LONDON — Britain’s Charles III was crowned king on
Saturday, during an eighth-century ritual in a 21st-century metropolis with a
handful of concessions to the modern age but the unabashed pageantry of a fairy
tale, unseen since the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, his mother, in 1953.
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“I come not to be served, but to serve,” Charles said in his
first remarks of the ceremony, setting the theme for the intimate yet grand
proceedings. The king, 74, was anointed with holy oil, symbolizing the sacred
nature of his rule. He was vested with an imperial mantle, and the archbishop
of Canterbury placed the ancient crown of St. Edward onto his head.
After the service, Charles and his wife, the newly crowned
Queen Camilla, returned to Buckingham Palace in a golden stagecoach used by
Elizabeth for her coronation procession.
Tens of thousands of people crowded into central London,
despite the rain, for a glimpse of the king and his queen, Camilla, who
traveled from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in the Diamond Jubilee
State Coach, escorted by four divisions of the Household Mounted Cavalry
regiment.
Even in a country accustomed to royal spectacle, the
procession after the coronation on Saturday beggared description: 19 military
bands and 4,000 troops, stretching a mile from the palace gates. The king and
his family will watch from the balcony as more than 60 aircraft — fighter jets,
helicopters, and World War II-vintage Spitfires — roar overhead in a display
that is, by custom, the grand finale of a royal celebration.
Here is what to know about the coronation events:During the service, Charles swore to uphold the Church of
England, although the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby,
encouraged the king to “foster an environment in which people of all faiths and
beliefs can live freely.” It is one of several modifications to the liturgy, as
the church and Buckingham Palace have sought to adapt a 1,000-year-old service
to today’s ecumenical world.
The approximately 2,300 people attending the ceremony
included new faces, old lineages, world leaders, pop music icons, and others —
a coterie that spoke to Charles’ efforts to embrace a modern, multicultural
Britain, but also to the monarchy’s dynastic identity.
After years of family tensions, Prince Harry attended his
father’s coronation, alone. Harry’s wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, stayed
at home in California with the couple’s children, Prince Archie, who turns four
on Saturday, and one-year-old Princess Lilibet.
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