King Charles’s coronation will be pared down and more diverse

The ceremony is set to be radically different from the Queen’s – and it won’t last three hours.

Charles and Camilla at the funeral of the Queen on Monday. Picture: AFP

The coronation of King Charles will be half the length of his mother’s and feature more young people, more women and more members of ethnic minorities, ­according to royal sources.

The ceremony will be pared down from the lavish event when the Queen was crowned before a congregation of more than 8000 at Westminster Abbey in June 1953. The service alone lasted about three hours and was followed by a procession involving 40,000 troops, described recently as Britain’s “last imperial hurrah”.

Instead, the King’s coronation is likely to last only 90 minutes and be radically different. Both the King and the government will be conscious of the need to avoid too extravagant a ceremony at a time of economic hardship.

One source said: “The shape of the coronation will be very much designed with the mood of the public in mind. The King is very much aware that it will take place following a very difficult winter for everybody. The spiritual side of it will be very prominent. The King’s faith is very important to him. There will be less pomp and more of a spiritual accent.”

Another said that it was possible Charles could be considering a “radical restructuring of the idea of what a modern coronation looks like”.

The arrangements will be led by the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, who was in charge of all the ceremony surrounding the Queen’s funeral. But another figure intimately trusted by Charles might be in charge of the main decisions in the same way that the Duke of Edinburgh chaired the Queen’s coronation committee.

Government representatives will also take part as the state will foot the bill.

The coronation is widely expected to take place next spring or summer. One date that has been suggested is June 2, which will be the 70th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation. The shape of the coronation will be heavily influenced by a committee set up about eight years ago by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

While the 1953 coronation was overwhelmingly white, male and middle-aged, if not elderly, Charles’s should have more young people, the committee said. Female bishops are also likely to play a role, including Bishop of London Sarah Mullally.

Different faiths will be represented, in the same way that they have for some years played a part in the annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey.

The source said: “It will be an Anglican service. But as the King says, Britain is a community of communities. He will be thinking very carefully about how to reflect those different faith communities within the abbey, if not within the service itself. It is about representation, about looking at that audience and feeling that Britain can see itself in the pews of the abbey.”

There will also be a political element. One source said: “There will be a need to think about the realms, and the opportunity for international diplomacy that a coronation affords you.”

There had been speculation that the coronation would include a civil ceremony of acclamation in Westminster Hall.

Bob Morris, author of the Constitution Unit paper, said: “My present hypothesis is that it will be more like a royal wedding. Not loads and loads of people: there were 8250 people (in the abbey) in 1953, and that’s ridiculous.

“First of all you can clear out most of the peers, and the 90 that are left (hereditary peers who in the Lords) can ballot like anybody else.”

The Times