Prince Charles is now king, succeeding Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and the nation’s figurehead for seven decades, who died on Thursday aged 96.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that Charles to be known as King Charles II would be officially proclaimed King at St James’s Palace in London in front of a ceremonial body known as the Accession Council.
After a fanfare of trumpeters, a public proclamation will be made declaring Charles as the new King. This will be made from a balcony above Friary Court in St James’s Palace, by an official known as the Garter King of Arms.
He will call: “God save the King”, and for the first time since 1952, when the national anthem is played the words will be “God Save the King”.
Gun salutes will be fired in Hyde Park, the Tower of London and from naval ships, and the proclamation announcing Charles as the King will be read in in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.
The symbolic high point of the accession will be the coronation, when Charles is formally crowned. Because of the preparation needed, the coronation is not likely to happen very soon after Charles’s accession.
Queen Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in February 1952, but was not crowned until June 1953.
It is a moment that the United Kingdom has been bracing for, with an elaborate plan for “Operation London Bridge” mapping out what happens next. But it comes as a shock all the same.
The royal family said in a statement: “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.”
The queen planned for her succession for some time — and Charles increasingly took on more royal duties as her health worsened.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was about to end her briefing Thursday when reporters informed her of the queen’s death.
“Okay. All right. Well, so that’s been confirmed?” a visibly shocked Jean-Pierre said as reporters read her the notification. “As I said earlier, you know, our hearts and our thoughts go to the family members of the queen, to the people of the United Kingdom.”
Jean-Pierre said she did not want to “get ahead of what the president is going to say.”