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LONDON — The guests at the coronation of King Charles III will include fewer world leaders and a younger generation of royalty compared with the fall funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, but Britain’s first coronation in 70 years is still expected to draw large crowds and require a substantial security operation.
More than 2,200 people, including foreign delegations from 203 countries and about 100 heads of state, have confirmed their attendance for the May 6 coronation service at Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace said Monday.
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About 20 royal families will be represented, according to a British government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been released publicly. Some of them, including the Danish and Norwegian royals, are sending crown princes and princesses rather than their sovereigns.
Buckingham Palace mailed invitations — featuring a heraldic design on heavy card stock — to guests on a list compiled in coordination with British civil servants. The decision-making process was shrouded in secrecy.
The government official said organizers did not extend invitations to leaders from some countries with which Britain has strained or suspended diplomatic relations. The official put that number “in the single digits” and said it includes Russia, Belarus and Iran. From North Korea, only someone at the ambassador level was invited. Despite protests from some British lawmakers, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwasaid he would accept his invitation.
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The government official noted that Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will not attend, although another Saudi prince will. MBS, as he is known, remains a pariah in much of the West and has not visited Britain since a CIA report concluded he had ordered the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Among the invited leaders sending surrogates in their place for the coronation is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is campaigning ahead of a May 14 election. Erdogan skipped the queen’s funeral after a debate over security arrangements.
This time, organizers are not busing world leaders to Westminster Abbey, the government official said. Everyone will have their own car.
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Security remains a big concern, the official said, although not to the degree it was for the funeral — in part because President Biden won’t be making a return trip.
The White House announced earlier that Biden would miss the event; no U.S. president has ever attended a British coronation. Instead, first lady Jill Biden will lead a U.S. delegation that includes special climate envoy John F. Kerry, who has worked closely with Charles on climate initiatives over the years.
The cost of security — borne by taxpayers — won’t be released until sometime after the coronation. Officials told The Washington Post that the bill could run to tens of millions of dollars.
Organizers have emphasized that, by design, this will be a smaller affair than Elizabeth’s coronation 70 years ago.
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The procession route has been abbreviated, which reduces the number of streets that need a heavy security presence.
And the guest list has been limited by the normal capacity of Westminster Abbey. There will be no special raised seating of the sort that made it possible for 8,000 guests to see the queen in 1953.
Dignitaries will be seated in blocs, according to protocol. In the front pews will be Charles’s family. Keen royal watchers will have their eyes on where Charles’s disgraced brother Prince Andrew and disgruntled son Prince Harry are placed. (Harry’s wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is staying in California with their children, Buckingham Palace said.)
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Also near the front will be royal families from around the world, including a contingent of Persian Gulf royals, Monaco’s Prince Albert and Princess Charlene, Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, and Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Crown Princess Victoria, according to the government official. Belgium’s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, and Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Queen Jetsun Pema will also attend, officials at each of their palaces said.
Qatar’s emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will also be among the guests, Qatari officials confirmed. There have long been close ties between the Qatari and British royal families, sometimes controversially so. Last year, British media reported that Charles had previously accepted a cash donation of $3.29 million from former Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, on behalf of his royal charity. Britain’s charity regulator found that the large donation — which sparked significant public interest despite no suggestion that it was illegally made — did not warrant an official investigation.
Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako — who both attended the queen’s funeral — will not make the trip this time, according to British media reports. Instead, Crown Prince Fumihito (who, like his parents, studied at the University of Oxford) will represent Japan, along with his wife, Crown Princess Kiko.
The absence of some of the older sovereigns who attended September’s funeral made sense, the government official suggested, because they had been Elizabeth’s personal friends. Norway’s King Harald, 86, was a second cousin of Elizabeth. Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II, 83, was a third cousin — related by way of both Queen Victoria and King Christian IX of Denmark.
There has also been a tradition of crowned monarchs and other heads of state not attending coronations, said Craig Prescott, a Bangor University academic who writes about the British monarchy. So, at Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, many foreign royal houses were represented by heirs, and other country leaders by ambassadors. Prescott said it was a “big change” that some foreign heads of state and government were attending themselves this time.
The British royals “continue to strike a chord internationally, and I never quite understand why,” Prescott said. “You can understand interest in Australia or Canada, but there is interest globally, outside of the Commonwealth.”
David Torrance, a constitutional specialist at the House of Commons, suggested the shift in who is attending may be explained in part by the growing importance of such state events in diplomatic life. Before, he said, “it was deemed inappropriate” for crowned heads of state to be present. But “state occasions are now treated as part of international diplomacy,” he said.
Indeed, on Friday ahead of the coronation, many of the visiting foreign leaders will meet with British government officials at Lancaster House to discuss climate change.
Torrance said Saturday’s ceremony will also be different from the last coronation in that the delegations representing Commonwealth countries will be far smaller. “Five hundred people came from Canada alone in 1953,” he said. “I think this time around, 500 is probably roughly the entire international presence.”
The guest list in 1953 reflected that Britain still had an empire at that point — it “was the last imperial coronation,” he said.
Seated behind the royal families will be delegations from realms where Charles is still head of state and from the broader association of Commonwealth countries. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will all be there. Other elected leaders will include French President Emmanuel Macron, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Polish President Andrzej Duda, their offices confirmed. A delegation of European Union officials will include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, their offices said.
British prime ministers, past and present, are also on the guest list. Rishi Sunak will deliver a Bible reading as part of the coronation service. His top ministers will be there, too — although British outlets reported that some were unhappy that there was no room for their spouses. Liz Truss and Tony Blair are among the former prime ministers who have confirmed their attendance. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has confirmed, as well.
Some staunch republicans will be among those in the pews. Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf and Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford are attending. Sinn Fein’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, will also be there — a sign of how Northern Ireland’s politics have evolved since the decades of intense sectarian conflict. Explaining her decision, O’Neill said she wanted to represent everyone as an elected leader — including unionists for whom the coronation is a momentous occasion.
The selected coronation crowd for the Westminster Abbey service will also include a diverse range of faith leaders, Nobel Prize winners and 850 people from community and charity organizations from across Britain.
Joanne Gates, a 31-year-old supermarket manager, was invited for her role serving her community by keeping the grocery store where she worked open during the covid-19 pandemic. “I don’t think I’ll grasp the reality of it until I’m in Westminster Abbey,” she said, describing the surreal moment when she received the invitation.
“Sitting at home and watching it on television would have been amazing enough,” she said. “I’ve got my nails, my eyelashes, my hair. I’ve got my shoes. But I haven’t been able to find a dress yet, so that’s my next couple of days’ worth of shopping.”
Annabelle Timsit and Karla Adam contributed to this report.
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