King Charles III’s coronation will take place May 6, Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday.
The date also is the birthday of his grandson Archie, the son of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The new king, 73, will follow in the footsteps of his ancestors dating back more than 1,000 years when he is officially crowned and anointed at Westminster Abbey.
“The coronation will reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry,” the palace said in a statement.
The religious ceremony, to be conducted by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, is set to be less extravagant than the late Queen Elizabeth II’s three-hour coronation in 1953.
In addition to easing up on pomp and circumstance, the guest list for the event is reportedly being cut from 8,000 to 2,000.
Although Charles automatically ascended to the throne upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth, last month, he will officially take sacred vows to the country and the church when he is anointed with holy oil and receives the orb, scepter, and coronation ring at the ceremony.
His wife, Camilla, will also be crowned queen consort.
King Charles and his son William, Prince of Wales, are said to be mindful of the optics of an opulent ceremony as Britain faces a looming cost-of-living crisis.
“The idea of this very opulent coronation coming on the back of a winter of austerity, cost-of-living crisis, but also, I think, a sense that having thousands of foreign dignitaries flying in on airplanes that guzzle oil and petrol or whatever they guzzle to the coronation of the environment-loving monarch — all of those things could chime very awkwardly,” Anna Whitelock, a historian at City University London, told the BBC.
The official planning, known as Operation Golden Orb, will reportedly take these concerns into account.
King Charles is expected to sign a formal proclamation confirming the date at a meeting of his Privy Council later this year.
The day also will be the fourth birthday of the Sussexes’ son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor. Harry and Meghan have a younger daughter, Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor, too.
The couple famously split from the royal family in 2020, moved to the US and have been creating controversy since.