By Mark Landler

LONDON — Britain’s Charles III was crowned king on Saturday (6), during an eighth-century ritual in a 21st-century metropolis with a handful of concessions to the modern age but the unabashed pageantry of a fairy tale, unseen since the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, his mother, in 1953.

“I come not to be served, but to serve,” Charles said in his first remarks of the ceremony, setting the theme for the intimate yet grand proceedings. The king, 74, was anointed with holy oil, symbolizing the sacred nature of his rule. He was vested with an imperial mantle, and the archbishop of Canterbury placed the ancient crown of St. Edward onto his head.

After the service, Charles and his wife, the newly crowned Queen Camilla, returned to Buckingham Palace in a golden stagecoach used by Elizabeth for her coronation procession.

Tens of thousands of people crowded into central London, despite the rain, for a glimpse of the king and his queen, Camilla, who travelled from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach, escorted by four divisions of the Household Mounted Cavalry regiment.

Even in a country accustomed to royal spectacle, the procession after the coronation Saturday beggared description: 19 military bands and 4,000 troops, stretching a mile from the palace gates. The king and his family appeared on the balcony as aircraft — fighter jets, helicopters and World War II-vintage Spitfires — roared overhead in a display that is, by custom, the grand finale of a royal celebration.

Here is what to know about the coronation events:

— During the service, Charles swore to uphold the Church of England, although the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, encouraged the king to “foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs can live freely.” It is one of several modifications to the liturgy, as the church and Buckingham Palace have sought to adapt a 1,000-year-old service to today’s pluralistic world.

— The approximately 2,300 people attending the ceremony included new faces, old lineages, world leaders, pop music icons and others — a coterie that spoke to Charles’ efforts to embrace a modern, multicultural Britain, but also to the monarchy’s dynastic identity.

— After years of family tensions, Prince Harry attended his father’s coronation, alone. Harry’s wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, stayed at home in California with the couple’s children, Prince Archie, who turns 4 on Saturday, and 1-year-old Princess Lilibet.

-New York Times

-Pictures – Mary Turner and Mary Turner/The New York Times