King Charles III’s Coronation

On Saturday it was the coronation of King Charles III. Millions around the world will be watching the ceremony taking place at Westminster Abbey. Charles was be the 40th monarch crowned at the Abbey since 1066.

The coronation ceremony simply put is the crowning ceremony, where the St Edward’s crown will be bestowed upon Charles’s head. The crown was designed and made for King Charles II in 1661. It is made of solid gold, contains more than 444 precious stones and weighs over 2kg. The ceremony itself is more of religious importance than constitutional, with an oath to God and to the public pledge.

As millions watche the ceremony, would you like to know some interesting coronation facts? Did you know, for example, that there were monarchs that didn’t have even a coronation?

Coronation Facts

Let’s go all the way back to the beginning. Although coronations have taken place at Westminster Abbey since 1066, the first one didn’t even take place in London; it took place in the city of Bath and was the coronation of King Edgar in 975AD.

Since then,  we have had 3 monarchs that didn’t have a coronation. The first was King Edward V who,  shortly after he was named King,  was locked away in the Tower of London and eventually murdered, presumably by his uncle King Richard III. The second was Lady Jane Grey who inherited the throne from her cousin Edward VI (the son of Henry VIII).  After 9 days she was executed by Edward’s older sister Mary for high treason.  Lastly, the 3rd monarch was Edward VIII who abdicated before his coronation.

And another little fact is Queen Victoria’s coronation was referred to as a ‘botched coronation’ as so many things went wrong, including an elderly peer falling down the stairs and a bishop announcing the ceremony was over when that was not the case.

Whether or not you decided to watch the coronation we hope you had a good bank holiday weekend!

You can read more about the coronation on the BBC

Interesting in reading about history, read about our War Poets Collections

Source of photo Benjamin Elliot