The official orders of service for King Charles’ coronation were released on Friday and two big names are missing.
Neither Prince Harry, who arrived in the UK on Friday on a commercial flight, nor Prince Andrew are listed under any part of the service or procession at Westminster Abbey, according to the newly released document shared with HuffPost. While the two are in attendance, the lack of a formal role is likely due to the two no longer being senior working members of the royal family, albeit for very different reasons.
All of Charles’ siblings except Andrew were named in the ‘Procession of the King and Queen’ in the Order of Service, as were his eldest son, Prince William, and the entire Wales family.
The lineup of working royal family members listed for the procession back to Buckingham Palace includes the Prince and Princess of Wales and their three children (George, Charlotte and Louis), Prince Edward and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh and their two Children (Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor and James, Earl of Wessex). Princess Anne, her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester are also named.
The bylaws also note the additional roles that William and his son George will have during the Saturday service previously mentioned in the Liturgy of the Coronation Service.
It’s not clear where Harry and Andrew will be seated during the coronation ceremony, although there is some clarity as to what they will be wearing.
The Duke of Sussex will wear morning dresses at the ceremony tomorrow, which is what both Andrew and Harry did when they attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in September. They were each given separate exceptions to wear their military uniforms for specific events related to the funeral.
At the time, a Sussex spokesman told HuffPost that Harry’s “decade of military service will not be defined by the uniform he wears and we respectfully request that the focus remain on the life and legacy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”
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There is still no official confirmation as to whether Harry and Andrew will be present on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for a flyby after the coronation.
Andrew and Harry were also absent from the balcony during Queen Elizabeth’s Trooping the Color celebrations last year, as Buckingham Palace said at the time that appearance on the balcony was “restricted to Her Majesty and members of the Royal Family who currently performing official public duties on behalf of the Queen.”
While the treatment of the Duke of Sussex and the Duke of York may seem similar – as both are no longer working royals – the reasons behind their respective retirements couldn’t be more different.
Harry and his wife Meghan Markle announced their intention to step down as senior members of the royal family in January 2020 to pursue a new life in North America and secure financial independence. A year after their decision, the Sussexes confirmed they would not be returning as working members of the Royal Family and returned all honorary military appointments and royal patronage to the Queen.
Andrew’s retirement from public duties is a different story altogether. The Duke’s withdrawal comes after he gave a disastrous interview with the BBC’s Newsnight in 2019. During the interview, he was asked about the sexual assault allegations against him and his connections to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew, who has long denied the allegations, recently reached an out-of-court settlement with his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, after she filed a lawsuit against him in Manhattan. Andrew’s military title and royal patronage were stripped of him in January 2022, a day after a federal judge in New York denied the Duke’s motion to dismiss civil proceedings against him.
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