Coronation of King Charles III Explained

hi this is Matt Baker on May the 6th a world will witness something that has not happened in almost 70 years this means that unless you're in your 70s this is going to be something that you'll be seeing for the very first time I'm of course referring to the coronation of King Charles III some elements of this ceremony are more than one thousand years old so unless you're a time traveler or an expert on Royal history you're probably going to have some questions on what exactly is happening and why so in this video I'm going to explain to you everything you need to know such as the order of the service who's attending what this old chair is and why you'll be seeing two crowns instead of just one so let's start with who's attending and what their various roles will be obviously King Charles will be the center of attention but unlike the coronation of his late mother this time there will be two people a king and a Queen instead of only a queen to explain why let me introduce the terms Monarch and consort the Monarch is the person who sits on the throne and the consort is his or her spouse when the Monarch is a female she is called a queen but her spouse is not called a king this is because the rank of King is generally understood to be higher than that of a queen so in Queen Elizabeth's case her husband was known as Prince Philip in order to indicate that she was the higher ranking person however when the Monarch is a male he is called a king and his spouse is called a queen so basically there are two types of Queens Queen Elizabeth was a queen regnant meaning that she was the Monarch whereas Queen Camilla is a queen consort meaning that she is simply the spouse of a monarch so note that when Charles dies Camilla if she's still living doesn't get to take over her husband's job at that point she would become the queen mother or more accurately the queen stepmother and William Prince of Wales would become the new king with his wife Catherine becoming the new Queen now in order to illustrate one last term involving Queens let's imagine a scenario in which William dies tragically in this case his eldest child George would become the new king however if George was still under the age of 18 he'd be appointed a temporary Regent this person could be someone like Prince Harry but it also could be his mother Catherine in which case she'd be called the queen regent note that Regent and regnant are two different words even though they sound quite similar now before I move on and tell you about the royal family tree and which members will be attending the coronation let me first tell you about how you can build your own family tree thanks to today's sponsor myheritage all you need to do is enter your parents and grandparents names and myheritage will do the rest using their database of over 19 billion records as well as the trees made by other users my Heritage will automatically give you Discovery links that will allow you to grow your tree really fast using this method I was able to grow my tree from just seven people to over a hundred in just one session and even if you don't know your parents and grandparents they can provide you with a DNA test to get you started once you've built your tree you can print it using all sorts of great designs and you can even animate the photos of your ancestors to see what they were like to start your 14 day free trial just click the link in the description or pinned comment and as a useful charts viewer enjoy fifty percent off a premium membership if you decide to continue okay so at the coronation we're going to have a king and a queen also in attendance will be the king's two sons William the Prince of Wales and Harry the Duke of Sussex William's entire family will be there but Harry's will not often forgotten are William and Harry's step-siblings the children of Queen Camilla Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopez they and their families will also be there the king's disgraced younger brother Andrew the Duke of York will be there but he will not be participating in any sort of official capacity and Andrew's former wife Sarah better known as Fergie will not be there however her two daughters Beatrice and Eugenie will attend also attending will be the king's youngest brother Edward the new Duke of Edinburgh and his family as well as the king's only sister Princess Anne and her family now although the royal family is quite large only a few of these people are considered to be working Royals and it's only the working Royals that will take part in the official procession this includes the king and queen The Prince and Princess of Wales the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and Anne the Princess Royal however there are a few other working Royals from further out on the family tree that you might not be as familiar with these three are all first cousins of the late Queen Elizabeth they include Prince Richard and his wife the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester Prince Edward the Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra the lady Ogilvy in the United Kingdom there is not only a royal family there is also a nobility below the king and queen are Dukes then marquis's Earls which are the equivalent of counts VI counts and Barons all of these people are known as peers each rank has a certain style of Coronet which is basically a kind of mini Crown in the past a coronation was often the only time that you would actually see all of the nobles wearing their coronets for example look at this photo from the late Queen's coronation you can see that she is not the only one wearing a crown all of those other people with crowns are the various Dukes Earls Etc however at Charles III's coronation your not likely to see any coronets first of all Charles wants his coronation to be a little less fancy so he's requested that peers wear regular clothes instead of robes and coronets second he's only invited 20 peers and instead has invited lots of representatives from various Charities that the royal family supports another set of individuals I should mention are the great officers of State these are positions that go way back to Medieval Times and today are mostly ceremonial however they play an important role at coronations so let's have a look the highest ranking person is the Lord High Steward nowadays this office is normally vacant however it is temporarily filled for coronations because it is the Lord Stewart who holds the crown before it is placed on the head of the Monarch the person who filled this role during the late Queen's coronation was the Viscount Andrew Brown Cunningham who served as an admiral in the British Navy during World War II second comes the Lord chancellor who is usually a high-ranking Cabinet member currently that person is the conservative MP Dominic Robb then rather strangely comes the Lord High Treasurer which nowadays is always the prime minister so currently it is Rishi I say strangely because the Prime Minister ordinarily outranks the Lord Chancellor however in terms of the great officers of State the Lord Chancellor actually outranks the Prime Minister next is the Lord president of the council a position now always given to the leader of the House of Commons currently conservative MP Penny mordont then there's the Lord privet seal that position is now always given to the leader of the House of Lords currently Lord Nicholas true then in sixth position is the Lord great Chamberlain currently Lord Rupert Carrington this position is hereditary but rotates between three noble families traditionally the Lord great Chamberlain plays an important role at coronations as the person who helps dress the Monarch and serve him or her water finishing off the list is the Lord High Constable the Earl Marshall and the Lord High Admiral here the only position that is currently filled is that of the Earl Marshall also a hereditary position it always belongs to the Duke of Norfolk who is the highest ranking non-royal Duke in the English peerage currently the Duke of Norfolk is Edward fitzallen Howard he'll actually be the most important person at the coronation other than King Charles because it is the Duke of Norfolk who is in charge of planning and overseeing the entire event also playing a key role will be the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church he's the one who will preside over most of the service and is the one who will place the crown on the king's head assisting him will be the dean in charge of Westminster Abbey Dr David Hoyle okay besides the royal family peers government officials and religious leaders there will also be several foreign heads of state in attendance among others these will include the emperor and Empress of Japan the king and queen of Spain the king and queen of the Netherlands president macron of France and president Frank Walter steinmeier of Germany the president of the United States Joe Biden will not attend however the first lady Jill Biden will be there representing the U.S in total there will be about 2 000 guests which is quite a bit less than the 8 000 that attended the late Queen's coronation back in 1953. the 2000 guests for the latest coordination have already received one of these so if you haven't gotten one yet you can safely assume that you're not on the list okay let's now look at the order of service the king and queen will first of all proceed from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey using the route shown on screen they will travel in the Diamond Jubilee State coach which was built in 2012 to celebrate the late Queen's 60th year on the throne now the reason why Westminster Abbey is used for coronations is that it was built by Saint Edward the Confessor the last king of England from its original Royal House the house of Wessex he built it to serve as his Royal burial place and his tomb remains there to this very day in 1066 shortly after Edward the confessor's death William the Conqueror defeated Harold godmunson at the famous Battle of Hastings and became the new king of England he decided to be crowned at Westminster Abbey where Edward the Confessor was buried in order to create a sense of continuity between himself and the earlier Anglo-Saxon kings ever since then just about every monarch of England and later Great Britain and the UK has been crowned at Westminster Abbey the only exceptions are Lady Jane gray who only reigned for nine days Edward V who was one of the princes in the tower who disappeared and Edward VII who abdicated after less than a year once at Westminster Abbey the actual coronation service will begin whereas the late Queen's coronation took about three hours King Charles III will be quite a bit shorter probably around one hour the ceremony itself will have six main parts the first part is the recognition if if follows the format used at the last coronation the king will be presented to all those present four times one for each of the points of the compass after each presentation the people will shout long live the king so I here present unto you Queen Elizabeth your undoubted queen wherefore all you who are come this day to do your home agent service are you willing to do the same the second part is the oath here the king will be asked to swear on a Bible and take a note that will probably go something like this do you solemnly promise and swear to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of all your other Realms and territories to any of them belonging or pertaining according to their respective laws and customs to which the king will presumably say I solemnly promise to so do then because he is not only the king but also the head of the Church of England he will also be asked to swear an oath related to his role in this religious capacity the exact wording of this oath will be interesting because Charles has said that he wants his coronation to be more ecumenical and to include a show of respect towards those of other religions so we're not quite sure what the exact words will be we do know that there will likely be several other religious leaders present one confirmed attendee being Rabbi Ephraim Mervis who holds the title Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew congregations of the Commonwealth the third part of the service is the anointing and anointing is a pouring or smearing of a special oil on someone and is a practice that goes back to ancient times it may have originated with the Egyptians but we know for sure that it was practiced by the ancient Israelites and then later by the early Christians the earliest record we have of a priest anointing a king is the biblical story of zadok the priest anointing King Solomon this is why when King Charles is about to be anointed you will hear a piece of music called zadak the priest written by George Friedrich Handel if you're a soccer fan you'll probably recognize it because the official anthem of the UEFA Champions League is based on it now at this point I have to tell you a bit about this chair because that's where Charles will sit when he is Anointed it's called either Saint Edward's chair after Edward the Confessor or King Edward's chair after King Edward the first who built it in any case this chair is 727 years old and has the Knicks and graffiti to prove it although most of the graffiti comes from the 1800s when for some reason it wasn't guarded very well and a bunch of schoolboys and tourists carved their names into it but the most interesting thing about King Edward's chair is that it was built so that a very special stone could be placed directly under the seat the Stone of schoon Legend has it that this is the exact same stone that Jacob used as a pillow when he had a dream about a ladder going up to heaven and or that it was the stone of Destiny used in ancient times by the Irish to Crown their High Kings in reality it actually matches a type of sandstone found near schoon in Scotland where it was used for many years during the coronations of Scottish King Edward the first who claimed dominion over Scotland stole the stone and built the coronation chair to house it it was then used to coordinate English monarchs until the point at which the line of Scottish monarchs merged with the line of English monarchs anyway so that now it is once again used to anoint the person who Reigns over Scotland during the anointing a canopy is placed over the chair so that the actual anointing is done in private during this part the Monarch usually wears very simple plain white clothes in order to symbolize their humility the oil that will be used was made in Israel and was consecrated in Jerusalem by the Greek Orthodox patriarch Theophilus III as well as by the Palestinian Anglican Archbishop hosam naum it will be poured from this container called an ampulla which in this case is shaped like an eagle so that the oil comes out of its beak the fourth part of the ceremony is the most exciting it's called the investiture and this is when the crown is actually placed on Charles III's head now I should make one thing clear Charles III is already the king he became king the moment his mother passed away so the crowning doesn't actually make him the king it's really just a symbolic gesture and this is the crown that will be placed on his head Saint Edward's Crown again named after Edward the Confessor it doesn't go all the way back to Saint Edward though the original Saint Edwards Crown was destroyed during the English Civil War so this one dates only to 1661 which was when the monarchy was restored it was used by Charles II James II and William III but then other crowns were used up until George V decided to use it again and it's been the coronation crown ever since however take note that it's not actually the UK's best Crown it's estimated to be worth a mere 60 million dollars whereas this one the Imperial State Crown is worth a whopping 5 billion the more fancy one which also happens to be much lighter will be worn by Charles at the end of the ceremony but the crown is not the only thing that Charles will be given during this part of the ceremony he will also be given these two scepters the one with the cross which houses the largest clear-cut diamond in the world the cullinan one represents his authority over the state whereas the one with the dove represents his authority over the church he will also be given this golden orb which represents the idea that his power on Earth is given to him by God you'll also get this ring these two bracelets known as the bracelets of sincerity and wisdom these spurs and this sword known as The Sword of Mercy because it has a dull Point moving along part 5 will be the enthronement now note that King Edward's chair is not a throne that's why it's called King Edward's chair and not King Edward's Throne the throne will actually be a different chair and it will be placed on a raised platform because that's what a throne is by definition it's an elevated chair so that's why we say that a person ascends to the throne in other words they go up to it so at this point King Charles will literally Ascend to the throne finally while sitting on the throne the last part of the ceremony will occur the homage in previous ceremonies this is when each peer would individually come up and bow down to the new monarch but Charles is going to do away with this part well mostly the plan is for his son William who is the prince of Wales as well as the first person in the line of succession to pay homage on behalf of everyone you'll also see the second person in the line of succession throughout the service as well that's William's eldest son Prince George who will be serving as one of the page boys along with three of Camilla's grandsons and four other boys now that takes care of the main parts of the coronation but there's still one more bonus part to the ceremony which like I said was not seen last time in fact except for a few people in their 90s no one alive today has ever seen this part because it hasn't happened and since 1937 that's the coronation of the queen consort so yeah Camilla will be getting a crown two now earlier there was some concern about this because last time a queen consort was crowned it was with this Crown which includes a very controversial diamond on the front known as The kohanor Diamond over the years it has belonged to the Mughal Emperors of India as well as the Persian conqueror nadir Shah the Afghan Emir Ahmad durrani and the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh So currently there's a dispute between the UK India Pakistan and Afghanistan over who should own it fortunately Camilla avoided the controversy by deciding to wear this Crown instead the crown of Queen Elizabeth's grandmother Queen Mary it too used to contain the kohanor but will now instead include three of the other cullinan diamonds okay once Charles and Camilla have both been crowned there will be another procession back to Buckingham Palace this one will retrace the same route that was used earlier but will be much more spectacular around 6 000 military personnel will be involved although again this is less than during the late Queens coronation she had around 16 000 and on the return Journey the king and queen will ride in a different coach at this point they will use the gold State coach it's over 250 years old weighs four tons and costs about 4 million dollars in today's money to build rumor has it that it's extremely uncomfortable to ride in though so it will proceed very slowly one of the last highlights of the day will be the Royal Family's appearance on the Buckingham Palace balcony at this point you will once again only see the 11 working members of the royal family that I mentioned ear earlier as well as Princess Anne's husband the three whales children and the two Edinburgh children so 17 in total now before I go let me remind you of One Last Detail this will not be the first coronation that King Charles has attended he was actually present at his mother's coronation when he was only four years old he seemed a bit bored that time so here's hoping that he'll enjoy this one just a little bit more thanks for watching [Music] thank you foreign

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Views: 558,232

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Length: 23min 47sec (1427 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023