ENGLAND, October 15, 2022–With news from Buckingham Palace confirming that King Charles III will be coronated on May 6, 2023, the royals also added another history-making detail: Camilla, currently the queen consort, will also be crowned during the ceremony, which makes her the first queen consort to have the honor in nearly 100 years. People shared a statement from the palace, which clarified that Camila will be “crowned alongside” King Charles III.
“The ceremony will see His Majesty King Charles III crowned alongside the queen consort,” the palace said in a statement released on Tuesday.
While the ceremony will take place in Westminster Abbey, as it has for nearly a century, Buckingham Palace noted that the ceremony is expected to be modernized, though it will still be overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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“The coronation will reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry,” courtiers told People.
The last time a queen consort was crowned was back in 1937, following the coronation of King George VI. According to the Royal Collection Trust, during that ceremony, King George’s wife, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, was invested the new queen consort and received a bespoke crown with 2,800 diamonds. When Queen Elizabeth had her coronation 16 years later, Prince Philip was not crowned.
“The husband of a reigning queen, unlike a queen consort, is not crowned or anointed at the coronation ceremony,” the palace stated. “In 1953, the Duke of Edinburgh was, however, the first peer to ‘do homage’ or pay his respects to the queen, immediately after the archbishops and bishops.”
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Once all is said and done, Charles will be decked out in nearly $4 billion (!!) of coronation regalia. Yes, billion, with a B. “How could one man possibly wear that much jewelry?” you might ask. But the collection is comprised of the St. Edwards Crown, Sovereign’s Ring, Imperial State Crown, Sovereign’s Sceptre with dove, Sovereign’s Sceptre with the cross, Sovereign’s Orb, Gold Ampulla, the Spurs, and the Sword of Offering, all littered with gem stones like diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and pearls.
In fact, the St. Edwards Crown hasn’t been worn in 200 years, because of its sheer weight (clocking in at 4.9 pounds). Even more impressive is the Sovereign’s Scepter with Cross, which holds the world’s most expensive diamond, the Cullinan, believed to be approximately 530 carats and estimated to be worth $430 million.
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According to experts at U.K. jeweler Steven Stone, the grand total is estimated to be a whopping $3.8 billion. “The Crown Jewels contain some of the most precious and famous jewels in the world — including the Coronation Regalia,” the company’s leading expert Maxwell Stone told Crisscut Magazine. “Comprised of the sacred objects used during the coronation ceremony, we can expect to see the Coronation Regalia in the near future, during King Charle’s III’s coronation ceremony.”
He added, “Laced with history, it’s incredibly difficult to value the Coronation Regalia. Each piece is extraordinary — from the Sovereign’s Scepter with Cross, which contains the $430 million (£400 million) Cullinan diamond to the Sovereign’s Ring, which features an octagonal sapphire, overlaid with four rectangular-cut and one square-cut ruby that form a cross.”
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Source: InStyle contributed to the article.
