King Charles's hilarious six-word response meeting team behind historic Coronation roll

King Charles and Queen Camilla were invited to view the Coronation roll (Image: PA)

King Charles had a rather amusing six-word response prepared as he and Queen Camilla were invited to view the historic Coronation roll on Wednesday afternoon.

As he praised the team behind the extraordinary record of his crowning, he jokingly said to heraldic artist Tim Noad and calligrapher Stephanie Gill "you deserve a very stiff drink".

His Majesty embarked on his second public engagement of the week in his first week back out and about on duty since his cancer diagnosis was announced in February.

Mr Noad and Ms Gill spent 56 days consecutively working on the Coronation roll, the official record documenting the crowning of Their Majesties on May 6 last year.

The King expressed his delight to the pair for their hard work, exclaiming: "Thank you very much, I cannot tell you how grateful I am."

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The Coronation roll was worked on for 56 days straight (Image: PA)

The lavish handwritten artefact comes from an ancient tradition of creating a record of the monarch's Coronation, however this is the first time that paper has been used instead of animal skin.

It was authored by Antonia Romeo, the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, who signed the document on Friday, and explained all its key features to Charles and Camilla.

She told them: "It's stitched together, so it's paper, there's no animal product involved and they're sown in what's known as Chancery stitch, there's 30 pages, something like 11,600 words and it's rolled up."

The King and Queen had the features of the roll explained to them (Image: PA)

While peering at a section of the roll spread out on a table in Buckingham Palace's 1844 room, the Queen said: "Goodness me, I won't attempt to read it without my specs."

Meanwhile the King replied "At least it's in English", referring to how past rolls were written in Latin and French.

The roll gives a detailed description of the ceremony, listing all those who took part in the historic event from the procession into Westminster Abbey, the anointing and crowning and describing the last key moments.

The head of medieval records at the National Archives, Dr Sean Cunningham, explained: "So the roll is really to establish the King's authority and the allegiance of the people who attended the Coronation as his loyal leading subjects, so that's the basis on which all these rolls have developed over time."

The Coronation roll was written on paper for the first time (Image: PA)

He added: "And originally they captured who came, what claims they had to perform at the service at the Coronation - this is all part of establishing that relationship between the King and the leading subjects.

"So the new roll is kind of the final version of this, in that it takes elements of those earlier allegiances, oaths and homages and incorporates a kind of narrative story of what happened on the day, so we see much more of what people said, what they were wearing, what the prayers and the anthems and the music (were)."

A digital version of the roll will also be available to view online, with the King commenting: "Having it on the website, it makes it more interesting for people."