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When King Charles III is formally crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 6, it is unlikely President Joe Biden will be in attendance, according to two people familiar with Biden’s plans.
“That does not feel like an event Joe Biden will attend,” says a White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss the President’s plans. The same official stressed that Biden’s schedule for May had not yet been finalized.
Foreign governments have recently been notified of the crown’s intent to invite foreign monarchs and other world leaders to attend Britain’s first coronation in 70 years, and formal invitations are set to be sent out in April, according to the Daily Mail. A spokesperson for the British Embassy in Washington wrote in an email to TIME that Buckingham Palace would release an update on who is confirmed to attend the coronation “in due course.”
Charles became King in September upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Biden and First Lady Jill Biden attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. Biden has often spoken of the tight bonds between the U. S. and Britain. And he was fond of Queen Elizabeth. After the two met in Windsor Castle in 2021, Biden said the Queen’s “look” and “generosity” reminded him of his own mother. When Biden spoke with King Charles to offer his condolences after the death of Queen Elizabeth, Biden “conveyed his wish to continue a close relationship with the King,” according to a White House description of the conversation.
But Biden has long held a personal discomfort with the British monarchy. He is vocal and proud about his Irish heritage on his mother’s side, whose family he grew up with in Scranton, Pa., and who often expressed disdain for the monarchy that brutally colonized the island of Ireland for hundreds of years.
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