Even Kings get the “wobbles” on coronation day!

King Charles has confessed that he was worried his crown might topple off during his Coronation in May 2023 so he practiced wearing it like his late mother Queen Elizabeth so he would be used to its weight.

Charles, 76, made the revelation while speaking to a group of Canadian women late last year as they made an unforgettable trip to the U.K., retracing the steps they’d made to see Elizabeth’s Coronation in 1953. The moment was captured in a charming upcoming documentary called Coronation Girls, which will be shown on PBS in Canada on Dec. 26.

At the end of their visit last year, in which they commemorated their first visit as teens, the group were taken to tea at Buckingham Palace — and King Charles walked in to the Bow Room to surprise them.

The women had been among 50 girls aged around 17 who had been picked from communities from the length and breadth of Canada to make a trip of a lifetime to watch the late Queen being crowned. On their return, talk at the palace quickly centered on the coronations and the King explained the difference between the heavy 5lb. St. Edward’s Crown and the lighter Imperial State Crown he also wore at the ceremony.

“It’s important to wear it for a certain amount of time because you get used to it then. But the big one that you are crowned with, the St. Edward’s crown … is much heavier and taller,” he told his excited guests. “So there’s always that feeling slightly anxious in case it wobbles.”

“You have to look really straight ahead.”

Charles also recalled how he and his younger sister Princess Anne, who was aged 2 at the time of the coronation in 1953, were shown the crown by their late mother. “My mama used to come up at bath time wearing the crown to practice. Because you have to get used to how heavy it is. I’ve never forgotten. I can still remember it vividly,” the King said.

Coronation Girls was shot during the women’s visit last December, before Charles revealed he had cancer in February of this year, and one of the women urged him to come to Canada. “I’m sure I will,” he said before adding a self-deprecating quip, “Don’t worry. I’m sure I will if I’m still alive.”

One of the women, Carol Bowyer Shipley, replied, “You’ll be alive. We won’t be.” (Aides say that he does hope to visit the country.)

The film, made by Doug Arrowsmith, weaves between previously-unseen archive footage and poignant interviews with the women as they look back on their lives and enjoy seeing the sights they first saw seven decades earlier.

It captures the story of how businessman and philanthropist Garfield Weston sponsored the trip, which he hoped would not only give the women a trip of a lifetime but continue to cement relationships between Canada and the U.K.

The women were taught etiquette by Weston’s daughters and — dressed in matching in smart dark navy suits and hats — got to watch the Coronation from a perfect spot on Piccadilly in central London.

The film also shows the women, who forged lifelong friendships, seeing St. George’s Chapel in Windsor — where Elizabeth was laid to rest in Sept. 2022 — and historical sites like Coventry Cathedral that they also visited in 1953.