When King Charles III delivers his Christmas broadcast, the words matter – but so too does the setting. Since ascending the throne, the King has made a series of deliberate choices about where he speaks from on Christmas Day, each location offering a subtle clue to how he understands the monarchy, faith and his own role as sovereign.
Taken together, the settings form a quiet narrative: one that moves steadily away from palaces and towards places of worship, memory and shared national life.
St George’s Chapel, Windsor (2022)
Signal: Continuity, mourning and duty
King Charles’s first Christmas broadcast as monarch came just three months after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Recorded at St George’s Chapel within Windsor Castle – the late Queen’s final resting place – the setting was laden with meaning.
The chapel has long been central to royal life, hosting weddings, funerals and services of national significance. By choosing it for his debut broadcast, the King emphasised continuity with his mother’s reign and acknowledged the period of collective mourning. It was a message rooted in duty, faith and inheritance, delivered from a place closely associated with personal loss.
Buckingham Palace (2023)
Signal: Constitutional authority and a new reign
In 2023, the King returned to Buckingham Palace, delivering his Christmas broadcast from inside the monarch’s most recognisable official residence. The speech followed his Coronation earlier that year and reflected explicitly on that moment.
The choice of setting underlined the formal establishment of his reign. Speaking from the Palace placed the King squarely within the institutional heart of the monarchy — a visual reminder of constitutional authority, stability and the continuity of the Crown. It was the most traditional backdrop of his broadcasts to date, aligning a new monarch with a familiar symbol of state.
The Fitzrovia Chapel, London (2024)
Signal: Service, humility and shared spaces
The following year marked a noticeable shift. Rather than returning to a royal residence, King Charles chose the Fitzrovia Chapel – a small, ornate former hospital chapel in central London – for his 2024 broadcast.
Once part of the Middlesex Hospital, the chapel is associated with care, healing and service rather than power or privilege. The decision reflected the King’s long-standing interest in community, compassion and the quieter forms of public service. It also hinted at a desire to meet the nation on more neutral ground, in a space open to all rather than defined by royal exclusivity.
Westminster Abbey, Lady Chapel (2025)
Signal: Faith, pilgrimage and national memory
For his 2025 Christmas broadcast, the King will speak from the Lady Chapel inside Westminster Abbey – the site of his Coronation and one of the most sacred spaces in the country.
The setting brings together multiple strands of the King’s reign: faith, history and remembrance. The Lady Chapel is both a place of pilgrimage and a royal mausoleum, containing the tombs of fifteen kings and queens, while also housing the RAF Chapel commemorating the Battle of Britain. Broadcasting from here places the monarch within a continuum stretching from medieval monarchy to modern national sacrifice.
It is also his second consecutive Christmas broadcast from outside a royal residence, reinforcing a pattern rather than a one-off gesture.
A pattern emerges
Across four broadcasts, a clear trajectory can be traced. King Charles began his reign by anchoring himself in continuity and tradition, then briefly reasserted the authority of the Crown, before turning increasingly towards sacred, shared and historically resonant spaces.
Unlike Queen Elizabeth II, who delivered the vast majority of her Christmas broadcasts from royal homes, King Charles appears more willing to let place do some of the speaking – using churches and chapels to frame his message as spiritual, reflective and inclusive.
In choosing where he speaks from each Christmas, the King is quietly redefining how the monarchy presents itself: less palace-centred, more rooted in faith, memory and the common life of the nation.
