Duke of Kent and Japan’s Emperor Akihito among seven royal survivors from Queen’s Coronation

Dozens of royals and hundreds of other dignitaries attended  the Queen’s Coronation in 1953.

Yet only seven members of the Royal Family who were there on that incredible day in Westminster Abbey nearly 70 years ago are still alive, and not all will be at King Charles’s Coronation this weekend.

Besides Charles himself, who was aged just four when he witnessed the crowning of his mother, the Duke of Kent, now 87, is the most senior surviving royal who attended the Abbey ceremony. 

Then aged 17, he is the only surviving member of his family to have had a formal role at the time. 

His 86-year-old sister, Princess Alexandra, was also there. So, too, was brother Prince Michael, 80, and cousin Prince Richard, 78, who is now the Duke of Gloucester.

Lady Pamela Hicks, 93, a first cousin of the late Prince Philip and a confidante of Her Late Majesty, was also at the Abbey.

As was Japan’s Crown Prince Akihito, now 89, who would go on to reign as emperor of his country from 1989 until 2019. 

Below, the Mail’s new Royals section looks at the small band of survivors who witnessed the very start of Queen Elizabeth’s record-breaking reign.

The Duke of Kent

At the time of the Queen’s Coronation, the Duke of Kent was just 17 but still had a key role as one of the three dukes who paid homage to Her Late Majesty.

Along with his cousin Prince Philip and uncle Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, he promised to be the Queen’s ‘liege man of life and limb’. 

He had become the Duke of Kent at the age of just six when his father, Prince George, was killed in a plane crash in Scotland.  

In his autobiography, A Royal Life, which was released last year, the Duke told how, having been informed about his prominent role in the Coronation, he became nervous about forgetting his lines.

‘My chief anxiety was that I would forget my lines. I had been given the impression that I had to remember them so I had learned them by heart,’ he recalled. 

Fortunately, when his big moment finally came, the Bishop of Durham held up a card with the words that the Duke would need.

‘It was quite daunting,’ he said, adding: ‘The whole service was pretty long and it was certainly very impressive. 

‘It got to the point where people were eating sandwiches out of their coronets.’

Now aged 87, the Duke is set to be among the royal guests at King Charles’s Coronation in May.

Given that he was said to have been ‘whisper close’ to the Queen, he will likely have a ringside seat, although his advanced years and mobility struggles may rule out any extensive formal role in proceedings.

Princess Alexandra 

The Duke of Kent’s sister, Princess Alexandra, who is now 86, was 16 when she appeared at the Queen’s Coronation.

Unlike her older brother, she did not have an active role, in contrast to her status as a bridesmaid at the Queen’s wedding in 1947. 

She did however get to wear a dress designed by Norman Hartnell, who was in charge of the Queen’s own gown. 

According to her biographer Paul James, she ‘panicked’ when she saw the dress, which was described by Hartnell as ‘a diaphanous garment of white lace tulle lightly threaded with gold.’ 

It boasted a low neck, narrow waist and a full skirt embroidered with sequined flowers. 

Princess Alexandra is said to have told her mother, the Duchess, ‘I can’t ever look like that’. 

However, no changes were made and she did go on to wear the gown on the big day.  

After the Royal Family returned to Buckingham Palace following proceedings at the Abbey, the princess put on a headscarf and raincoat and slipped away onto The Mall to mingle, unrecognised, among the crowds. 

Her biographer told how the secret trip marked her desire to be where ‘she belonged, among the people’.

Princess Alexandra is expected to be among the guests at Charles’s crowning and will be there on the Buckingham Palace balcony after the proceedings at the Abbey. 

Prince Michael of Kent

Unlike his two older siblings, Prince Michael of Kent, 80, is not a working royal.

He was however present at the Queen’s Coronation. Then nearing his 11th birthday, Prince Michael did not have a formal role. 

Speaking about his experience of the big day in 2018, he revealed how he and his friends dubbed it the ‘Coronaggot’.

The Prince, who was then a boarder at the exclusive Sunningdale School in Ascot, Berkshire, wore a kilt, black jacket and white lace jabot for the ceremony.

Remembering the build-up, he recalled: ‘The Coronation was the most extraordinarily exciting thing for a small boy. 

‘When we all knew the Coronation was going to take place I was at prep school and we all talked about the Coronaggot and how splendid it was and what fun it was.’ 

He travelled to the Abbey with his mother, Princess Marina and brother and sister in a carriage.

‘There was an enormous crowd and they had periscopes, a lot of them, which were strange-looking devices where you looked through a viewer, and it then went up and you could look over the heads of the people in front of you,’ he added. 

‘So you had a forest of these strange-looking things which were sticking out from the crowd.’

He was also amazed by the sight of the Queen’s four-ton Gold State Coach with eight grey horses. 

‘I don’t think there are very often occasions where eight greys pull a coach. You have to have as many as that because the Coronation coach weighs so much.’

The Prince added: ‘It was a wonderful occasion and it’s amazing to think we are here all these years later.’

But the weather failed to live up to the majesty of the moment. The Prince said: ‘It was a foul day. It rained the entire day long. It was cold, it was miserable, it was wet.’ 

Prince Richard of Gloucester

Prince Richard, 78, who became the Duke of Gloucester after the death of his father, Prince Henry, in 1974, was aged just eight when he attended the Queen’s Coronation.

Her Late Majesty’s first cousin was in attendance with his older brother Prince William, who was tragically killed in a plane crash in 1972.

The pair did not have any formal roles at the ceremony. The official family photograph shows him and his sibling standing next to each other.

Both were wearing a kilt and black jacket. The pair later joined more senior members of their family on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

The boys had arrived for the service with their mother, the Duchess of Gloucester. 

Their father had a formal role as one of the three dukes who paid homage to the Queen. 

The Duke of Gloucester will be part of the proceedings at King Charles’s Coronation and will have a place along with his wife Birgitte on the Buckingham Palace balcony.  

Pamela Hicks

As a first cousin of Prince Philip, Lady Pamela Hicks, who is now 93, had a prominent place at the late Queen’s Coronation. 

The younger daughter of Louis Mountbatten – Prince Philip’s uncle – was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth and had been with the then princess and her husband Prince Philip in Kenya when the news came through that her father, King George VI, had died.

She had earlier been a bridesmaid at the Queen’s wedding in 1947.

Lady Pamela attended the Coronation along with her father, mother Edwina, sister Patricia and brother-in-law John Knatchbull. 

Lady Pamela will not be among the guests at the King’s Coronation but has described the decision not to invite her as ‘very sensible’. 

In a documentary marking her relationship with the Queen in 2021, Lady Pamela said that Her Majesty looked ‘frail and utterly alone’ during her Coronation. 

She said she had wondered how ‘a young woman of 27, would have the strength to undertake this duty all her life’. 

She then praised the monarch’s sense of duty and her loyalty, adding: ‘I think one knew she would, because there’s such inner strength there.’

Lady Pamela went on to join the Queen on her six-month tour of the Commonwealth after the Coronation. 

Princess Anne

Although, aged just two, Princess Anne was too young to attend the Coronation service at Westminster Abbey, she had a place on the Buckingham Palace balcony with the rest of her family afterwards. 

Photos show her and Charles waving at a crowd of 150,000 well-wishers who had massed down The Mall.

At the start of the day, she and Charles had watched their mother leave for the Abbey from an upstairs window in the Palace at around 10.20am. 

They were joined by 50 other children who had been invited to watch Her Majesty’s departure with her consort, the Duke of Edinburgh.  

By 11.30am, Charles had been brought into the Abbey by his nanny Helen Lightbody, just before his mother’s anointing by Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher, leaving Anne at the Palace. 

Anne did also feature in the official family photographs that were taken after the Coronation service. 

She and Charles are seen at the heart of proceedings, standing next to each other in front of the Queen, Prince Philip and the Queen Mother.   

Emperor Akihito of Japan 

Akihito, Japan’s 89-year-old Emperor Emeritus, is the last surviving foreign ruler to have attended the Queen’s Coronation. 

With his father Emperor Hirohito on the throne in 1953, Akihito was the Crown Prince of Japan when he represented his country at the ceremony. 

He arrived in Britain in late April and was received by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

After his ship docked at Southampton, he was greeted at Waterloo station by the Lord-in-Waiting the Earl of Selkirk, who was representing the Queen.

On his first full day in London, he went out to buy a top hat and also enjoyed a walk in Kensington Gardens.

Later on during his stay, Akihito also hosted a party for London’s Japanese residents and visited Windsor Castle, where he laid a wreath for Queen Mary, who had died in March. 

On Coronation Day itself, Akihito was seated next to Prince Abd al-Ilah, who was representing the King of Iraq.

Also on his row was Yakov Malik, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the UK.

Akihito’s time in Britain came to an end on June 9, when he left for Paris.

His reign as emperor began in 1989 after the death of his father and he ruled until 2019 when he opted to abdicate in favour of his son, Naruhito. 

Akihito will not be at the King’s Coronation, although Japan’s Crown Prince Fumihito – Naruhito’s brother – and Crown Princess Kiko are expected to be in attendance. 

King Charles III

The then Prince of Wales was brought into the Abbey mid-way through the Coronation service. 

Photos show him looking glum as he stands between his grandmother the Queen Mother, and his aunt Princess Margaret.

Decades later, Charles told his biographer that he was upset because the Palace barber cut his hair too short and plastered it to his head ‘with the most appalling gunge.’

Lady Moyra Campbell, one of the Queen’s six ladies in waiting, later revealed that the ‘gunge’ was Prince Philip’s hair lotion.

The Daily Mail reported at the time: ‘At first his chin and hands rested on the balustrade, but in spite of this uncomfortable posture he took a lively interest in the events around him and made frequent comments to the Queen Mother.

‘She then put him on a stool so that he could get a better view.’

The Queen Mother also ‘kept smiling and bending to him’ as the young prince pointed in the direction of his father.

After the service, Charles and the rest of his family returned to Buckingham Palace, where they appeared on the balcony to wave to well-wishers. 

On the balcony, Charles stood next to his two-year-old sister, Princess Anne, who deemed too young to attend the Abbey service. 

At one point, Charles picked up the sacred Imperial State Crown, prompting fears he might drop it. 

Anne Glenconner, a former lady-in-waiting who served as maid of honour at the Coronation, previously said: ‘Prince Charles got his paws on it, however old he was, when we got back to Buckingham Palace,’ she said.

‘Because [the Queen] took it off, put it on a table, and Prince Charles made a beeline for it.

‘And we thought he was going to drop it. We thought, “Oh my goodness, that would be a bad omen”.

‘But luckily, I think my mother, as a lady-in-waiting, seized it from him and took it away.’