Anointed with holy oil and enthroned in the chair of St. Edward, King Charles III was crowned Saturday in a solemn ritual that dates back more than a millennium but unfolded with multiple concessions to modern times.
The coronation, the first since Queen Elizabeth II’s in 1953, was a regal spectacle of the kind only Britain still performs: four hours of pageantry that began with the click of horses’ hooves in Pall Mall and ended with the steamy traces of acrobatic jets flew over Buckingham Palace, while Charles watched from the balcony with Queen Camilla, who had been crowned shortly after him.
Yet this was a coronation for a radically different country than when Elizabeth first wore the crown. Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh leaders greeted Charles as he left Westminster Abbey, and there were several attempts – not always successful – to make a medieval ritual more inclusive and democratic.
Church of England female bishops participated in the liturgy; hymns were sung in Welsh, Scottish and Irish Gaelic; and when Charles, 74, took a sacred oath to defend the Protestant faith, he also offered a private prayer, pledging to be a pluralistic monarch for a diverse society.
“I do not come to be served, but to serve,” said Charles, moving gingerly in a velvet and gold lace robe first worn by his grandfather, George VI. “Grant that I may be a blessing to all your children of every creed and creed.”
At the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, who presided over the service, the congregation sang, ‘God save King Charles’, their voices echoing in the vaulted nave of the abbey.
The audience of 2,200 included heads of state, including President Emmanuel Macron of France; entertainment characters such as the singer Lionel Richie; and the First Lady of the United States, Jill Biden, but not President Biden, who posted his congratulations to Charles on Twitter of the White House.
Outside, thousands of spectators lined the streets under a steady drizzle. There was little of the excitement that has electrified crowds after royal weddings or the grief that engulfed mourners at the Queen’s funeral in September. But there was a collective sense of history in the making, and even a tingle or two as the newly crowned King and Queen rode past in their golden stagecoach.
History had already been made, of course: Charles ascended the throne after the death of the queen. But the coronation sanctifies the rule of a monarch and aims to bind the sovereign to the people through a national celebration.
If Elizabeth’s coronation was one of the world’s first mass media events, the black and white images broadcast worldwide by the BBC were the first coronation of the digital age, shared by spectators on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook.
“I’m just intrigued,” said Zoë Boyce, 24, as she waited on a blanket in a park with a friend, Sarah Chappell, 23. Ms Boyce insisted she was “not a big fan” of the monarchy, but said: “I think you can appreciate it without endorsing it.”
“It’s just one day in history, isn’t it?” Ms. Chappell added.
There were conflicting comments. Hours before the service began, police arrested the head of Britain’s most prominent republican movement, Graham Smith, and others planning to protest in Trafalgar Square, along the processional route.
Mr Smith said last week that the anti-monarchists would chant and wave signs saying ‘Not my king’ but would not interfere with proceedings. But the police, armed with a much-disputed new law that allows them to crack down on demonstrations, arrested Mr. Smith and others long before Charles showed up.
As word of the arrests spread, other protesters gathered restlessly outside the cordoned off area around Trafalgar Square.
“I think it’s disgusting,” said Charlie Willis, 20. “Having a giant party over a crown on your head while people are dying of hunger and poverty. I mean would you?
A misstep in the days leading up to the ceremony was the archbishop’s plan to summon millions of people across the United Kingdom and its realms to pay homage to the king, a change he viewed as a democratizing move because that ritual was traditionally reserved for the aristocracy.
But after a backlash, Archbishop Welby softened the wording. “I now invite those who wish to offer their support to do so, with a moment of personal reflection, by saying, ‘God save King Charles,'” he said hesitantly.
For many, however, the coronation was an excuse to cheer, wave Union Jacks and partake in the quintessentially English experience of getting wet together. “Congratulations on braving the weather,” said a voice from a loudspeaker near Buckingham Palace. “May the moisture in our clothes not dampen our spirits.”
“It’s quite festive, and the scene is very stoic from the British,” said Rupert Birch, 56, an entrepreneur, who took shelter from the downpour under one of the sycamore trees along Hyde Park.
Sarah Briscoe, 44, who works in the financial services industry, called King ahead of his time on environmental sustainability. But she acknowledged the burden he had in succeeding Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-serving monarch who became a respected figure and an anchor for the country.
“His mother was so brilliant,” said Mrs. Briscoe. “It’s impossible for him to live up to her, isn’t it?”
The royal family’s uneasy dynamic was on display during the ceremony. Prince Harry, the King’s estranged youngest son, arrived alone with a bunch of cousins. Harry’s wife, Meghan, stayed home in Montecito, California, with the couple’s children, Lilibet and Archie, who celebrated his fourth birthday on Saturday.
Harry sat in the third row, between his cousin’s husband, Princess Eugenie, and Princess Alexandra, an 86-year-old cousin of the Queen who is 56th in line to the throne. He did not appear in line on the balcony of the palace, according to British newspapers on their way to California in the mid-afternoon.
In contrast, Harry’s brother, Prince William, his wife, Catherine, and their children played prominent roles. Prince George, 9, their eldest son, held the royal robes as one of the pages. Their 8-year-old daughter, Princess Charlotte, captivated onlookers in an ivory silk crepe dress by designer Alexander McQueen – a miniature version of the one her mother wore.
For Camilla, 75, now elevated from queen consort to queen, the coronation marked the end of a decades-long rehabilitation project that began with her marriage to Charles in 2005, following the messy dissolution of his marriage to Princess Diana.
Among other prominent women was Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, who stood stock-still and carried the jewel-encrusted Sword of State during one of the longest stretches of the service.
She last made headlines in July 2022 for unsuccessfully challenging Rishi Sunak for Conservative Party leadership. Mr. Sunak, Britain’s first Hindu Prime Minister, played his own part by reading the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians.
While most members of the royal family rode in carriages or cars during the grand procession back to the palace, Princess Anne, the king’s younger sister, rode on horseback. She was an accomplished horseman and had the status of Gold Stick-in-Waiting, an honorary bodyguard to the Sovereign.
Even in a country accustomed to regal spectacle, that parade was beyond description: 19 military bands and 4,000 troops, stretching a full mile from the palace gates past the mall and around the corner to Whitehall.
After saluting the troops in the garden behind the palace, Charles and his family appeared on the balcony to watch the aerial flight, which was limited by the low cloud. Instead of the originally planned 60 planes, a fleet of helicopters and aerobatic Red Arrow jets roar overhead.
The continued focus of the day, however, was on Charles. Gloomy during the two-hour ceremony, he looked like a man feeling the weight of the crown — in his case, an Imperial Crown encrusted with 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and 269 pearls. Only when he later appeared on the balcony did he smile.
In the most intimate moment of the ceremony, Charles was anointed with holy oil, harvested from the Mount of Olives, and consecrated in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The archbishop performed the ritual behind a screen – symbolizing the privacy of what is meant to be an almost divine encounter between the sovereign and God.
Like other elements of the ceremony, the anointing dates back to the coronation of King Edgar in AD 973 in the Roman city of Bath. That it survived unchanged into the 21st century has intrigued historians.
“How can a rite relevant to feudal England have any validity in modern times?” wrote the historian Roy Strong in his book “Coronation: A History of the British Monarchy.” “But it didn’t just survive as an antiquarian anomaly,” he said. “Indeed, it flourished.”
Still, the ancient – some would say anachronistic – nature of the ceremony posed a challenge to organizers, including the king, who has spoken of his determination to make the monarchy more forward-looking, relevant and inclusive.
As part of his oath, Charles swore to uphold the Church of England, reaffirmed his Protestant faith and promised that all future monarchs would be Protestants. Attempting to place those words in a modern context, Archbishop Welby said the church strived to “promote an environment where people of all religions and beliefs can live freely.”
Later, in his sermon, the Archbishop praised Charles’s dedication to charity and his lifelong service to the people of his country. “We are here to crown a king,” he said, “and we crown a king to serve.”
Megan Special, Emma Bubola And Saskia Solomon reporting contributed.