King Charles III to be officially crowned on May 6, 2023 | Instagram VTM NEWS

Buckingham Palace has announced that King Charles III’s coronation will take place on Saturday, May 6, 2023, at London’s Westminster Abbey. The Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct the ceremony. That’s tradition: the ceremony has been held at Westminster Abbey for over 900 years.

With the announcement, Buckingham Palace debunks previous rumors about the coronation. For example, the ceremony was thought to take place on June 2 or 3, 2023, seventy years after Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. But that turns out not to be true.

It is striking that this coronation takes place much faster than that of his deceased mother. Queen Elizabeth was crowned only after about sixteen months, Charles after about eight months. There is also a reason why it takes so long for the new monarch to be crowned. After the death of the previous monarch, a period of national and royal mourning is proclaimed. Moreover, it takes time to put together the ceremony. The fact that this takes less time than with its predecessors is undoubtedly due to Charles’s wish to make it all a bit smaller.

When Elizabeth was crowned in June 1953, she was given a lavish ceremony with great pomp and ceremony. The coronation service then served as a much-needed morale boost for the grieving, starving post-war people. The cost of the entire event was estimated at more than £1.57 million, according to the Daily Mail. Which is now worth about 45 million pounds (51.5 million euros). But Charles has been campaigning for a slimmed-down monarchy for some time. Moreover, he is very aware of the financial struggle the British are currently waging. An expensive ceremony would now feel inappropriate.

On Tuesday it was announced that ‘Operation Golden Orb’, as the preparations for Charles’ coronation are called, will be the first step towards that ‘sleek monarchy’ that Charles has in mind. For example, the guest list for the ceremony will be shortened from 8,000 to 2,000 guests and discussions have also been held about a more flexible dress code. Old and time-consuming rituals (including offering gold bars to the monarch) will be abolished to save time. Although some traditional aspects remain unchanged, such as the anointing and the oath of the monarch.

See also: King Charles back to work after mourning period

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