with the 17th-century St Edward’s Crown, which has been resized for him, before switching to the the lighter Imperial State Crown at the end of the ceremony, as per custom.
Queen Consort Camilla, 75, will be crowned with the Queen Mary’s Crown and hold the Queen Consort’s Rod with Dove – despite controversy over the rod featuring ivory.
From Buckingham Palace, the royal couple will travel along The Mall, through Admiralty Arch, around Trafalgar Square, along Whitehall and through Parliament Square to arrive at Westminster Abbey.
When they reverse the route to return, they will break with tradition by only using the 260-year-old Gold State Coach. And they will travel a procession route that at 1.3 miles is just a quarter of that of the King’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Once at the Palace, the King and Queen Consort will receive a royal salute from the troops on parade, before stepping out on the balcony for an RAF flypast.
Meanwhile, organisers defended the use of Crown Jewels featuring ivory, despite the Prince of Wales’s campaign to stop illegal trafficking of animal parts under his United for Wildlife project.
Last August, Prince William hailed a “landmark” sentencing under which a man was jailed for five years for conspiring to traffic millions of dollars of rhinoceros horns and elephant ivory.
Britain is at the forefront of global conservation efforts after the Ivory Act 2018, in force from June 6 last year, imposed a near-total ban on dealing in items containing elephant ivory.
The ivory sceptre Camilla will hold is part of the Royal Collection, traditionally held at the Tower of London, which is managed by Historic Royal Palaces.
Buckingham Palace said: “As with any historical collection of its size, it is to be expected the Royal Collection includes items that contain ivory as this reflected the taste at the time.”
The Procession
The King’s coronation procession stretches to just 1.3 miles - around a quarter of the length of the late Queen’s five-mile celebratory journey.
A newly crowned Charles and Queen Consort will make their way back from Westminster Abbey via the tried and tested route of Parliament Square,
along Whitehall, around Trafalgar Square, through Admiralty Arch and down The Mall back to Buckingham Palace.
The procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, The Coronation Procession, will be much larger in scale, taking the same route in reverse.
The Coronation Procession will include Armed Forces from across the Commonwealth and the British Overseas Territories, and all Services of the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, alongside The Sovereign’s Bodyguard and Royal Watermen.
Crowns
King Charles will be crowned in the St Edward’s Crown and leave the Abbey wearing the Imperial State Crown.
The crown was made for King Charles II in 1661, as a replacement for the medieval crown which had been melted down in 1649.
Camilla to be crowned in Queen Mary’s crown which has been altered to include some of the late Queen’s jewels, such as the Cullinan III, IV and V diamonds which were part of Queen Elizabeth II’s personal jewellery collection for many years.
There was controversy surrounding the potential use of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, seized by the East India Company in 1849 and presented to Queen Victoria, and which featured in the late queen mother’s crown in 1937.
Before the announcement that it would not be used, India said “brings back painful memories of the colonial past”.
The Imperial State Crown, or Crown of State, is the crown the monarch exchanges for St Edward’s Crown at the end of the Coronation Service. The Imperial State Crown is also used on ceremonial occasions, such as the State Opening of Parliament, with the late Queen joking it was her “party hat”.
Anointing
The Chrism oil with which The King and The Queen Consort will be anointed, which was consecrated in The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in March, will be contained within the Ampulla, made from gold and cast in the form of an eagle with outspread wings.
The silver-gilt Coronation Spoon is the oldest object in use at Coronations, having been first recorded in 1349 among St Edward’s Regalia in Westminster Abbey, and is the only piece of Royal goldsmiths’ work to survive from the twelfth century.
It was used to anoint King James I in 1603, and at every subsequent Coronation.
In 1649, the Spoon was sold to the Yeoman of King Charles I’s Wardrobe, who returned it for King Charles II’s Coronation in 1661, when small seed pearls were added to the decoration of the handle.
Regalia
The priceless array of coronation regalia from the Crown Jewels which will be used during the religious service in the Abbey has also been confirmed.
It will include the Sovereign’s Orb, the Golden Spurs, bracelets known as Armills, two maces, five symbolic swords, the Sovereign’s Ring, the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross and the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Dove.
The Sovereign’s Orb was made from gold in the 17th century, a representation of the Sovereign’s power and symbolising the Christian world, and is divided into three sections with bands of jewels, for each of the three continents known in medieval period.
Regalia includes Two Maces, made of silver gilt over oak, date between 1660
and 1695 and are the ceremonial emblems of authority, the golden St Edward’s Staff, The Sword of State and three further swords dating back to the 1600s.
The Sword of Temporal Justice, signifying the Monarch’s role as Head of the Armed Forces, the Sword of Spiritual Justice, signifying the Monarch as Defender of the Faith, and the Sword of Mercy or Curtana, which has a blunted tip, symbolising the Sovereign’s mercy. The swords were first used at the Coronation of King Charles I in 1626.
The Sovereign’s Ring is composed of a sapphire with a ruby cross set in diamonds.
A symbol of kingly dignity, the ring was made for the Coronation of King William IV in 1831, and all Sovereigns from King Edward VII onwards have used it at their Coronations.
Charles will also wear Spurs which were made in 1661 for King Charles II, but the use of spurs at Coronations dates back to King Richard I, the Lionheart, and his Coronation in 1189.
The Queen Consort will use an ivory sceptre during the King’s coronation following speculation it might be dropped from the ceremony.
The Queen Consort’s Ring, a ruby in a gold setting, was made for the Coronation of King William IV and Queen Adelaide in 1831, and has been used by three further Queens Consort; Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
Carriages
Charles and Camilla will travel from Buckingham Palace in The King’s Procession to Westminster Abbey in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach created for Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Her late Majesty’s reign in 2012.
They will return in the 260 year old Gold State coach, used at every Coronation since that of William IV in 1831.
The coach will be drawn by eight Windsor Greys and, due to its weight of four tonnes, will travel at walking pace.
The late Queen Elizabeth II described it as “horrible” and “not very comfortable”, while William IV - dubbed “the sailor King” - crowned in 1830, said it was like a “ship tossing in a rough sea”.
Emoji
Buckingham Palace has revealed an official emoji to celebrate the coronation.
The colourful cartoon motif depicts the 17th century jewelled solid gold St Edward’s Crown with purple velvet cap - the regalia which will be used to crown the King on May 6.
It will be used on an array of hashtags on social media for the Coronation weekend.
The Palace said the image marking the weekend of coronation festivities will appear on Twitter from April 10 when the hashtags #Coronation, #CoronationConcert, #CoronationWeekend and #CoronationBigLunch are used.
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