Coronation planning had been happening, quietly, for decades. The code name was Operation Golden Orb. Once a year during Elizabeth II's reign, representatives of the UK government, the Church of England and the Prince of Wales's staff met to update the file. When Elizabeth died at Balmoral at 15:10 on 8 September 2022, Charles became king the same moment. He was proclaimed at the Accession Council on 10 September, with similar proclamations in the other fourteen Commonwealth realms. The earl marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, became responsible for organising the actual day. The 40th coronation at Westminster Abbey since William the Conqueror's in 1066 was now eight months away.

Almost everything. Elizabeth's coronation in 1953 had been a three-and-a-quarter hour rite, attended by virtually the entire Parliament, with temporary stands erected inside the Abbey. Charles's lasted just over two hours. About 2,200 guests came rather than the 8,000-plus of 1953. The procession was 1.42 miles — Buckingham Palace down The Mall, Whitehall, Parliament Street, back the same way — rather than the great five-mile loop his mother had taken. The Crown of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother stayed in the Tower of London because it contains the Koh-i-Noor diamond, claimed by India and politically impossible to display in 2023. Camilla wore Queen Mary's Crown, modified, instead. The vestments were reused, not newly made — Charles wore garments that had been on George IV, George V, George VI and his mother. The procession into the Abbey was led not by the Church of England but by representatives of the Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Shia and Sunni Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities, followed by Christian leaders from multiple denominations. None of that would have been imaginable in 1953.

The Stone of Scone — the Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish monarchs were crowned for centuries before Edward I removed it to Westminster in 1296 — was brought back from Edinburgh Castle for the day. It was placed beneath the Coronation Chair, where it has sat for every English and British coronation since Edward II's in 1308. After the ceremony it returned to Edinburgh, as agreed when the stone was formally given to Scotland in 1996. The Cross of Wales, a new processional cross commissioned by Charles to mark the centenary of the Church in Wales, led the procession into the Abbey. It contains relics of the True Cross given to the King by Pope Francis — the first time relics of that significance had been carried at a British coronation.

Charles was recognised by the four corners of the Abbey, took the coronation oath, was anointed with holy oil behind a screen embroidered with the names of every Commonwealth nation (the screen designed by iconographer Aidan Hart, the embroidery by the Royal School of Needlework). The anointing oil itself was consecrated in Jerusalem, made from olives grown on the Mount of Olives. He was invested with the regalia — sword, orb, sceptre, ring — and crowned with St Edward's Crown, which had been removed from the Tower in December 2022 for resizing. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, paid homage. So did William, Prince of Wales, who knelt before his father and touched the crown. Camilla was anointed, crowned and enthroned in a shorter rite. Then they took Holy Communion and processed out. The King's Scholars of Westminster School sang 'Vivat Regina Camilla' and 'Vivat Rex Carolus' as the choir performed Parry's 'I was glad', the anthem that has opened every coronation since Edward VII's in 1902.

Local authorities approved the closure of 3,087 roads for street parties. Eden Project Communities reported that 13.4 million people across the United Kingdom took part in a Coronation Big Lunch and raised £14.4 million for charity. The official dish was coronation quiche; the pudding, coronation trifle (Parkin, ginger custard, strawberry jelly). On the Sunday a concert at Windsor Castle drew 20,000 people; on the bank holiday Monday the Big Help Out asked the country to volunteer. The whole event cost the British state approximately £72 million — £50 million from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, £22 million in Home Office policing. For comparison, Elizabeth II's coronation cost £912,000 in 1953, or about £20.5 million in 2023 money. The republican group Republic protested. Sixty-four people were arrested. The polling before the day suggested the country was, on the whole, ambivalent: not hostile, not deeply enthusiastic, mostly curious about whether the ceremony could be made to mean anything in 2023.

The UK television audience peaked at 20.4 million, the largest single broadcast of the year. Globally the audience was estimated at two billion across 125 countries. Whether the coronation of Charles III turns out to have been an interesting historical curiosity or the beginning of a different kind of monarchy will be answered slowly, over a reign whose length is anyone's guess — Charles was 74 at his accession, his mother lived to 96. What is already clear is that the British state showed it could still, with notice and effort, stage a piece of ceremony that connected to almost a thousand years of continuous practice, while admitting that the country it served was no longer the country Elizabeth II had been crowned over.