How Queen Consort Camilla will break tradition during the coronation

The Queen Consort will be anointed in full public view at the coronation in a break with tradition, and will be presented with a ring which “marries” her as consort to the King.

Camilla will be consecrated with holy oil without being hidden under a canopy, in contrast to the late Queen Mother’s coronation. The King, as is custom, will be shielded during his sacred anointing, and is using a new 2.6-metre high, three-sided, embroidered screen to ensure the privacy of the moment during the ceremony on Saturday, 6 May.

As details were revealed of the coronation liturgy, Lambeth Palace described how the Queen Consort’s Ring, an octagonal mixed-cut ruby surrounded by 14 diamonds, bears the symbolism of a ring exchanged in marriage.

A spokesman for the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury said: “It signifies covenant and agreement, an unbroken bond, without end. It ‘marries’ Consort to King, and them both to God in duty and to the people in loving service, and in turn acts as an assurance of God’s unfailing love.”

Lambeth Palace said the uncovered anointing symbolises Camilla’s role as a consort rather than a reigning monarch.

How anointing breaks with tradition?

But it marks a change from the coronation of the last Queen consort – Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother – in 1937 who was anointed under a canopy. The Lambeth Palace spokesman said: “The only distinction this time is that there won’t be anything that will obscure the view.”

The Palace said, that in comparison to the King: “This anointing will happen without a screen or canopy to demonstrate the different nature of anointing a consort compared to a reigning sovereign, as this anointing is at the permission of the sovereign.”

Archbishop Justin Welby, writing in the official coronation souvenir programme, said Charles will swap his “robes of status and honour” for a simple white shirt for the private anointing during the May 6 ceremony.

He wrote that the historic occasion will be one of “magnificence and pomp” but also, in the midst of the ceremony, one of “stillness and simplicity” when the King is anointed with holy oil in private under a canopy, in the most sacred part of the coronation.

Elizabeth II was also anointed in private as is the tradition. Camilla’s ring – made for Queen Adelaide in 1831 – will be presented to her and she will acknowledge it before it is placed back on the altar, in contrast to the Queen Mother, who had it placed on the fourth finger of her right hand and wore it for the rest of the ceremony.

Similarly the King will not wear the Sovereign’s Ring as is the usual custom. This ring – a large sapphire and diamond cluster with baguette-cut rubies in the form of a cross, made for William IV in 1831 – is known as the Wedding Ring of England and it marries the monarch to God in duty and to the people in service.

Buckingham Palace has yet to comment on why the change regarding the rings has been made.