CORONATION REMINISCENCES.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11347, 9 August 1902, Page 5

CORONATION REMINISCENCES.

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO QUEEN VICTORIA.

BY SD_ HERBERT MAXWELL, BART.,' MJ?.

IN PEE-REFORMATION

has attained immortality through fortuitous connection with the Coronation of Henry HI. The Earl of Arundel, it seems, had declined to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to hunt in his forest in Sussex, and had impounded his hounds, wherefore the indignant primate promptly excommunicated him, which of course disabled Arundel from discharging his office as Chief Butler at the banquet. HOW THS FIRST KNIGHTS OF THE BATH WERE __A_>£. The Coronation of Edward 1., long delayed because of that King's absence on a crusade, was; marked with some tumultuous incidents. Among the knights created for the occasion was the King's son, Edward, first English Prince of Wales, who, with many other chevaliers, and the King himself, were ceremonially washed in large baths placed in the Painted Chamber of Westminster, and then wrapped in soft blankets, before dressing for their in the Confessor's shrine. Such is the origin of the Order of the Bath. So eager and so dense was the crowd to witness the proceedings, that two of the new made Knights of the Bath were suffocated. On the following day, after the Coronation in the Abbey, five hundred great horses on which the King and his suite had ridden to the banquet, were turned loose in tha streets, where every man might catch one if he could and keep it if he would. iEdward n. was the first English monarch to take his seat on the Scottish Stone of Destiny, which his father had carried away from Scone as the symbol of his sovereignty over Scotland. Yet in how little regard this second Edward held ths memory of the first and greatest, was sSbwn by his causing the Crown to be carrfed at the Coronation by Piers Gaveston, whom Edward I. had exiled, exacting an oath from his son that he should never more be allowed to set foot in England. Richard ll.'s Coronation in 1377 is the first of which a detailed official account has been preserved. The whole elaborate ceremony has bttn minutely recorded in the "Liber Regalis" of Abbot Littlington, a contemporary manuscript which has been carefully treasured ever since as the chief authority on precedent. On this occasion the young king—a fair-haired boy of eleven years—rode, as wa9 customary, from the Tower to take his bath and keep his vigil with the newly-dubbed knights; but the service in tile Abbey on the morrow was of such merciless length that Richard, who by obligation went through it fasting, was carried out fainting—evil augury •of the troubles about to descend upon him. THE FIRST CORONATION ARTISTICALLY REPRESENTED. The Coronation of Henry V., the hero of Aginoourt, in 1413, is the c__y one of so early a date whereof artistic representation remains. It forms the subject of the soufptures in the chantry at Westminster called by his name. When he died, his son, Henry VI., was aged but eight months, so the Coronation was deferred till the boy was nine years old- "He was leyde upon, the high scaffold," says an anonymous contemporary, "and that was covered all with red sage between the high autere and the quere. And he was set in his astate in the myddle of the scafford there, beholdynge the people abowte sadly and wysely." Poor boy! let us hope that no forecast was vouchsafed to his spirit of the exceeding misadventure that followed his attempts at constitutional government, and that he was abue to do justice to the wonderful viands described at great length by the above-men-tioned) atuhority as furnishing the banquet. In a prodigious list of dishes may be noted, "the bore's hede enarmed in a castell royall, frumenty with venysown, groce (? grouse), char, swan, heron, grete pyke, custards ryall with a rial lybbard (leopard) of gold set tbeirin, holdynge a floure delyce, crane, jely wreten and noted with 'Te Deum laudamus,' bytore (bittern), pecock, partrich, chykns endored (? gilt), grete breme, egrete, curlewes, and cokkes, quayles, grete byrdes, larkes, grete carp," and so on, with sundry "sotyltyes" (subtleties) —that is, allegorical groups of figures in pastry.

DAYS.

HISTORIC SCENES IN OLD

WESTMINSTER,

Ever since Edward the Confessor (1042 — 1066) founded the Abbey of St. Peter en the Tborney, or Thorny Island, and constituted it the 'Minster or Monastery of the West, Westminster, has been recognised as the place proper for the Coronation of the Kings of England. In an earlier age, before the Saxon pr_ncip_li'ties had been welded into the kingdom of England, other spots were hallowed by the performance of tnis ancient and solemn rite. Arthur, the semi-legendary king of the Western Britons, is said to have toeen (Srowned at Stonehenge; seven of the Saxon kings, from Edward the Elder to Efchelred, received their crowns at the King's Stone, which still may be seen at Kingston-on-Thames ; but most of that dynasty were inaugurated in the sanctuary of the House of Cedric — Winchester Cathedral. It is generally forgotten how long Winchester contested with London the dignity of being the metropolis. The convenience of a waterway and port chiefly turned the scale against the ancient Roman station of Venta Belgarum; and even this want Edward I. attempted to remedy by cutting what is now known to trout fishers of the Itchen as the Old Barge Water, connecting Winchester with Southampton Water. Hardicanute, ths Dane, was crowned in ths -old Saxon cathedral of Oxford, but Duke William of Normandy was invested with the title of King of England on Christmas Day, 1066, within the freshly reared walls of Westminster Abbey, and from that time onwards it has been the exception for the ceremony to be performed anywhere -elsa. NEARLY A TRAGEDY. The Conqueror's Coronation well nigh ended in a tragedy. The abbey church Was crowded with the Saxon citizens of London. The officials were all, men of foreign speech, Normans; the ancient ceremony of presenting the king for election was performed in one language fay Aldred, Saxon Archbishop of York (i_i the absence of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had fled to Scotland), and by the Norman Godfrey, Bishop of Coutances. ( Thereupon roso such a babel of acclaim from the congregation that the Norman troops without, not understan_ing that this was all in accord with national custom, cried "Treason!" set fire to the abbey gates, and began riding down the people as they rushed in terror to the open air. What remained of the ceremony was hurried through, but not in such hot haste as to prevent the cool-headed Aldred exacting from William a solemn oath to protect his Saxon subjects. But Aldred, bold and provident as he was, could not prevail against the Norman Lanfranc, who succeeded the disgraced Stigand in the See of Canterbury, and who crowned WHSliam Rufus in 1087. The advantage thereby gained for tne Southern Primacy has never been surrendered. William Rufus was slain on 2nd August, 1100; speed was al£ important if his younger brother, Henry, was to obtain the crown, for was not the unfortunate Robert, eldest son of the Conqueror, still a c_ptive in the dungeons of Cardiff? and popular favour might veer qC?okiy in favour of the legitimate heir. So Henry hurried up from Winchester. • Anselm of Canterbury was abroad. Thomas of York rode post haste from Ripon to claim the privilege he disputed with the other Primate, but arrived in London only to find that the Bishop of London had perfonrfea' the oeremony for Henry on the sth August—barely three days after King William's demise. This, our first Henry, having perished ignobty after a surf-it of lampreys in December, 1135, lay yet unburied, when his nephew, Stephen, seized the crown which belonged by right to Henry's daughter, Maud, "Mistress of the English," and nineteen years later was witnessed the amicable co-operation of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in the Coronation of Henry 11. This monarch, tha better to secure the undisputed succession of his son, Prince Henry, caused him to be crowned during his own life. This was in 1170, during the King's mortal quarrel with Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and here was Roger of York's opportunity. Asssted by four 'bishops, he performed the consecration, "or rather," according to*the contemporary chronicles of Margan "the execration whereon followed such terrible events." Becket retaliated by pronouncing anathema upon his brother prelates, and, though he" lived not. to see the resi:ft, pious persons recognised it in Prince Henry's death without issue, and the hateful strife between his brothers, Richard Cceur-de-Lion and John. STRIKING CORONATION EPISODES. There are some graphic touches in the record, of this Richard's Coronation. The lion-uearted one meekly "gripped to his shirt and drawers before receiving the anointing. The appearance in the abbey of a bat at broad noonday, "inconveniently circling in the same tracks, and especially round the King's throne," was interpreted confidently as of evil augury. On the other hand, that which to modern minds would certainly seem a more sinister omen was hailed by all good Christians as one of the happiest. On the _ay before the ceremony Jews and witches were forbidden by royal proclamation from entering the Abbey. Of the presence of witches there is nothing on record, but certain Jews having been detected in the crowd, there followed a horribte massacre of that nationality, not only in London, but in all the chief towns of the realm, except Winchester, "the people whereof, being prudent and circumspect, and the city always acting mildly, spared the vermin."

The inauguration of King John's dismal reign was marked by a new feature. In recognition of the services rendered to John in ferrying him to and from Normandy, five barons of the Cinque Ports were appointed to carry a canopy over his head <n the Coronation procession. This service, which has been regularly performed ever sine;, has been claimed in the present year, and has received recognition.

Already, when John ascended the throne, the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the Coronation, and the necessity of this being done at Westminster, had become so fully recognised, that .whereas the Abbey was in the hands of Prince Louis of France, the ceremony was performed at Gloucester by the Bishop of Winchester. The efficacy and legality of this were so widely doubted that King John issued orders that every man and woman in the realm, except clerics, should wear a chaplet in public for a month, in token that tie King had really been crowned. Compliance with such an order in the twentieth century would be the cause of some grotesque phenomena! A petty squabble about ftuopUsg rights

In manner as Prince Henry, son of Henry 11., was crowned, yet never became King, so Edward V. came to the throne, yet alone among Kings of England never was crowned. Dishes for -the banquet, dresses for the guests, had been prepared, but his wicked uncle, Richard of Gloucester, baulked the people of the festival by causing Edward and his brother to be done to death in the Tower. A fortnight later the dresses, if not the dishes, came into play, and Richard 111. strove to drive his evil deed out of the minds of men by the magnificence of his Coronation on 6th July, 1483. True, "the monks sang 'Te Deum' with a faint courage," but the dukes mustered loyally round the new King, the Bishops and ladies of the Court around Queen Anne, as they sat before the high altar, each stripped to the waist for the anointing. Had the oil indeed been, as was claimed for it, of divine origin, surely it would have eaten like vitriol into the flesh of the ferocious Richard. ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE. Howbeit, vengeance upon the Crouchback for the nraxkired Princes was not long delayed. On 22nd August, 1485, the Wars c_ the Roses, the life of Richard and tha Housa of Lancaster came to an end together, on Bosworth Field. Sir Reginald Bray, finding Richard's ill-gptten crown in a hawthorn brush, brought it to Lord Stanley, who, on the spot still called Crown Hill, placed it on Henry of Richmond's brow. " Lo! here this long usurped royalty " From the dead temples of this bloody WTetch Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows -rrithal; Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it." That was the true Coronation of the first of ths Tudor kings, and so, doubtless, Henry VH. felt it to be, for the subsequent formal ceremony in Westminster was shorn of much of its traditional state. The vow which Shakespeare puts into his mouth after the Victory at Bcsworth was well fulfilled. ./ . . " As we have ta'en the sacrament, We will unite the white rose with the red. Oh now let Richmond and Elizabeth, The true succeeders of each royal house, By God's fair ordinance conjoin together; And let their heirs (God! if they will be so) Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace. With smiling plenty and £air prosp'rous days!"' Henry VIH.. the last King of England crowned brfore the Reformation, the last obliged to seek the Pope's sanction lor the Primate's ministration, was inaugurated with special magnificence. After the ceremonies of the Bath on 22nd June, IEO 9, the King rede next day from the Tower through the oity, whicn was gorgeously decorated with tapastry and cloth of gold, to Westminster, his Queen, Katherice of Aragon, following a litter, drawn by two white palfreys. It is edifying to note that the banquet was so abundant and well-served that " no honourable or worshipfull persons

went unfea3ted." The Champion performed his part with admirable address; largesse was scattered with a freehand; abundant opportunity was afforded for the quaffing of hippocras, hypocras or ipocras (whatever that beverage may have been), and Englishmen were well content and pro_3 of King Hal and Queen Katherine. Another Queen was to be crowned during thafc^ reign, but before that came about, the Defender of the Faith had part-id cables with the See of Rome, and had steered the ship of Sstate upon a new course.