KING Charles’s coronation service has been discretely tweaked so that Prince Andrew will not have to play a key role.
The ceremony, which will be held on May 6, would previously have seen “Homages of Royal Blood”. This would have seen dukes of the royal line, such as Andrew, Prince Harry and William, kneel before the monarch in turn and each vow to be his “liege man”.
But as part of changes to the coronation ceremony, the royal blood homages have been slimmed down so that Andrew – the Duke of York – will not have to take centre stage.
Instead, only the Prince of Wales, William, will perform the homage.
William will kneel before the monarch, place his hands between Charles’s, and say: “I, William, Prince of Wales, pledge my loyalty to you and faith and truth I will bear unto you, as your liege man of life and limb. So help me God.”
The changes to the ceremony have been made in close consultation with Buckingham Palace and the UK Government.
The removal of Andrew’s role from the occasion comes as The National runs a petition aimed at seeing him stripped of his “Earl of Inverness” title, which locals say has brought their city into “disrepute”.
The coronation would also previously have been a “Homage of Peers”, which would have involved a long line of hereditary aristocrats kneel and make a pledge to the monarch in person.
But this has been stripped out of Charles’s coronation ceremony, replaced by a “Homage of the People”. This will see millions of people across the UK and wider Commonwealth asked to give a “great cry” of allegiance to the King.
Lambeth Palace, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, said in a statement: “The Homage of the People is particularly exciting because that’s brand new.
“That’s something that we can share in because of technological advances, so not just the people in the abbey, but people who are online, on television, who are listening, and who are gathered in parks, at big screens and churches.
“Our hope is at that point, when the Archbishop invites people to join in, that people wherever they are, if they’re watching at home on their own, watching the telly, will say it out loud – this sense of a great cry around the nation and around the world of support for the King.”
