King’s busy coronation year of milestones and royal tours
Charles is turning 75 on Tuesday after a packed 12 months leading up to his big day.
The King’s busy year was packed with a coronation and a number of significant firsts for the new monarch.
The head of state, who turns 75 on Tuesday, is said to be operating as a “steady-as-we go” sovereign, adhering to the traditional royal calendar observed by his late mother.
A Christmas Day broadcast, the Commonwealth Day service and the Sovereign’s Parade at Sandhurst have all featured over the last 12 months.
Charles danced with Anne Frank’s stepsister Eva Schloss on a visit to a Jewish community centre in north London in December.
After Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Buckingham Palace said the King condemned “the barbaric acts of terrorism”.
There were a few updates to well-known royal occasions.
On his official birthday in June, the King, with his face hardly visible beneath his bearskin hat, became the first monarch in more than 30 years to take part in Trooping the Colour on horseback.
US President Joe Biden came to visit, dropping in to see the King at Windsor Castle where he was treated to a dose of pomp and pageantry with a Guard of Honour.
But Buckingham Palace insisted Charles was entirely comfortable with the gesture and it was a symbol of the warmth of their relationship.
The itinerary was kept to a traditional format, but the King put his own stamp on the grand affair.
On the King’s first overseas state visit, he became the only British sovereign to address German politicians from the Bundestag while the parliament is in session.
Charles became the only British monarch ever to speak from the French senate chamber.
In October the King and Queen went to Kenya – their first state visit to a Commonwealth country – where the couple posed in an electric tuk-tuk, and Charles visited the Karura urban forest in Nairobi.
Yet he still had matters to sort in the months after his accession.
Debate over whether the Sussexes’ children would use – or even get to keep – the titles of prince and princess that they became entitled to when Elizabeth II died was resolved in March when Harry and Meghan announced “Princess Lilibet” had been christened, and it emerged there had been correspondence with the King on the matter.
His slimmed down monarchy has only four working royals under the age of 65 – the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.
The crowning of Charles and Camilla took place in May, and the deeply religious ceremony in Westminster Abbey was followed by a weekend of celebrations.
The couple, in lavish robes, took to the Palace balcony to see the crowds, joined by the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, and the coronation pages and Ladies in Attendance.
In September on the first anniversary of the late Queen’s death, the royal family reflected on her life, and Charles and Camilla gathered for private prayers at Crathie Kirk, close to Balmoral, where Elizabeth II worshipped.
He was back in the Imperial State Crown and Robe of State with a return to the full pomp and ceremony of the occasion after an absence of crown-wearing and carriages for a number of years.
He is hosting an incoming state visit by the president of South Korea in just over a week’s time and then travelling to Dubai for the Cop28 climate change summit.
Charles’s Christmas broadcast to the nation will need to be recorded before he spends the festive period with his family.
There are unresolved personal challenges ahead for the King, with his ongoing fractured relationship with youngest son the Duke of Sussex and the fallout between Harry and the Prince of Wales.
The King has also yet to travel as monarch to any of his overseas Commonwealth realms including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, with a major tour expected to be on the cards for 2024.
