'Queen Camilla' title used officially for the first time on King's coronation invites

The title of Queen Camilla has been used for the first time by Buckingham Palace, on invitations for the King's coronation. 

It comes as US President Joe Biden told the King in a phone call on Tuesday that First Lady Jill Biden will attend the coronation, the White House said in a statement.

More details of the 6 May event were also revealed along with the formal invitations on Tuesday night.

Camilla has been referred to as Queen Consort since the death of Queen Elizabeth II - who expressed in her Platinum Jubilee message in February last year her "sincere wish" that Camilla be known as "Queen Consort" following the end of her reign.

But she is named Queen Camilla on the invites, which will soon be sent to more than 2,000 guests.

The Pages of Honour who will "attend their majesties during the coronation service" have also been named, with future king, Prince George, among them.

The eight schoolboys who make up the pages are aged between nine and 13 and are either family friends or close relatives of the King and Queen. The group includes three of Camilla's grandchildren.

Camilla's public image has been transformed since she was first cast as the third person in the Prince and Princess of Wales' marriage.

She and Charles will celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary on Sunday, and during her time as a member of the Royal Family she has grown into the role, finally becoming a campaigning member of the monarchy prepared to serve the nation, and who completed her first state visit with the King last week.

Her three grandsons, twin boys Gus and Louis, aged 13, by her daughter Laura Lopes, and 13-year-old Freddy, by son Tom Parker Bowles, and her great-nephew, Arthur Elliot, 10, will be the Queen's Pages of Honour.

The King's pages are his grandson George, aged nine, Nicholas Barclay, 13, grandson of Sarah Troughton one of the Queen's Companions, Lord Oliver Cholmondeley, 13, son of the Marquess of Cholmondeley also known as film-maker David Rocksavage and a friend of the Prince of Wales, and Ralph Tollemache, 12.

They will form part of the lavish procession that will make its way through the Nave of Westminster Abbey.

The coronation invitations will be printed on recycled card and decorated with colourful wildlife and flowers in a design by artist Andrew Jamieson, a Brother of the Art Workers' Guild, of which the King is an honorary member.

It was inspired by the Green Man, an ancient figure from British folklore symbolic of spring and rebirth.

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The figure appears at the bottom of the invitation crowned in natural foliage and formed of leaves of oak, ivy and hawthorn and the UK's emblematic flowers.

The invitations say: "The Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III & Queen Camilla - By Command of the King the Earl Marshall is directed to invite... to be present at the Abbey Church of Westminster on the 6th day of May 2023."

A royal source said: "It made sense to refer to Her Majesty as the Queen Consort in the early months of His Majesty's reign, to distinguish from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

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"'Queen Camilla' is the appropriate title to set against 'King Charles' on the invitation. The coronation is an appropriate time to start using 'Queen Camilla' in an official capacity. All former Queen Consorts have been known as 'Queen' plus their first name."

In a message to the nation to mark Accession Day in February last year, Queen Elizabeth II expressed her wish that Camilla be given the title Queen Consort when Charles became king.

She wrote: "I remain eternally grateful for, and humbled by, the loyalty and affection that you continue to give me.

"And when, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes king, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me; and it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as queen consort as she continues her own loyal service."

When Prince Charles married Camilla in 2005, royal aides insisted that Camilla did not want to be queen and said originally that the former Mrs Parker Bowles "intended" to be known instead as "Princess Consort", the first in British history, instead.

Alongside the invitations, a portrait of the King and Queen in Buckingham Palace's blue drawing room was also released on Tuesday.