King Charles III: Who’s is attending Saturday’s coronation?

The coronation of King Charles III will be attended by around 2 300 people – well down on the more than 8 000 guests who crammed into Westminster Abbey for Queen Elizabeth II’s crowning in 1953.

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Here’s what we know about who is expected to be there and who’s not.

TURNING UP

– Prince Harry, the king’s younger son who quit royal duties and targeted his family with a barrage of criticism.

The prince is expected to attend the ceremony itself but none of the day’s other events.

– World leaders including: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese; China Vice-President Han Zheng; Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission; French President Emmanuel Macron; German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier; New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins; Northern Ireland’s nationalist first minister-elect Michelle O’Neill; Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

– UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty along with cabinet members and around 80 members of the lower and upper houses of parliament.

– Hundreds of community heroes including English schoolboy Max Woosey who slept in a tent in his garden for three years to raise money for charity.

– Royals including King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain; Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark; Crown Prince Fumihito and Crown Princess Kiko of Japan; Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene of Monaco; King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan; Maori King Tuheitia; King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida of Thailand.

– US pop megastar Lionel Richie, the first global ambassador for Charles’s charitable Prince’s Trust.

– Food writer Tom Parker Bowles and art curator Laura Lopes, Queen Camilla’s children, as well as their father Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla’s first husband.

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STAYING AWAY OR NOT INVITED

– US President Joe Biden will represented by First Lady Jill Biden.

– Prince Harry’s wife Meghan will remain in California with children Lilibet and Archie.

– Most of the British aristocracy including the Earl of Carnarvon, a godchild of the late Queen Elizabeth II and close family friend, whose family owns Highclere Castle, the stately home setting for the hit drama “Downton Abbey”.

The upper echelons of British society would normally have expected to be represented en masse at the coronation.

They appear to have lost out this time due to Charles’s reported wish for the invitation list to be “meritocratic not aristocratic”.

– Sarah Ferguson, ex-wife of the king’s brother Prince Andrew who still lives with him on the royal family’s Windsor estate. Ferguson has repeatedly embarrassed the royal family.

– Lady Pamela Mountbatten, 94, daughter of Charles’s mentor Louis Mountbatten and one of only two surviving bridesmaids from Queen Elizabeth II’s 1947 wedding.

By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse

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