Buckingham Palace revealed, on Sunday, some details related to the coronation ceremony of King Charles III of Britain on the sixth of next month.
The palace said Charles and his wife Camilla will travel to Westminster Abbey, where the ceremony will take place, in the latest royal carriage, the Diamond Jubilee carriage, which was designed to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the British throne and was first used in 2014.
The palace explained that the coronation of Charles will be in a ceremony dominated by pomp and greatness, amid traditions dating back a thousand years. The duration of the ceremony is scheduled to be shorter than the inauguration ceremony of his late mother, Elizabeth, 70 years ago.
The event will be somewhat different from the late Queen’s enthronement in 1953, notably in scale to align it in part with modern times and to reflect the current cost of living crisis.
After the ceremony, Charles and Camilla will return to Buckingham Palace in a procession that will be larger than their trip to the cathedral but about a third of the 7.2-kilometre route covered by Elizabeth, when millions packed the streets to watch.
On their return to Buckingham, Charles and Camilla will use the oldest royal carriage, the 260-year-old gilded royal carriage that has been used at every inauguration since the reign of King William IV in 1831 and was first used by George III to go to the official opening of Parliament in 1762 when it was still owned by the American colonies subject to Britain.
The cart is seven meters long, 3.6 meters high, and weighs four tons, and it needs eight horses to pull it.
“Because of this (the size of the chariot), it can only be used at a slow pace similar to the walking of individuals, which adds to the grandeur and majesty of this great royal procession,” said Sally Goodsir, curator of decorative arts in the Royal Collection of the British Family.
But the late Queen Elizabeth described in a 2018 documentary her journey from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in that carriage as “horrific” and said it was not very comfortable.