King Charles' Coronation Will Conflict With a Major Event on Harry & Meghan's Calendar

It looks like May 6, 2023, will be an important date for the royal family for two big reasons. Not only is it the day that King Charles III officially will be coronated, but it's also his grandson Archie's fourth birthday. Talk about having a reason to celebrate!

On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace announced the official date for Charles' coronation.

The new monarch will finally have his crowning ceremony next spring, after plenty of speculation about which date he would pick to begin his legacy. According to People, the prevailing theory was that Charles would select June 2 in memory of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth, whose coronation took place on that date in 1953.

But this new date seems to look toward the future instead of honoring the past.

Now that the palace has settled on a date, it seems pretty poetic that it chose one that would be so thoroughly connected to Charles' youngest grandson, Archie. We can't help but wonder if Charles picked the date to send a message to Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and the rest of the world. Maybe this is the proud father's way of letting his son know that even though he may no longer be a working royal, he's still deeply connected to his family in the United Kingdom.

Charles' coronation isn't likely to interfere with birthday party planning.

Because Archie's birthday is still a long way off, we can't imagine Harry and Meghan have gotten too far into their planning yet. Hopefully they had kept that section of the calendar open, knowing that Charles would be planning the coronation sometime in the late spring.

The Sussex family isn't expected to have too big of a role at the event anyway.

Royal expert Katie Nicholl has predicted that Charles will use his coronation to "highlight" the line of succession, which means heavily featuring Prince William and his children. Harry, Meghan, and their kids are likely to remain in the background for the event — that is if they attend at all.

There's always a chance that Harry and Meghan will skip the coronation.

When it comes to the royal family, anything is possible. (Hey, nobody saw that Cambridge-Sussex walkabout coming after the Queen's death.) There's always a chance Harry will become even further distanced from his family by May 2023, especially if his upcoming memoir paints an especially unflattering picture of the relationship between Charles and wife Camilla.

Only time will tell how this will all play out, but for now we're just going to hope that Charles picked Archie's birthday as an olive branch to the Sussexes.

---