ROYAL PAGEANTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1936, Page 24

ROYAL PAGEANTRY

CORONATIONS OF PAST

THE MIRTH OF KING JOHN

STRANGE INCIDENTS

The Coronation directs attention to English Coronations of the past, says a writer in the Melbourne "Age." The first English Coronation to be recorded was in the year 785, when Egberth was solemnly "hallowed to King" by Mercian Offa, his mighty father. The gallant Athelstan was enthroned at Kingston by being duly lifted up and placed upon the regal seat. Vested in his purple robe, with a Saxon sword depending from a jewelled belt, Athelstan took up his position "upon a stage erected high," that he migw: -be "seen the better of the multitude." He was elevated upon a shield and carried to the church, where Aldheim, the Primate, was awaiting; him, his war- ' riors, in the exuberance of their loyalty, not restraining themselves from actually tossing him in the air! The last but one of these Kingston monarchs was Ethelred 11, usually termed "the Unready." For thirty-six years did this Sovereign endeavour to wield what was only the merest shadow of authority. From first to last his reign was a colossal failure, and it drew to its close surrounded by every circumstance of degradation. Ethelred's Coronation was signalised by a furious outburst on the part of the Archbishop which was almost prophetic in character. Smarting with rage for the cruel murder of King Edward, Archbishop Dunstan forthwith proceeded to denounce the new King. A BATCH OF INCIDENTS. The Coronation of Stephen was marked by a batch of extraordinary incidents. At the ceremony no abbots and scarcely any of the nobility presented themselves in Westminster Abbey to support the new King. At the Coronation of Richard I the ceremony, .as we know it now, first made its appearance. A horrible massacre left a deep stain on Richard's Coronation. The bitter antipathy of the nation towards the Jews resulted in the issue of a Proclamation forbidding any Jew to appear before the -Royal presence. •Some Jews were recognised at the Coronation banquet, and thereupon a massacre began. The King'did. what little he could to stem the tide of persecution, but- the movement spread right over the land. One of the most unedifying and contemptible of English Coronations was that of King John, who declined to partake of the Blessed Sacrament, and hurried from the Abbey with all the speed he could. Throughout the entire service he had been shaking with laughter. Normandy was still an appendage of the English Crown, and to bestow that Duchy upon the King a spear was placed in his hand. John's untimely mirth showed no signs of abating, and the spear was allowed to drop from his feeble grasp. John's son, Henry 111, had to be crowned at Gloucester, as London and the Abbey were ift the hands of the Dauphin of France.', The incompleteness of the rite weighed somewhat heavily upon the conscience of the pious King, hence he was crowned once again, four years after the first ceremony, by Stephen Langton, in the Abbey. NO LENGTHY INTERVAL. The lengthy interval between the accession and the Coronation' of a Sovereign, which is accepted now as a matter of course, had no counterpart in the Middle Ages. Edward I's Coronation was a solitary exception, as this Crusader King was absent in the Holy Land at the time of his accession. For the first time, too, was the new Sovereign associated with his consort in the act of Coronation. Possibly this fact, coupled with the presence of Alexander 111,. King of Scotland, for the purpose of rendering homage to his suzerain, may account for the lavish expenditure which characterised this ceremony. The "Liber Regalis," upon which the existing ceremonial of the Coronation is based, was drawn up for the occasion of the Coronation of Richard II by Abbot Litlington, and still remains among the honoured treasures of the Abbey muniment room. The splendid Royal progress through the city, 'the large body of newly-created Knights of , the Bath, the quaint ceremony of the Royal Champion (all of which are recorded for the first time), the profusion of the Coronation feast, when from the feet of a golden eagle in Palace Yard there literally spouted ;several different kinds of wine; com--bined one and all to confer a lustre upon this grand ceremony which has caused it to loom large in the annals of English Coronations. In his Coronation sermon the Bishop of Rochester delivered a warning against the dangerous policy of over-taxation, and at the conclusion of the service Richard fainted, and had to be carried out on the shoulders of his knights. A STORMY PERIOD. Terrific storms—a remarkable presage of his stormy and militant reign —distinguished the coronation of Henry V, while the melancholy ■ demeanour of his son, some nine years later as he sat upon his throne—mere child that he was—"beholdynge the people all aboute sadly and wisely" filled not a few loyal hearts with anxiety and apprehensi/n. The coronation banquet of Henry V has been described by Thomas de Elham as "a second feast of Ahasuerus," in its general, profusion. Added to this a large portion of the nobility mounted on their chargers were placed along the side of the tables in Westminster Hall, a feature which must have added enormously to the picturesqueness of the scene. Richard 111 endeavoured to stifle the voice of scandal by a coronation ceremony which must have almost rivalled that of. a century earlier in its lavish expenditure. The records of the coronations of the Tudors reveal few events of a specially remarkable nature. . The splendour of the Royal progresses from the, Tower to Westminster in the sixteenth century attained the climax of their grandeur. The Yeomen of the Guard, however, were first seen surrounding the Royal person at the coronation of Henry VII by way of protecting, perchance, his somewhat shaky title. The air was thick with sounds of strife at the time of the coronation of Charles I. In.the palace a battle royal was in progress, for Henrietta Maria stubbornly refused to be associated with her husband at the coronation or even to lend her presence to the ceremony. She therefore contented herself with taking up her position at the palace gate to watch the procession. The reaction which naturally resulted with the accession of Charles 11, after the Cromwellian period, found expression in the coronation performed according to Clarendon, "with the greatest solemnity and glory that ever any had been seen in that kingdom." THE SLIPPING CROWN. When the crown was placed upon - the head of James II it refused to stay there, and Henry Sidney, Keeper of the Robes, stepped forward to hold it in position, remarking: "This is not the first" time our family has supported the crown." The coronation of William 111 and Mary II will always rejnain unique in the annals of English

history. The tall queen and the short king walked side by side as joint sovereigns beneath the same canopy and with the Sword of State borne between them. When William reached the Abbey for the ceremony he found that his purse had been stolen while it was hanging at his side.

The coronation of Queen Anne was performed with difficulty. The queen, though barely thirty-seven years of age, was almost paralysed by reason of her gout and excessive corpulence, and had to be carried to the throne in a low armchair. George I's coronation was distinguished by magnificent ceremonial, but it was only possible to communicate with him through the medium of the best Latin the officials could command. The coronation of George lll—the'first English monarch whom the people had beheld for nearly half a century—was characterised by a wonderful display of enthusiasm. But the ceremony itself has been described as "a delicious muddle from j beginning to end." The actual cere-j mony took six hours to perform. With superlative good nature the young king endured the scandalous mismanagement. When George IV was crowned an attempt was made to rival the pomp and splendour that marked the coronation of Richard 11. On the coronation of William IV the cry of "Reform" was in the air. and the spirit of economy succeeded in carrying the day. Ancient precedents were flouted, old historical landmarks were removed, and the grand national pageant of the Plantaganets and the Tudors was reduced to a mere feeble shadow. ; PROPHETIC WORDS. The loyalty which had waxed cold in the preceding reigns revived with the coronation of the young Queen Victoria, a queen whose'life, perhaps, wielded an influence, more potent, more full of inspiration than any of the monarchs who had gone before her. In a famous sermon at the time of the birth of the Princess Victoria, Sydney Smith asked: "Was it conceivable that in the person of this Royal child the old passionate loyalty at one time so precious a characteristic of our English race, might once more, find a resting place?" Surely when one remembers the feeling of the British people towards Queen Victoria and her successors these words indeed have proved prophetic.