God save the King – Charles's accession takes place on Saturday at St James's Palace in London

New Delhi: Charles III will formally be proclaimed king on Saturday at St James's Palace in London, in front of a ceremonial body known as the Accession Council.

The council meets at 10 am BST where the King will make a personal declaration about the death of the Queen and make an oath to preserve the Church of Scotland - because in Scotland there is a division of powers between church and state.

The council is made up of members of the Privy Council - a group of senior MPs, past and present, and peers - as well as some senior civil servants, Commonwealth high commissioners, and the Lord Mayor of London.

At the meeting, the death of Queen Elizabeth will be announced by the Lord President of the Privy Council (currently Penny Mordaunt MP), and a proclamation will be read aloud.

The wording of the proclamation can change, but it has traditionally been a series of prayers and pledges, commending the previous monarch and pledging support for the new one.

This proclamation is then signed by a number of senior figures including the prime minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Chancellor.

As with all these ceremonies, there will be attention paid to what might have been altered, added or updated, as a sign of a new era.

The King attends a second meeting of the Accession Council, along with the Privy Council. This is not a "swearing-in" at the start of a British monarch's reign, in the style of some other heads of state, such as the President of the US. Instead, there is a declaration made by the new King and - in line with a tradition dating from the early 18th Century - he will make an oath to preserve the Church of Scotland.

After a fanfare of trumpeters, a public proclamation will be made declaring Charles as the new King. This will be made from a balcony above Friary Court in St James's Palace, by an official known as the Garter King of Arms.

He will call: "God save the King", and for the first time since 1952, the national anthem will be played with the words "God Save the King".

Gun salutes will be fired in Hyde Park, the Tower of London and from naval ships, and the proclamation announcing Charles as the King will be read in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.