Biography | Charles III — The Palace Council That Formally Proclaimed a King

People often fold accession, proclamation and coronation into one ceremony. For Charles III, they happened on different days and in different places.

He became King immediately when Queen Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022. Two days later, the constitutional machinery gathered in the State Apartments of St James's Palace to make that succession public and formally recorded.

Part I of the Accession Council took place without Charles in the room. The Lord President of the Council, Penny Mordaunt, announced the Queen's death and the new King's succession, after which the Clerk of the Council read the Accession Proclamation.

Councillors approved orders governing the proclamation and ceremonial gun salutes. The documents did not create a monarch; they translated an automatic succession into acts that government, courts and the public could recognise.

Charles entered for Part II and held the first Privy Council meeting of his reign. He made a personal declaration, took the statutory oath concerning the security of the Church of Scotland, and signed two instruments recording it.

The council also approved business concerning seals of office so government could continue under the new sovereign. Later, the Privy Council Office published the formal proceedings and attendance records.

For the first time in the Accession Council's history, the ceremony was filmed and broadcast. That public view exposed a process usually known through documents, heraldry and the proclamation read afterward.

When the meeting ended, Garter King of Arms stepped onto the balcony overlooking Friary Court and read the Principal Proclamation. The indoor council and the outdoor announcement were two stages of the same constitutional moment.

This pin marks St James's Palace at building level. It does not identify private rooms or any present-day royal routine; the State Apartments are recorded because they hosted this public historical event.

The cover photograph shows the Tudor gatehouse of St James's Palace. The second image records the Lord Mayor of London travelling to the council on the morning of 10 September 2022.

Photos: Stephen Craven, CC BY-SA 2.0; Katie Chan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.