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.

Republican protesters appear to have been arrested ahead of the King’s coronation.

Footage on Twitter seemed to show Graham Smith, chief executive of the anti-monarchy group Republic, being apprehended by police in St Martin’s Lane, Westminster, on Saturday morning.

Pictures appeared to show demonstrators in yellow “Not My King” T-shirts, including Mr Smith, having their details taken by officers.

In one video, an officer says: “I’m not going to get into a conversation about that – they are under arrest, end of.”

What makes a breakfast fit for a King? Especially one that fuels the monarch on perhaps the biggest day of his reign?

Our colleagues at PeopleWorld have taken a look at what Charles will be eating on his big day.

Molly Paul reports: "Normally the monarch opts for a combination of homemade seeded bread, fresh fruit and boiled eggs to start his day on the right note, paired with fresh fruit juices. To add some further savoury flavours, King Charles is known to forage for his own wild mushrooms and keep an organic garden, so his private chef could cook some of those up for him.

"This choice of breakfast would be approved by registered nutritionists such as Anna Tebbs, the Head Chef at healthy meal company Green Chef, who believes that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’."

My colleague Claire Schofield has more details on the apparent arrests earlier.

She reports, Republic activist Luke Whiting, 26, told the PA news agency: “Six Republic members have been arrested including the CEO as the demonstration was starting at the edge of Trafalgar Square.

“It is unclear why, potentially it is because one of them was carrying a megaphone. It is unclear exactly whether the police are using these new powers and whether they are misusing them to stop protest happening.”

Another woman wearing a Republic T-shirt was arrested and carried away by officers from where she had been standing outside a Tesco store. She told PA: “We had a delivery of placards ready for the protest and then the tactical support unit questioned us as to how we we had got through the road closures. They questioned whether what we were doing was a delivery. They then said they found evidence of means of locking on, of items that could be used to lock on, and they arrested us.”

Read the full piece here.

Just Stop Oil protesters appear to have been been arrested on the Mall.

A large group from the campaign group were seen in handcuffs. Police have cordoned the group off.

The Metropolitan Police has issued a statement on the arrests from earlier.

In a statement on Twitter, the force said: “A significant police operation is under way in central London.

"We have made a number of arrests in the area of Carlton House Terrace.

"The individuals have been held on suspicion of breaching the peace.

"Earlier today we arrested four people in the area of St Martin’s Lane.

"They were held on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance. We seized lock-on devices.

“A further three people were arrested in the area of Wellington Arch. They were held on suspicion of possessing articles to cause criminal damage. There will be further updates later today.”

My colleague Ben Lowry - the editor of the News Letter of Northern Ireland - is in Westminster Abbey. He's written about how busy central London is ahead of the coronation.

Ben writes: "My accommodation, ahead of reporting the coronation, was 1.8 miles from the press rendezvous point, within walking distance. But much of the walk would be shut I was told by various people. Which part? When? So I resolved to take the tube, which at 630am I figured would be empty. No, no said the doorman. Take a taxi, they come buy every couple of minutes. As they did, but none had their light on, being full carrying others.

"This was near Bond Street. Just when, in mounting panic, I was about to dash for the tube after all a vacant cab came. He told me many of his colleagues were avoiding the hassle of a half shut central London today. We travelled down Park Lane, past heavily guarded top hotels like the Dorchester. President Biden's wife was in one, said the driver. We wound our way round Hyde Park corner, with key routes such as Piccadilly closed, manned by multiple police and security in yellow jackets.

"Now we were near the back of Buckingham Palace, and the cabbie was trying to give Victoria station a wide berth to get me to the journalist meeting point near the Thames. More closures, some of them further away from Westminster than the driver was expecting, as the 7am news came on. That was our meeting time.

"I had to walk the last half mile and got there at 714, a nervous wreck. But the meeting time had been set cautiously early. The abbey didn't open until 730am.

"Now I'm in the press area. We're in a place called the North Transept with a restricted view. By 8am the main body of the abbey was filling up. I spotted two Northern Ireland peers in robes, Lords Dodds and Rogan, before we media were ushered on to our seats."

You can read Ben's full piece here.

Joe Biden isn't attending the coronation, however his wife Jill and granddaughter Finnegan are. My colleague Marina Licht, editor of PeopleWorld, has written about Finnegan here.

My colleague Imogen Howse is with royal fans in Hyde Park. Like Ben Lowry (see 9.56am) it took her a long time to get into place this morning, with police running a tight operation. Imogen reports that it is "raining but spirits don't seem to be dampened".

She says lots of people are in Union Jack clothing, amidst a sea of umbrellas, picnics and champagne.

Sisters Susie, 25, and Ellen Davis, 28, from Shropshire, left at 5am to be here. “We just didn’t want to miss it - we’ve always come to the jubilees, wedding. It’s part of history," they told Imogen.

While Roslyn Ismay, 53, and Julie White said: "We wanted to be part of the occasion. It’s a once in a lifetime thing for us. Everyone’s in a good mood despite the rain. The atmosphere is so great. The police and the security have been helpful."