What is a coronation? Facts about the ceremony to crown King Charles
The year might well be 2023, but on May 6 there will be a window to the past as the coronation of Britain's King Charles III takes place at Westminster Abbey in London.
The ceremony dates back 1,000 years and while there are likely to be some new touches, Charles will be presented with historic regalia and crowned in the same chair as monarchs of the past like King Henry VIII.
"So a coronation is an event revolving around a monarch... the United Kingdom's ceremony is one of the only coronations left of its kind,'' senior lecturer in British politics at the University of Edinburgh Harshen Kumarasingham told Reuters.
''It's not a constitutional event, but more one where there's more symbolism, culture, religion and so on."
As soon as his mother Queen Elizabeth II died last year after more than 70 years on the throne, Charles became king of the United Kingdom and 14 other realms.
However, he is yet to be formally crowned, which is in the part where the coronation comes in.
''At the coronation...Charles will be formally... presented to the people in Westminster Abbey... and there he will formally be crowned,'' Kumarasingham explained.
''That is the... central part of the ceremony itself. And the person who does that will be the Archbishop of Canterbury, the chief religious figure of the Anglican Church, the established church in the United Kingdom.''
Royal historian at the University of Southampton Alice Hunt described coronation ceremonies as "a moment that would really legitimise that monarch in a kind of public way".
"It has also always retained at its heart... a moment of transformation. Although the monarch is the monarch from the moment the predecessor has died, the language of the coronation ceremony from since it was locked down in the 14th century has still articulated that the king or queen somehow changes during that ceremony," she said.
"It's very easy with a religious ceremony to let the words kind of wash over you. But listen to what is being said about what is happening at that moment of anointing. That's really unique and quite powerful, and has a long, long history," she added of the language used during the ceremony.
While full details of King Charles' coronation are yet to be revealed, Hunt says coronations not only shine a light on the past ''but they look to the future at the same time ....(showing) how this reign and this monarch will be interpreted''
''If they've got it right. If it's interpreted right. Then that can be very, very successful,'' she said.
Reuters
