King Charles III’s Coronation: Everything You Need to Know

The coronation is a religious event which celebrates the start of King Charles III’s reign. Historically, it is where a new king or queen was presented as the embodiment of the monarchy and the nation, and this ancient rite of passage has occurred in roughly the same format for 1,000 years.

The ceremony is not, however, the moment that Charles becomes king. That happened automatically upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Despite this, historians regard the coronation as a “foundation stone of the British state” because of its social and political purpose. “It is no empty pageant,” writes Roy Strong, the art historian who wrote the definitive book on British coronations.