King's Coronation as it happened: Charles crowned in spectacular ceremony after Prince Harry booed

Welcome to NationalWorld's live blog covering the coronation of King Charles III. Exactly 70 years after Queen Elizabeth II officially ascended the throne, her son will become King after decades as the Prince of Wales. Email [email protected] with any thoughts on Charles, the coronation or the monarchy.

The coronation service for King Charles III begins at 11am on Saturday 6 May at Westminster Abbey. This is followed by The King’s procession at 2pm which runs for around 1.3 miles . The royal family will then gather on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

The RAF flypast (which is weather dependent) is due to take place at 2.30pm. The coronation concert is scheduled to take place a day later at Windsor Castle on Sunday 7 May.

A flypast to celebrate the King’s coronation is at risk of being cancelled due to poor weather, my colleague Matthew Mohan-Hickson reports. The Red Arrows, Spitfire and other aircraft are take part in a flypast as part of the celebrations for King Charles’ coronation on Saturday. However due to the latest forecast there is a "50/50" chance it could be axed.

Sailors, soldiers, and aviators from across the UK and the breadth of the Commonwealth will accompany Charles and Camilla to and from Westminster Abbey. Later in the day, military personnel will conduct a six-minute flypast of more than 60 aircraft from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force – flying over The Mall in central London.

Sadly the King's coronation is at risk of being drowned out by torrential downpours. This could already affect the RAF flypast, and may make Charles' procession a rather damp squib.

The Met Office has predicted conditions in the south and elsewhere will be “humid” with highs of 17C in London, but heavy and thundery downpours are expected.

British singer-songwriter Freya Ridings has pulled out of Sunday's Coronation Concert “due to being unwell and therefore unable to perform”.

The BBC says the Lost Without You singer, 29, was scheduled to perform a duet with classical-soul composer Alexis Ffrench during the concert, celebrating the crowning of the King and Queen Consort.

She will be replaced by fellow British singer-songwriter Zak Abel.

Abel joins a star-studded line-up which includes Take That, Katy Perry, and Lionel Richie, as well as including Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli and Welsh bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel.

The event, on Sunday in the grounds of Windsor Castle, will be in front of a crowd of 20,000 people - as well as a host of invited guests - and will be broadcast on BBC television and radio stations.

Broadcasters have said they are “deeply concerned” by what they call a “restricting” of access to pool footage of the coronation by the BBC.

National World PLC's executive chairman David Montgomery has joined GB News, TalkTV and industry body News Media Association in criticising the national broadcaster, which has decided to charge UK media companies an "excessive commercial fee" to play the footage.

However, the BBC is allowing foreign publishers and broadcasters the same footage for free.

A joint statement by UK broadcasters argues: “Given the historic significance of the occasion, all efforts should have been made by the BBC to ensure that the footage – which is created using licence fee payer money – is distributed as widely as possible to allow UK citizens to witness this event."

Read the full story here.

Charles will be crowned King at Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury during a coronation ceremony dating back centuries.

Cries of “God Save the King” will ring out around the abbey after St Edward’s Crown is placed on Charles’ head by Archbishop Justin Welby.

The senior cleric said people will be struck by the “majesty and sacred wonder” of the service, and he hopes they will find “ancient wisdom and new hope”.

Around 100 heads of state and kings and queens from across the globe will be in attendance, alongside celebrities, everyday heroes and family and friends of the couple, with Charles’ estranged son the Duke of Sussex expected to attend.

Among the invited guests is musician Lionel Richie, French President Emmanuel Macron, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US First Lady Jill Biden, but her husband President Joe Biden will not be attending.

The nation’s armed forces have promised a “spectacular” display of military pomp and pageantry as the King and Queen travel through the streets of London capital on coronation day.

The day will be a display of pomp and pageantry, and willl see the military’s largest ceremonial operation since Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation.

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson said: “It will be spectacular and with the precision and detail you would expect, we have taken key lessons and best bits from previous coronations, the Platinum Jubilee, Her Late Majesty’s funeral and added them to our plan.”

Thousands of people are already lining Whitehall with flags and wearing Union Jack hats.

One enthusiastic member of the crowd is Helen Mutlu, 54, a food business owner from Clevedon, who is in London with her grandson Theo.

She said: “This country can’t run without royalty behind it. I’ve been to everything I can, I’ve supported the Queen at Trooping the Colour every year. I was so upset and cried and mourned for the Queen for months and I’ve only just got over that.”

She added: “My husband complains about my memorabilia all the time. I have a life-size stand-up of the Queen in my lounge – my husband doesn’t like that, he says it’s too big!”

Of the Republic protestors, Mrs Mutlu said: “Absolute lunatics. Just look at other countries with presidents, they haven’t got any organisation.”

Unsurprisingly, there are a few slightly bizarre traditions that we'll see today during the coronation. My colleague Matthew Mohan-Hickson has written about some of the more unusual parts of the ceremony.

King's champion

One of those is of the King's champion. Lincolnshire farmer will perform the ancient duty of acting as the King’s champion during the coronation. Francis Dymoke will not have to throw his gauntlet down and see if anyone accepts his challenge but instead will carry the Royal Standard during the Westminster Abbey ceremony.

Knights of the Bath

In the past it was customary for the monarch to spend two nights staying the Tower of London prior to the coronation. One of the ceremonies that would take place involved the Knights of the Bath.

It was a ceremony in which a chosen group of squires were ritually bathed, to symbolise spiritual purification. They would then spend the night in prayer and next day were knighted by the monarch before escorting the sovereign to the coronation from the Tower.

Read all of the bizarre traditions here.