When will Prince Harry break his Coronation silence?

Two thousand among the great and the good from around the world will soon receive a letter from King Charles III and Queen Camilla. The invitation to the coronation on 6 May, which has been unveiled today, is not what people might have expected. Elizabeth II’s coronation invitation was formal, and, even by the standards of 1953, old-fashioned: it looked like the sort of thing that Victoria would have issued for her eventful, near-disastrous ceremony over a century before. The implication was clear, namely that her reign would be a formal, decorous one, firmly in keeping with the high ideals of her predecessors, and it proved an apt portent for her highly successful time upon the throne.

Yet if she saw what her son had come up with, she might have gasped with surprise, and then smiled in wry recognition. The invitation – designed by the heraldic artist Andrew Jamieson – is a riot of colour and celebration.