The coronation service has been changed to tone down the controversial “homage of the people” element of the service.
It comes after a widespread backlash against the idea, in which the general public was invited to swear allegiance to the king during the coronation on Saturday.
Charles reportedly approved the change, which came after a string of commentators criticised the new addition as divisive.
The broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, a friend of Charles who wrote the king’s authorised biography, said the monarch would find the Homage of the People “abhorrent”.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will now “invite” a show of support from the congregation rather than a “call” to those in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere to swear allegiance to the king.
In the original announcement, Lambeth Palace said it hoped people watching the coronation at home or in public venues such as parks would say the words: “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to your majesty, and to your heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.”
The suggestion of the homage of the people received widespread derision, with many saying such an oath of loyalty was more appropriate to feudal times than the 21st century. The campaign group Republic called the idea “an offensive and tone-deaf gesture that holds the people in contempt”.
The buildup on the big day has begun with workers sweeping sand on to roads, police officers arriving and a rain shelter being set up outside the abbey entrance. Metropolitan police and military police officers patrolled the route from Victoria to Westminster from the early hours on Saturday.
Royal fans with union flags and crowns could be seen on trains and in tube stations from just after 4.30am.
The king will be crowned at Westminster Abbey by Welby during the coronation ceremony, the roots of which go back centuries.
The senior cleric said in a statement issued on the eve of the coronation that the ceremony served as “a powerful reflection and celebration of who we are today, in all our wonderful diversity”.
He said people would be struck by the “majesty and sacred wonder” of the service, but also hoped they would find “ancient wisdom and new hope”.
The event will bring together about 100 heads of state, kings and queens from around the world, celebrities, everyday heroes and family and friends of the couple, with Charles’s estranged son, the Duke of Sussex, expected to attend.
Invited guests include David and Victoria Beckham, Lionel Richie, Emmanuel Macron, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, Rishi Sunak and Jill Biden, though her husband will not be attending.
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