Prince George has been given an official role at the 6 May coronation – a Page of Honour to the King.
King Charles III and the Queen Consort each have four Pages of Honour supporting them on the day of the coronation, including schoolboys who are family friends or close relatives.
George, the nine-year-old future monarch, is the most prominent among them. Camilla’s three grandsons will also join George in the role.
The King’s pages are: his grandson George; Nicholas Barclay, 13, grandson of Sarah Troughton, one of the Queen’s Companions; Lord Oliver Cholmondeley, 13, son of the Marquess of Cholmondeley, also known as filmmaker David Rocksavage, and a friend of the Prince of Wales; and Ralph Tollemache, 12.
The Queen Consort will also have two Ladies in Attendance – her sister Annabel Elliot and her trusted friend the Marchioness of Lansdowne – whose roles will be to support her through elements of the service.
It comes after it was reported that the Prince and Princess of Wales were debating whether George should be included in the congregation at Westminster Abbey.
The Telegraph reports that his siblings Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four, are expected to attend the ceremony as spectators and won’t have an official role to play.
Meanwhile, the decision to include Camilla’s grandchildren in the procession is seen as an unprecedented move considering that her grandchildren are from the Parker-Bowles side of her family. Reports suggest that the decision was made to reflect the reality of a modern blended family.
Her son Tom Parker Bowles has two children aged 15 and 13 and her daughter Laura Lopes has a 15-year-old daughter and twins aged 13.
The last time Britain held a coronation ceremony was 70 years ago when the Queen was crowned on 2 June 1953 at the age of 27.
Prior to that, her father King George VI’s coronation ceremony took place 16 years earlier in 1937, when Queen Elizabeth II was just 11 years old.
Buckingham Palace has evealed that the King’s coronation will be a “slimmed-down affair”. At the event, there are expected to be 2,000 guests in attendance, a stark contrast to the 8,000 guests present at the Queen’s coronation in 1953.
Read everything you need to know about King Charles’ coronation here.
