Charles III waited decades before he became king on Thursday, at the age of 73, to succeed his mother, Elizabeth II.
Buckingham Palace announced on Friday that Charles III would be officially proclaimed king on Saturday morning during a succession council meeting.
It is expected that the succession council, which consists of eminent personalities, will meet in the morning at St James’s Palace in London and announce that Charles has become king.
The announcement will be read from the balcony of St. James’s Palace and then carried by private guards in horse-drawn carriages to read it in “Trafalgar Square”, and then in the prestigious “Royal Exchange” building.
After that, Parliament declares its allegiance to the King and expresses its condolences to him, and then the new King receives the Prime Minister and Ministers in the followingnoon.
As for the process of coronation of the king in Britain, it goes through several steps, and “the coronation ceremony, which is an occasion for celebration, is a solemn religious event,” according to the official royal website “Royal”.
The site notes that this occasion has remained unchanged for nearly a thousand years, and is held in Westminster Abbey in London.
The coronation of the king or queen takes place a few months following his or her inauguration, following a period of mourning, and sufficient time to complete the necessary preparations for organizing the ceremony.
The coronation ceremonies are attended by representatives of the Houses of Parliament, the Church and the State. Prime Ministers, senior citizens of the Commonwealth and representatives of other countries also attend.
During the ceremony, the king takes the coronation oath, and the form and wording have varied over the centuries.
The King undertakes to rule according to law, to exercise justice in mercy (…) and to preserve the Church of England.
After the oath is taken, the archbishop is “blessed” by the archbishop, following which the king sits on the “King Edward” chair (made 1300, used by every king since 1626).
The ceremony continues with the new king receiving an orb and sceptres, the archbishop placing the crown of St. Edward on the king’s head, and following the “efficiency of allegiance” (Allegiance) is over, the ceremony is celebrated.
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, where Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will be held, has also been of prime importance in Britain for nearly a thousand years.
In the 1940s, King Edward the Confessor built a stone church on the site of a Benedictine monastery founded around 960, in a major expansion of the site.
The construction of the present-day imposing Gothic church began on the orders of King Henry III in 1245. It was designed for the coronation and burial ceremonies of kings.
coronation ceremony
William I was the first king to be crowned in the church in 1066, and the tradition has continued through the centuries.
In 1953, Princess Elizabeth was crowned and sat on the coronation chair to become Queen Elizabeth II, and the coronation ceremony itself will be held for Charles, her eldest son.
The Coronation Chair was made in 1300-1301. The chair houses the ‘stone of stillness’, which has been used for centuries at the coronation ceremonies of Scotland’s kings.
The stone was temporarily stolen in a daring operation by Scottish students in the 1950s who accidentally broke it in two.
In 1996, with nationalist sentiment on the rise, the stone was symbolically returned to Scotland, but from Edinburgh Castle it would return to Westminster for the coronation ceremony.
And the church hosted the coronation ceremonies of 38 kings.
wedding ceremony
The church also witnessed wedding ceremonies for members of the royal family, most of them since the First World War. The first of these was the wedding of King Henry I to Princess Matilda of Scotland on November 11, 1100.
Queen Elizabeth’s parents, Prince Albert, who later became King George VI, and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, married in church in 1923.
The wedding ceremony of Queen Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten took place in the chapel in 1947, bringing some joy in the post-World War II years.
The Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, and the Queen’s two children, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew, married in Westminster.
The last royal wedding in the chapel was the wedding of Charles’ eldest son, Prince William, to Kate Middleton in 2011.
And 14 years before that, that is, in 1997, William attended the funeral of his mother, Diana, in the same church, following her death in a traffic accident in Paris.
funeral ceremonies
It is believed that 18 of Britain’s kings are buried in the church cemetery out of 30 kings and queens, the first of them being Edward the Confessor and the last of them being King George II in 1760.
The tombs also contain the remains of 3,300 people, including a number of the most prominent figures in British history.
These include Charles Dickens, Jeffrey Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Purcell, William Wilberforce, Laurence Olivier, Thomas Hard, and eight prime ministers.
The ashes of the great astrophysicist Stephen Hawking were also buried in 2018 between the graves of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.
Other great figures in the church commemorate them, such as Jane Austen, Benjamin Britten, Noel Coward, Francis Drake, Edgar Elgar, Martin Luther King and Oscar Wilde.
It also has a tombstone for wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill inside the church’s western entrance.
The tombstone was erected near the cemetery of the Unknown Soldier, whose body was brought from mainland Europe following World War I. The grave symbolizes all the British soldiers who fell in battle.
property belonging to the throne
The church, whose full name is “St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Westminster”, is “an estate belonging to the throne”, which means that it is not subject to any ecclesiastical authority except that of the king or queen.
The British monarch is the supreme head of the Church of England.
In normal times, the church can accommodate regarding 2,200 people, knowing that most of them will not be able to watch the funeral ceremonies because of the screen that will separate the nave from the choir.
Members of the royal family will be seated closest to the coffin.
About 8,250 people gathered for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, following dedicated stands were set up.
The church in central London played an important role in the late queen’s life. In addition to her marriage, her mother’s burial ceremony and celebrations were held on historical occasions during her reign, which lasted for a record period.
During masses and prayers in the church, the Queen and her husband Prince Philip were seated in chairs made of birch wood specially made by the “Canada Club” in memory of Canadians who fell in World War II.
The Queen left her mark in the church.
Her record-breaking period is immortalized in a chapel glass window painting unveiled in September 2018. Designed by David Hockney, the painting symbolizes the Yorkshire countryside in spring.
The Queen inaugurated the “Diamond Jubilee Exhibitions of the Queen” in June 2018. The exhibitions are located 16 meters above the church grounds and contain treasures that tell the history of the church.
The church is open to the public and liturgies and prayers are held normally.
Source: free