London, Volume 4
Knight, Charles
1843
LXXXI.-Westminster Abbey: No. II.-The Coronation Chair.
LXXXI.-Westminster Abbey: No. II.-The Coronation Chair.
In accompanying a group of visitors to the Abbey, along the usual route of inspection, may easily see where lies the chief object of attraction. Not in Poets' Corner,--that they have had plenty of time to examine previously ;--not in the antique-looking chapels, with their interesting tombs, of the Ambulatory ;not even in the Henry VII.'s Chapel, for the very extent and multiplicity of its attractions render any attempt to investigate them during the brief period allowed ridiculous ;--no; but as we are whirled along from object to object, the victims apparently of some resistless destiny, in the shape of a guide which allows us nowhere to rest, and the mind, at active, eager, and enthusiastic, endeavouring to understand and appreciate all, has at last ceased to trouble itself about any, and left the enjoyment, such as it is, to the eye, we are suddenly roused by the sight of object, the Coronation Chair! We are at | |
82 | once rebellious to our guide, or would be, but that he, with true statesmanlike craft, knows where to yield as well as where to resist: here he even submits to pause while questions are asked and answered, old memories revived, historical facts and fictions canvassed to and fro-till, in short, we achieve in this single instance the object we came for with respect to the entire Abbey. And the few and the many are alike interested: whilst the last have visions of the most gorgeous pomp and dazzling splendour rise before them in connexion with the coronation ceremony, the are insensibly led to reflect on the varied character and influences of the many different sovereigns who have, in this place, and seated in that chair, had the mighty English sceptre intrusted to their hands. The very contrasts between occupant and the next, through the greater part of the history of our kings, taken in connexion with their effects on the national destinies, would furnish matter for a goodly kind of biographical history, a book that should be more interesting than out of every works of fiction. Recall but a few of these contrasts: the great warrior and greater statesman, Edward I., and the contemptible, favourite-ridden Edward II.; the conqueror of Cressy, with French and English sovereigns prisoners at his court, and the conquered, without a battle, of Bolingbroke, acknowledging allegiance to his born subject; the pitiful Henry VI. and the pitiless Richard III.; the crafty, but not cruel, Henry VII., and the cruel but scarcely crafty Henry VIII.; the gentle Edward and the bigoted Mary; the masculine-minded Elizabeth, and the effeminate-minded James; the gay irreligious Charles, and his gloomily pious brother: could really fancy, as we look over the list of sovereigns, that there has been but principle upon which they have been agreed, and that is, that each of them would be as little as possible like his or her immediate predecessor. If the history of the chair extended no further back than to the of these monarchs, Edward I., who placed it here, it would be difficult to find another object so utterly uninteresting in itself, which should be so interesting from its associations; but in its history, or at least in that of the stone beneath its seat, Edward I. appears almost a modern. Without pinning our faith upon the traditions which our forefathers found it not at all difficult to believe in-traditions which make this stone the very that Jacob laid his head upon the memorable night of his dream-or without absolutely admitting with story, that this is which Gathelus, son to Cecrops, King of Athens, carried from Egypt into Spain, and which then found its way to Ireland during a Spanish invasion under Simon Brek, son of King Milo; or with another, told by some of the Irish historians, that it was brought into Ireland by a colony of Scythians, and had the property of issuing sounds resembling thunder whenever any of the royal Scythian race seated themselves upon it for inauguration, and that he only was crowned king under whom the stone groaned and spake--without admitting these difficult matters, we may acknowledge the possibility of its having been brought from Ireland to Scotland by Fergus, the king of the latter country, and his coronation upon it some years before Christ, and the certainty that from a very early period it was used in the coronation of the Scottish kings at Dunstaffnage and Scone. It was carried to Scone by Kenneth II. when he united the territories of the Picts and the Scots in the century, where it remained till the . After the weak attempt by or for |
83 | Baliol to throw off the English yoke in , Edward poured once more upon the devoted territories an irresistible army of English soldiers, and so over-awed the Scottish nobles by the decision and rapidity of his movements, that his progress became rather a triumph than a campaign; the entire country submitting almost without a blow after the sanguinary defeat by Earl Warenne. It was at this period Edward committed the worst outrage perhaps it was in his power to commit on the feelings and hopes of the people of the country in the removal of the famous stone, which was strongly connected by superstitious ties with the idea of national independence; it then bore, according to Fordun, the Scottish chronicler, an inscription in Latin to the following effect:--
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In consequence of this belief the Scotch became apparently quite as anxious for the restoration of their stone as for that of their King; indeed between the , Baliol and the stone, we question whether they would not have willingly sacrificed the former to secure the latter. And when they were again ruled by a Scottish monarch, they did not relax in their exertions to obtain for him the true kingly seat. Special clauses were proposed in treaties, nay, a special conference was on occasion held between the Kings, Edward III. and David I., and ultimately mandates issued for its restoration. Some antiquarian misbelievers will have it that the stone was in consequence returned, and that the before us is an imposture: a piece of gratuitous misgiving which our readers need feel no anxiety about, implying, as it does, imposture without object on the part of the reigning monarch, against the dignity of his own successors; and also that the Scots, when they got it back, were kind enough to destroy it, in order to keep up the respectability of our counterfeit. Failing to recover it, the people of the sister country appear to have very wisely changed or modified their views, and began to regard the prophecy as an earnest that kings would reign over : the accession of James I., though not exactly the kind of event anticipated by the national vanity, was still quite sufficient to establish for ever the prophetic reputation of their favourite We need not describe the general features of the chair, as they are shown in the engraving; but we may observe that the wood is very hard and solid, that the back and sides were formerly painted in various colours, and gilt, and that the stone is a kind of rough-looking sandstone, measuring inches in length, inches and quarters in breadth, and and a-half in thickness. | |
Our earliest records on the subject of coronations refer to the century, when we find the Saxon Kings were generally crowned at Kingston-upon-Thames. Edgar was either crowned at Kingston or Bath; whilst the Confessor was crowned at Winchester: from that time the Abbey at has been the established place for the performance of the ceremony. From Edward's charter to the Abbey, dated , it appears that the King had expressly applied to Pope Nicholas on the subject, whose answer is inserted in the form of a rescript, making the future place of inauguration. Edward's successors, Harold and the conqueror of Harold, had strong motives to make them respect | |
84 | this arrangement, each claiming a right to the throne on the strength of a professed declaration of Edward's in his favour, and which, in the Conqueror's case, was his only right. A curious picture of Harold's coronation is given in the Bayeux tapestry (here engraved), from which it appears that neither the story |
of the King being crowned by Aldred, Archbishop of York, during the suspension of Stigand in consequence of a quarrel with the court of Rome, nor that of Harold having with his own hands put on the in the absence of Stigand, are true; for there is Stigand duly labelled to prevent mistakes. Harold did not long enjoy his honours, and Stigand was again called upon to officiate at the Norman's coronation, but, according to William of Newbury, manfully refused to crown who was Aldred was accordingly nominated. What a day must that have been for our forefathers to behold, when foreign soldiers were seen lining every part of the metropolis with a double row of horse and foot, and a foreign prince rode through them, attended by bands of foreign nobles, to the new church erected by the Confessor! Nor would their feelings be appeased by the consideration that there were men of their own blood ready to take part in the ceremony. On William's entering the church, with his train of warrior chieftains, in number, a host of priests and monks, and a considerable body of recreant English, Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, asked the Normans if they were willing to have the Duke crowned as King of England, and Aldred put a similar question to the English; of course the questions were answered by tumultuous acclamation. What follows shows the jealous, almost feverish anxiety of the Normans in the midst of the Saxon population. The Norman horsemen outside hearing the noise fancied it was the cry of alarm of their friends within, and in their agitation rushed to the neighbouring houses and set fire to | |
85 | them. Others ran into the church, where they created the alarm they fancied to exist; for those within then noticed the glare of the burning houses, and almost immediately the Abbey was emptied of its previously overflowing inhabitants. William alone, with a few priests, remained; and, although it is said trembling violently, acted with calmness and determination, refusing to postpone the ceremony; and under such circumstances was the inauguration proceeded with. Something akin to a dread of driving the Saxons to utter desperation may have been aroused by this incident, and may have induced William to add to the usual vow of the Saxon Kings the solemn promise that he would treat the English people as well as the best of their Kings had done. The coronation over, William had leisure to examine into the nature of the broil which still continued--the English trying to extinguish the fires, and some at least of the Normans to plunder-and to give directions for putting an end to it. |
The coronation of William Rufus presents no features of interest; but that of his successor and brother, Henry I., is noticeable for the solemn condemnation made during the ceremony of Rufus's reign; the King, standing before the altar, promising to annul all the unrighteous acts therein committed. The coronations of Stephen, and of Henry II. and his Queen, may also be passed over, when we arrive at the coronation of which any particulars have been recorded that can give us an idea of the pageant--the coronation of he of the lion-heart. On the , the archbishops of Canterbury, Rouen, Trier (in Germany), and Dublin, arrayed in silken copes, and preceded by a body of the clergy bearing the Cross, holy water, censers, and tapers, met Richard at the door of his privy chamber in the adjoining palace, and proceeded with him to the Abbey. In the midst of a numerous body of bishops and other ecclesiastics went barons, each with a golden candlestick and taper; then in succession-Geoffrey de Lucy, with the royal cap; John, the Marshal, with the royal spurs of gold; and William, Earl of Striguil (and Pembroke), with the golden rod and dove. Then came David, brother to the King of Scotland, here present as Earl of Huntingdon, and Robert, Earl of Leicester, supporting, as we should now say, John, the King's brother; the bearing upright swords in richly-gilded scabbards. Following them came barons, bearing a chequered table, upon which were the King's robes and other regalia; and now was seen approaching the central object of the rich picture, Richard himself, under a gorgeous canopy stretched by lances in the hands of as many nobles, having immediately before him the Earl of Albemarle with the crown, and a prelate on each side. The ground on which he walked was spread with cloth of the Tyrian die. At the foot of the altar Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, administered the oath, by which Richard undertook to bear peace, honour, and reverence to God and holy Church, to exercise right, justice, and law, and to abrogate all wicked laws or perverse customs. He then put off all his garments from the middle upwards, with the exception of his shirt, which was open at the shoulder, and was anointed on the head, breast, and arms, which unctions, it appears, signified glory, fortitude, and wisdom. He then covered his head with a fine linen cloth, and set the cap thereon; he put on the surcoat and the dalmatica; he took the sword of the kingdom from the Archbishop to subdue the enemies of the Church; lastly, he put on the golden sandals and the royal mantle | |
86 | splendidly embroidered, and was led to the altar, where the Archbishop charged him on God's behalf not to presume to take this dignity upon him unless he were resolved to keep inviolably the vows he had made; to which the King replied that, by God's grace, he would faithfully perform them all. The crown was then handed to the Archbishop by Richard himself, in token that he held it only from God, when the Archbishop placed it on the King's head; he also gave the sceptre into his right hand, and the rod-royal into his left. At the close of this part of the ceremony Richard was led back to- his throne, and high mass performed, during which he offered a mark of pure gold at the altar. And then, with another procession, the whole closed. Whilst such were the proceedings within, those without formed a frightful commentary. The day before, Richard, says Holinshed, and therefore of necessity, according to the notions of the middle ages, abhorring that of the Jews, afterwards. But some of the proscribed people, venturing to think they had an to the hearts of kings, came, and begged to be permitted to lay rich presents at Richard's feet; their prayer was heard, and all would have gone well, but for an unhappy accident. Some remarkably-zealous Christian raised an outcry against them as of their number was trying to enter the gates of Hall among the crowd, and struck the presumptuous Israelite. The courtiers and other attendants of the King soon joined in the quarrel, and drove out the wealthy Jews who had so ingeniously purchased admission. By that time a report began to spread that the King had commanded their destruction, and the people drove them with Fresh bands of fanatics now poured forth, who scoured the streets, murdering every Jew they found, and assaulting the houses of those who fled to their homes for safety. And now London might have appeared almost in a state of siege. The Jews, who had a world of painful experience of the extremity to which bigotry will drive men, had many of them strongly-built houses; these they now made still more defensible by barricades, against which the assaults of the rioters availed little. But--the fanatics, growing more and more cruel and ferocious, now set fire to the houses, and burned men, women, and children indiscriminately; whilst in other cases, where perhaps it was not convenient or practicable to burn the houses, they broke into the Jews' apartments, and hurled them from the windows, without the slightest respect for age or sex, into the fires kindled in the area below. Oh! the contrasts of the world!-all this while Richard and his nobles were banqueting in Hall; the rich wine flowing within as the warm blood was shed without; the voice of the minstrel accompanying the groans and shrieks and cries of the murdered, the rapturous applause at the bardic song finding strange echo in the distant shouts of exultation of the murderers over their victims. But the disturbance growing formidable, it became necessary to inform the King, and there was a momentary interruption; but Ranulf de Glanvil, the Justiciary, would soon quell it: he leaves the hall, and once more rises the hum of social converse and enjoyment. But for once the Justiciary has overtasked his powers; |
87 | the fiends of bigotry are more easily raised than put down again; the rioters turned upon the King's officers, and drove them back to the hall. There, probably, the Justiciary told the King with a kind of significant shrug that there was no help for it; that, after all, it was only a few Jews; perhaps Glanvil himself had creditors among them, whose prolonged absence would be a very convenient thing--no doubt but the King was so situated: so the matter seems to have been left to its own course: the banquet went on, and so through all that night and part of the next day did the slaughter, the destruction, and the pillage. A day or after, the King hanged of the rioters, but that, as the sentence carefully pointed out, was for having burned the houses of Christians; and as Richard now began to perceive that the property of the Jews was disappearing with the owners, he thought fit to issue a proclamation declaring the Jews under his own protection, and prohibiting any further injury. And thus ended the judicial interference in this atrocious case. What a commentary, we repeat, on the oath just taken! |
There is interesting feature of our early coronations--the elective character given to the settlement of the Crown. There can be little doubt that from the very earliest periods the choice of a king partook more or less of this principle, although greatly modified by the custom of making that choice among the family of the deceased sovereign. At the coronation, again, of kings whose position was in strict accordance with hereditary right, the principle would be rather left in abeyance than brought prominently forward, whilst the reverse would be exhibited when the king had no such hereditary claim. Such was John's case; at whose coronation the elective principle was thus broadly asserted by the Archbishop Hubert in a special address, recorded by Matthew Paris : Accordingly, setting aside the son and daughter of the elder brother of the deceased king, John, a younger brother, was then declared elected. Whilst upon this subject, however, it must be observed that the illustrations of the elective principle, though sufficient to show its bare existence, are of a very suspicious nature. It is true that when Henry I. died, Stephen, the nephew, succeeded instead of Matilda, the daughter; that on Stephen's decease, his son was passed over for Matilda's son; that John succeeded Richard I. instead of Arthur; and Bolingbroke Richard II. instead of the next lineal heir; but in all these cases, which had the largest share-the independent working of the elective principle, or the address, ambition, and powers of the individuals who had these irregular successions most at heart? It is highly probable that in some, though scarcely in all, of the cases mentioned, no attempt to disturb the regular course would have been made but for the existence of some such elective principle; on the other hand, that principle alone, or with all the virtues of the respective monarchs to boot, would have done little for Stephen, or John, or Henry IV., if there had not been something much more tangible behind. | |
Henry III. was twice crowned-at Gloucester in , and in in ; the having been precipitated in order to ensure the crown | |
88 | to him in a time of great danger, the French, under Lewis, being still in the land, and leagued with the more popular of the English barons. Henry, then but years old, was crowned with a plain circlet of gold, the proper crown having been lost by John, with the rest of the regalia, in the Wash between Lincolnshire and Norfolk. At the close of Henry's long reign his son Edward was in the Holy Land, from whence he sent orders for the coronation on his return, passage of which conveys an almost ludicrous idea of the number and appetites of his coronation guests. There were to be provided head of cattle, sheep, pigs, wild boars, flitches of bacon, and nearly capons and fowls. He was received on his return with great joy by the citizens of London, who hung their streets with the richest cloths of silk, arras, and tapestry, set the conduits running with white and red wines, whilst the aldermen and burgesses threw handfuls of gold and silver out of their windows among the crowds below--a fitting preliminary to the splendours of the coronation of himself and his queen, Eleanor. It was in this reign that the chair was placed in the |
| Abbey, and became the coronation chair of the future kings of England, as it had been previously of those of Scotland. But if Edward could have foreseen the degeneracy of him who should be the of those kings, we question whether he would not almost have rather left the Scots their treasure than have so disgraced it in the person of his son. The father's death-bed warning had been directed against his son's evil companions and parasites; and more especially had he forbidden him, under the awful penalty of his curse, to recall the chief of them, Piers Gaveston, to England. Yet, at the coronation of that son, next to the king himself, the most conspicuous person in the Abbey, not only for the unusually splendid garb in which he had arrayed himself, but for the position in which he was placed, was the same Piers Gaveston. We may imagine the sentiments of the | |
89 | haughty English barons, who had before the coronation, according to Walsingham, actually determined to stop the ceremony unless Gaveston was dismissed, but yielded on the King's promising to satisfy them in the next parliament. The coronations of the succeeding monarchs have each some incidents of interest attached to them, though their general features present little noticeable matter. Prior to Edward the 's coronation the youthful King was knighted by Henry Earl of Lancaster, his cousin, and then himself knighted other young aspirants. At this coronation commenced the practice of commemorating the event by the proclamation of a general pardon. Richard the 's inauguration in was unusually magnificent, and, in consequence, slow and fatiguing to the principal actor, a boy only; who, in consequence, at the conclusion of the ceremony, had to be carried in a litter to his apartment. The physical weakness was but a type-and to the superstitious a foreshowing--of the mental. Richard sank alike beneath the demands of the ceremony and the arduous office to which it inducted him, and had to give place to the bolder genius of Bolingbroke. Froissart has given us an account of this coronation, which took place on the , the anniversary of the day on which Richard had sent him into exile. That picturesque historian of the most picturesque of periods says, the prelates and clergy having fetched the King from the palace, From the Abbey the King passed through the Hall into the palace, and then back into the Hall to the sumptuous entertainment that there awaited him. continues Froissart, And where was the unfortunate Richard during all these proceedings? Forgotten in his dungeon at the Tower, and drinking to the dregs the cup of his humiliation, as he felt how completely he had proved a mere
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The foregoing descriptions of the coronations of Richard I. and of Henry IV. will suffice to present the reader with a sufficient idea of the general arrangements of the ceremony in ancient times, of which those observed to the present day are but an imitation, divested of the picturesque features attached to the old religion, and, we must now add, divested also of the accompanying banquet, with its armed and mounted representative of the family who, for so many centuries, have been accustomed on these occasions to challenge the world in arms to gainsay the rights of their liege sovereigns.[n.91.1] We shall, therefore, in the remainder of our paper confine our notice to such coronations as were attended by some peculiar or interesting circumstances. In this class may be included the coronation of Richard III. Our antiquaries occasionally discover some curious matters in their gropings among our dusty records; who, for instance, but for them, would have supposed Richard III. to have been a royal exquisite of the order? yet certainly the accounts preserved of his wardrobe do make him look marvellously like . Among the Harleian MSS. is a mandate from Richard, then () at York, to the keeper of his wardrobe in London, wherein he specifies with a minute exactness of detail, which implies a strong relish for the subject, the habits he desired to wear for the edification of the people of Yorkshire. If, on such an occasion, he took such a matter into his own hands, we may be pretty sure he had not left the choice of his coronation dress to others. It comprised complete sets of robes, of crimson velvet furred with minever, the other of purple velvet furred with ermine; shoes of crimson tissue cloth of gold; hose, shirt, coat, surcoat, mantle, and hood of crimson satin, &c. We have already noticed, in our account of the Tower, that Richard had apparently intended his nephew, the rightful sovereign, to be present at the coronation of the usurper, but altered his determination after issuing the order for the prince's robes. But perhaps the most striking feature of the event is Richard's exhibition of humility-he actually walked into the Abbey! Altogether he hit the taste of the people in the matter so decidedly that his friends in Yorkshire could not be content without a repetition, so he and the queen, Anne, were crowned there too. Richard had well nigh given his subjects a coronation, on the death of Anne, by his marriage with the daughter of Edward IV. and Queen Elizabeth Woodville; but his own friends stopped the match on the ground, among others, that it would confirm suspicions of ill usage towards the deceased queen, and, therefore, injure his cause; | |
92 | Richard adopted their advice, and, it is barely possible, thereby lost his crown. The match he declined Richmond was but too glad to accept, and the knowledge that such an arrangement had been made to connect the rival houses must have done much to create a public opinion here in Richmond's favour. His object attained, the instrument was cast aside with contempt, till the complaints of his own subjects made him more prudent at least in his conduct; he married the Princess Elizabeth, and then once more endeavoured to stop: giving her nothing of the Queen but the name. Louder murmurs were soon heard. Henry was too politic not to listen. The man who does not seem to have had nobleness enough in his nature ever to do a good act spontaneously, having no motive but the simple love of the thing, seems to have never left any duty unperformed when--there were state reasons to impel him. So at last the people were gratified with the coronation of the famous heiress of the house of York, and a curious coronation, in respect, it must have been. Bacon compares it to and he, who had so long delayed it, still was not ashamed to be in the Abbey when the ceremony did take place, peeping through the latticed screen of an enclosure erected between the pulpit and the high altar, and covered with rich cloth of arras. It appears, to have been the custom from an early time to allow the crowd to cut and carry off the cloth along which the sovereign had passed; on the present occasion the crowd was so great and eager that several persons were killed. |
Passing over the inauguration of Henry VIII. and his Queen Catherine, which was as magnificent as taste and boundless expenditure could make it, and that of | |
93 | Anne Bullen, who was crowned with and was the last of Henry's queens who received the honour, we reach the coronation of Edward VI., which was generally interesting, and in some respects novel. The proceedings were shortened, partly, according to the programme of the proceedings, The allusion in these last few words was, we presume, to the alteration in religious matters consequent upon the Reformation. But the most important alteration was that of reversing the usual order of administering the coronation oath to the King, and then presenting him to the people for acceptation. In other respects the ceremony presented many minute but interesting points of difference from the usual routine. The way from to the Palace and thence into the choir of the Abbey was covered with blue cloth; in the choir was erected a stage of unusual height, ascended by a flight on side of steps, which with the floor at the top were covered with carpets and the sides hung with cloth of gold. Besides the general rich decorations of the altar, a splendid valance was now hung upon it enriched with precious gems, while the neighbouring tombs were covered with curtains of golden arras. On the stage stood a lofty throne ascended by steps. The procession commenced so early as in the morning; when the choir of the Abbey in their copes, with crosses borne before and after them, the gentlemen and children of the chapel royal, with surplices and copes all in scarlet, mitred bishops in garb of the same colour, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, received the boy-king at the Palace, and conducted him to the stage in the choir. Here he was placed in a chair of crimson velvet, which noblemen , whilst he was properly presented to the people. Then descending to the altar, he was censed and blessed. The anointment was not the least curious part of the ceremony. quotes Malcolm from an authority which he does not mention, The Archbishop then took the crown into his hands, and commenced Whilst the choir sang, and- trumpets sounded from above, the Lord Protector Somerset and the Archbishop placed the crown on the youthful head of the King; and subsequently other crowns were also worn by him. After the enthronization he was re-conducted to the throne, when The parties to whom the coronation arrangements were intrusted in the century must have been sadly puzzled with the continual changes in religious matters, and have had a difficult task to please sovereigns of so many different faiths. As new rites were introduced for the Protestant Edward, so |
94 | were the old ones restored for the Catholic Mary; then again Elizabeth adopted neither course, but steered, as it were, between them; she allowed the usual arrangements to prevail at her coronation so far as the performance of mass, but forbade the elevation of the host, in consequence (most probably) of which, the entire body of Catholic bishops, with the exception of Oglethorp, Bishop of Carlisle, refused to officiate. Bacon tells an interesting story in connexion with this event, which illustrates the peculiar posture of affairs at the moment, when the Queen appeared to be pausing before she quite made up her mind to fulfil the fears of the Catholics, and the hopes of the Protestants, by a decided demonstration in favour of the latter. He says, An answer that, under the circumstances, Prince Talleyrand himself might have envied, for its adroitness and wit: it left the querist pleased, but unanswered. And whether she would have answered it in the mode anticipated is uncertain if there had been more policy in the Catholic party, or less in the Protestant; but when professed so much devotion to her interests even whilst she appeared to lean to a considerable degree towards their opponents, and the other returned the favour by declaring, through the mouth of the Pope himself, she was illegitimate, it was not very difficult to decide how the affair would end. Elizabeth soon struck into the path which had been discovered to her father by the
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Of James I.'s coronation the most interesting account to our mind is that given in the amusing Dutch print of the period, here copied, which shows us the successive stages of the ceremony in an ingenious if not very artistical manner. The arrangements for this coronation and the preceding procession were intended to be of the most surpassingly splendid nature, but the plague was then raging, and in consequence the people were forbidden to come to to see the pageant. After this coronation political feelings and events began to mingle with the religious in affecting the successive ceremonies. Charles I. was crowned on the . His queen, as a Catholic, was neither a sharer in the coronation nor a spectator; and instead of accepting the place they offered to fit up for her in the Abbey, she preferred standing at a window of the palace-gate to look on, whilst, as we have been carefully informed, her foreign attendants were frisking and dancing about the room. Laud was the archbishop, and Buckingham the Lord Constable, who, in ascending the steps of the throne, offered to take the king's right hand with his left, but Charles put it by, smiling, and helped up the duke, saying, When Laud presented the King to the people, he said in an audible voice, Strange and unaccountable as it seems, not a voice nor a cheer answered; there was a silence as of the grave. If a kind of sudden revelation, but darkly, and as it were afar off, of the future events of the reign had been suddenly made, there could not have been a more portentous hush. At last the Lord Arundel, Earl Marshal, told the spectators they should cry and then they did so. The end of which this incident appears almost as a kind of beginning, is shown in the inauguration of Cromwell as Protector in the adjoining hall; which was performed with a simple dignity of ceremony more in accordance with Cromwell's tastes than the usual details of a coronation. Subsequent ceremonies present little worthy of remark, except in the instance of James II. and George III. James, seeing that his brother had restored the old monarchy, thought he would try his hand at a restoration of the old religion, and in the attempt lost both. His coronation presents a curious illustration of the difficulties in which he was placed in consequence of his views at the very commencement of his reign. How was he to take the coronation oath, binding him to the preservation of the Anglican church? The Pope was consulted, and a lucky quibble discovered, and | |
96 | the coronation of James and his queen went on. As the crown was placed on the King's head a circumstance occurred, which we look in vain to find recorded in the splendid and elaborate work published under authority by Sandford to commemorate the ceremony--the crown tottered, and had nearly fallen, and the King was noticed to be altogether ill at ease. The last incident of a coronation ceremony that we shall relate refers to the inauguration of George III. and his queen in , which was at once magnificent and impressive. There was then present, unnoticed, a young man who must have gazed on the whole proceedings with feelings and memories of a strange kind. He was to whom the silence which greeted Charles the 's presentation to the people, and the ominous tottering of James's crown, were more than mere matters of history. He was who could say with some show of reason-and there were, doubtless, many present whose hearts would have responded to his words- --it was the Young Pretender, Charles Stuart. |
Footnotes: [n.91.1] The processions before the coronations have been already noticed (Tower, No. XXXIX.); the banquets given after may be most suitably described in connexion with the hall in which they took place. We have therefore, for the sake of completeness, given a short account of a single banquet (Henry IV.), and then only incidentally mentioned the subject in other parts of our paper. We may here add that the ceremony of the championship fell into disuse after the exceedingly splendid coronation of George IV., whilst the banquet and the procession on foot were first omitted at the coronation of her present Majesty. |
