Prince William takes ‘active role’ in planning King Charles’s coronation
The Prince of Wales is to take an “active role” in planning the coronation of his father King Charles, The Telegraph understands - as an expert report recommended that "archaic", "feudal" and "imperial" elements be dropped from the ceremony.
The Prince, who is likely to also have a place in the May 6 ceremony itself, is expected to join those on the King’s coronation committee in the coming months to help set the tone for the event.
Plans for “Operation Golden Orb” have been in the draft stages of years, with a committee made up of members of the clergy and historians.
But while the Duke of Edinburgh took a keen interest in the 1953 coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth II, the new Queen Consort is understood to not be taking the same role.
Instead, the King’s eldest son will have an active advisory position, taking a keen interest in the ceremony and how it reflects modern Britain.
He and the Princess of Wales are likely - but not confirmed - to have a role in the Westminster Abbey event, with discussions currently under way about how it can be modernised and shortened from the spectacular celebrations for the late Queen.
There is less clarity over the King’s younger son, the Duke of Sussex, who is no longer a working member of the Royal family.
Buckingham Palace has not yet announced the make-up of the new coronation committee.
It has confirmed the date and venue of the King’s ceremony and specified that the Queen Consort will be crowned alongside him.
Those reported to be involved in preliminary planning over the last eight years include the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Dorking, and Sir David Cannadine, the historian.
Plans will be informed by an assembly of constitutional experts, including University College London’s Constitution Unit - which has produced a new paper making recommendations for the coronation.
Due to be published in the next week but seen by The Telegraph, it will recommend considering a separate civil ceremony at Westminster Hall or in Horse Guards Parade as a “venture of ‘recognition’ of the new monarch outside the religious canopy”.
With both Brexit and the Scottish independence referendum adding to “pressures on the monarchy to be a symbol of national unity”, it finds, the coronation should better reflect the Union as well as reducing any previous Imperial associations - to acknowledge that Britain is no longer a "truly international power".
Suggesting it could be “royal wedding-sized” - with closer to 2,000 guests that the 8,000 attending Queen Elizabeth II’s - the report recommends that the traditional form of homage to the sovereign by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal should be dropped entirely as “a hangover from the feudal constitution”.
Dr Bob Harris, of The Constitution Unit at UCL, writes: “The UK no longer has the capacity to mount anything like this spectacle, nor should it do so in straitened times.
“The next coronation will inevitably be smaller.
“Archaic elements such as the Court of Claims could be dropped.
“So should the homage, and thought be given to how the King as head of the nation should be enabled early in the reign to signify support for, and encouragement of, modern civil society.
"A modernised form of homage could take place, for example, in Westminster Hall, or in a procession on Horse Guards Parade.”
Detailing the drastically increased pressures on security in the 2023 coronation compared with those in 1953, the author warns that those planning for public safety must “manoeuvre in a more fractious world where post-imperial genies have emerged from old imperial bottles in the shapes of ethnic nationalism and state-sponsored and non-state terrorism".
The involvement of the Prince of Wales in planning the May coronation will be welcomed by royalists as a sign of continuity between the generations and the closer working relationship between the King and his heir.
The Prince will, at age of 40, naturally represent the concerns of his own generation, with an eye to modernising the monarchy for the sake of its future.
Royal sources have previously insisted that, until the late Queen’s death, the King’s inevitable future coronation had “deliberately been kept quite unplanned to ensure it can best reflect the climate at the time at which it happens”.
In February, after the late Queen specified her wish that her daughter-in-law Camilla would one day be known as “Queen Consort”, palace sources said it would be “rude” to talk about any details of her future coronation.
A spokesman for Buckingham Palace has previously said: "The coronation will reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in long-standing traditions and pageantry."
