King Charles III will mark his coronation—the first held in Britain in seven decades—on May 6, 2023, in a religious service steeped in over a thousand years of history.
The date for the coronation is significant for a number of reasons. It comes before the royals’ busiest month of June and means that the new king will be crowned before he takes his first Trooping the Colour as sovereign, with a parade that marks his first official birthday.
May 6 is significant for another more personal reason to the house of Windsor. It also marks the birthday of King Charles’ youngest grandson, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor who will turn four next year.
This may provide Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with a reason not to attend the king’s coronation after a period of strained relations with the royal family which has been compounded by complaints lodged in their hit Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan which aired in December.
In the series, the couple—in particular, Harry—made a number of revelations relating to his relationship with his family both before and after he and Meghan moved with their young family to the U.S. and stepped down from their working roles within the monarchy.
In a fraught meeting about the Sussexes’ future roles in January 2020, the prince told viewers that his brother Prince William had screamed and shouted at him and that his father, the now king, had told lies while Queen Elizabeth II sat watching on.
Harry and Meghan reunited with the royals in September 2022 to mourn the queen’s death, being photographed with William, Kate Middleton and Charles for the first time since moving to the U.S. Whether the same royal reunion will take place for the coronation in May remains to be seen.
If reports that the king will extend his youngest son and daughter-in-law invitations to the biggest ceremonial day of his life materialize, then it throws up a series of unique hurdles for the prince, not least the prospect of not being able to properly celebrate his son’s birthday, but also that he could be asked to swear public allegiance to his father as part of the ceremony.
When he married Meghan in 2018, his grandmother the queen granted Harry the royal dukedom of Sussex. In the hierarchical system of British society, royal dukes stand above all other titles of nobility, including regular dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and lords.
A royal dukedom is bestowed by the monarch on a member of their family and is hereditary, meaning it is passed down from the barer to their heirs. Traditionally, royal dukes have played a senior role in the coronations of monarch’s leading members of the aristocracy in the swearing of an oath.
When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, there were three royal dukes who took part in the coronation ceremony; the Duke of Edinburgh (her husband Prince Philip), the Duke of Gloucester (her uncle) and the Duke of Kent (cousin).
