London: King Charles became monarch of the United Kingdom and 14 other realms on the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth in September, but in May he will be crowned in a ceremony full of pomp, pageantry and solemn religious significance.
For the best part of a thousand years, the kings and queens of England and Britain have been crowned at London’s Westminster Abbey in a ceremony that has changed little throughout the centuries.
There have been 38 monarchs crowned at the Abbey – Edward V, one of two young princes believed to have been murdered in the Tower of London in the 15th Century, and Edward VIII, who abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, were not crowned.
The coronation is not essential and no other monarchy across the globe has an event in the same style.
“The form of the ceremony that we’ll see when Charles III is crowned is unique to this country and unique in its survival,” royal historian Alice Hunt said.
It is organised by the Earl Marshal, England’s most senior peer who is in charge of state occasions and which for centuries has been a position mainly held by The Duke of Norfolk and the Howard family.
Currently, it is the job of Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the current Duke of Norfolk who also arranged Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
