All three of the Prince of Wales’s children are expected to take part in the King’s coronation procession at Westminster Abbey, The Times can reveal.
Plans show that Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are all set to join their grandfather and the Queen as they leave the abbey at the end of the ceremony on May 6.
The procession back to Buckingham Palace is likely to be about a third of the size it was for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.
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George, nine, as second in line to the throne, has long been expected to attend the coronation. There has also been speculation that he will have a role to play.
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But it has not been known until now whether Charlotte would be there, let alone Louis, who turns five on April 23. Charlotte’s eighth birthday is four days before the coronation.
When Elizabeth was crowned in 1953 Prince Charles, then four, attended only part of the three-hour service, sitting between the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. He did not take part in any of the processions.
George and Charlotte both took part in the late Queen’s funeral, joining other members of the royal family for the procession into the abbey. Afterwards they were driven to Wellington Arch to see the coffin transferred from the gun carriage to the royal hearse for the journey to Windsor.
They were the youngest members of the royal family ever to join a funeral procession. Louis, however, was considered too young.
This time, however, all three siblings are expected to be on public display, according to coronation rehearsal plans. Although the children’s presence has not been confirmed by Kensington Palace, documents show that after processing out of the abbey, they are expected to join their parents in a carriage behind the King and Queen, who will be in the Gold State Coach.
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The children of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, have not yet been invited to the coronation, The Times understands.
The rehearsal plans show that, as expected, neither Harry and Meghan nor the Duke of York will take part in the procession, which is confined to working members of the royal family. Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie will not be in the procession either.
Apart from the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, the only other royals in the procession out of the abbey will be the Princess Royal and her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the new Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and the Duke of Kent and his sister Princess Alexandra.
The rehearsal plans show where the regalia will be carried in the procession into the abbey, including the St Edward’s Crown, the orb, the sceptre with cross, St Edward’s Staff and the Swords of Mercy, Spiritual Justice and Temporal Justice. It has not yet been revealed who will carry them.
While Buckingham Palace has been emphatic that the carriage procession afterwards will be “amazing in both scale and splendour”, it will be significantly smaller — and cover a shorter route — than the procession after Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.
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Hugo Vickers, whose book Coronation: The Crowning of Elizabeth II, has just been updated, said: “The King asked for it to be more modest. This is a greatly pared-down procession.”
The 1953 procession took a five-mile route from the abbey back to Buckingham Palace that included Regent Street, Oxford Street and Park Lane. Itself stretching over two and a half miles, the procession was formed of 12,000 military personnel and took 45 minutes to pass each spot.
The King’s coronation procession will take a shorter, but as yet undisclosed, route back to the palace. One source familiar with the make-up of the procession estimated that it would involve about 4,000 military personnel.
The Sovereign’s Escort is expected to be “found” — the traditional military term — by the Life Guards, the most senior regiment of the British Army.
The Gold State Coach, which was built in 1762 and has been used in every coronation since 1821, will be flanked by representatives from the armed forces of the King’s other realms, which now number 14 outside the UK after the departure of Barbados.
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The number of troops from around the Commonwealth will be far fewer than in 1953. The presence of all those overseas troops contributed significantly to the scale and magnificence of the occasion — it has been described as Britain’s “last imperial hurrah” — but also to the expense.
This year there will just be representative detachments of realm and Commonwealth forces, flanked by the national flags of the 56 member nations of the Commonwealth. There will also be a detachment from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In 1953 there were ten Commonwealth prime ministers in open-top carriages, but this year there are no plans for foreign leaders to take part in the procession. Just three carriages bearing members of the royal family will follow the Sovereign’s Escort.
Ten bands are expected to take part in the procession, rather than the 24 that were there in 1953.
Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace both declined to comment.
