After the historic coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, it’s time for the party: thousands of neighborhood lunches are planned for Sunday in the United Kingdom as well as a large concert at Windsor Castle where some 20,000 people are expected.
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After several trying days, between rehearsals, receptions, garden parties and solemn coronation at Westminster Abbey, the 74 and 75-year-old royal couple will again organize a private reception at Windsor Castle (west London) on Sunday before attending at the concert, presented by actor Hugh Bonneville (Downtown Abbey).
Performances will include Lionel Richie and Katy Perry, pianist Lang Lang, opera singer Andrea Bocelli and a choir of more than 300 people from very diverse backgrounds. But no British headliners responded.
Actor Tom Cruise is also set to make a video appearance, and even Winnie the Pooh is announced, possibly following in the footsteps of the Paddington Bear, star of a video where he had tea with Queen Elizabeth II at the opening of the jubilee concert in June 2022.
On Monday, the royal couple did not plan any public appearances.
He delegated to other members of the royal family the “big lunches” and neighborhood parties planned in the country on Sunday.
Prince Edward and his wife Sophie will travel to Cranleigh in Surrey (south), Princess Anne and her husband Tim Laurence will be in Swindon, in the Cotswolds (west), and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, daughters of Prince Andrew who became family outcast, were announced in Windsor to lunch with charities.
Thousands of Britons are expected to attend these lunches, with many pennants and decorations in the colors of the British flag. But 72% of the population, little motivated by this coronation, do not intend to participate in any celebration, according to a YouGov poll published on Friday.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who had already read a Bible verse on Saturday at the coronation of Charles III, planned to invite volunteers, Ukrainian refugees and groups of young people to Downing Street for a post-coronation lunch. He hailed in a press release a “magnificent occasion, in the spirit of unity and hope for the future”.
Holiday Monday
On Monday, a public holiday granted especially for the coronation, the British were encouraged to take part in voluntary actions.
Saturday’s religious coronation in London of Charles III made for a historic day, with all the pomp associated with grand events in the monarchy.
Charles III, wearing heavy ancestral ceremonial robes, was acclaimed, sworn in, anointed and crowned at Westminster Abbey in front of 2,300 guests, in a millennial Anglican rite, modernized at the margins. It was the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the first dignitary of the Anglican religion, who placed on his head the heavy crown of Saint Edward, in solid gold and set with rubies.
The king’s second wife, Camilla, was also blessed and crowned.
Accompanied by a spectacular procession involving 4,000 soldiers, the crowned couple returned in a golden coach from the 18e century at Buckingham Palace, from where he greeted thousands of admirers who had braved the rain to see the procession and their appearance at the famous balcony.
Charles III, the oldest British king ever crowned, had waited 70 years for this moment, the length of the reign of his mother, Elizabeth II.
When she died last September, he became king of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth countries, and his coronation confirmed his role.
He is not as popular as Elizabeth II, and anti-monarchists demonstrated in London on Saturday on the route taken by the carriages. At least six were arrested and their “Not my King” signs seized by police.