KINGS AS BRITAIN VIEWS THEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22723, 8 May 1937, Page 1 (Supplement)

KINGS AS BRITAIN VIEWS THEM

Symbols of a Heritage

By KOTARE

THAT ingenious Spaniard Senor de Madariaga has likened the social structure of England to a pyramid, based on the goodwill of the ordinary folk, and rising through its manifold and constantly diminishing grades to its apex the King. We of the British race see a more vital relation between;; the enthroned Monarch and his people. To the foreigner who knows only England, and has little understanding of the other components of the British Commonwealth of free nations, the ! pyramid analogy may express what he has seen and felt and admired. But to us of the Dominions the Throne is rather the keystone of a great arch, the supreme unifying factor holding together and making effective a vast structure that otherwise might easily tumble into unrelated fragments. The King is not merely superimposed to complete the kymmetry; our very existence as a coherent, united whole depends upon him. Because we instinctively feel that in our bones, even if wo cannot give a completely reasoned account of the King's function in our particular Commonwealth, the crowning of a Monarch is for us no conventional medieval pageantry; it intimately concerns us all. The British mind does not love abstractions. It sees the King rather than the idea of kingship. But back of everything, working obscurely perhaps, 13 that faith in the institution of monarchy that has enabled the British Throne alone among all the ancient kingdoms of the West to emerge from the seismic shocks of recent years more firmly based in a people's loyalty than ever before.

The British Mind Henry Nevison thinks that "the words Liberty, Equal,itv and Fraternity are too abstract for the Englishman's mind.".He applauds them as he may applaud the Russian ballet or ■ French fashions for women, but they are foreign to his nature. We would fight for Liberty, but we much prefer to call it freedom as something more solid and tangible. We think Fraternity a soft and affected sort of thing. When the Englishman receives a letter signed "Yours fraternally" he suspects a tiresome crank. So, though hj? may not be strong on the constitutional aspects; of the matter, he knows the King, and is glad and proud to have him there. A Coronation day sweeps him out of his rut and brings him into touch with a reality which he feels to be vital to himself. The King becomes the svipbol I of a rich heritage won through the centuries, and to be handed on undiminished to the generations crowding in. When Antony cried "I am dying, Egypt, dying," he called Cleopatra by the name of her country. In our lands the King is in a reSl sense his country, the focal point of its great tradition, the great guarantee of continuity between the past and the future. That sense of continuity, of holding the bridge between the great days done and the unknown future, gives a special significance to the elaborate ceremonial which the centuries have built up round a King's Coronation. Dip into history where you will and you will find with the changes time has wrought a surprising unity, expressing something essential in the British character in the symbolism of the Coronation service and the public attitude to it. Records of most of the Coronations of earlier days have survived in the nation's archives or in the chronicles. They did not always pass according to schedule While William the Conqueror knelt at the altar the shouts of the populace led the Norman garrison in the city to lose their heads and set fire to the neighbouring houses in a frantic attempt to quell an imaginarv rising. The congregation dashed out of'the Abbey to put out the fire which was devastating a wide area. The Old Days Richard Coeur de Lion was stripped to his shirt and anointed on the head, between his massive shoulders, and on his strong right arm. His crowning also ended in fire and confusion. The Jews who had been given a sanctuary in England by his father desired out of gratitude to make a special gift at the Coronation. The King was persuaded that they intended to work some special black magic on the great occasion, and forbade their presence. Some disobeyed the command, were detected in the building, and were chased out into the streets. The crowds took up the cry and there was furious fighting in the streets of London, much bloodshed and the burning of Jews' and other houses. At Edward the First's Coronation there was present the King of Scotland to do homage, and he and some of the great English lords celebrated the occasion by liberating their horses in the streets, five hundred in all. Any man could claim as his own any horse., he captured. This seemed to have been the most successful feature of all the proceedings. The game of "catch them that catch might," as the old Chronicler Holinshed calls it, might have induced in the English mind a higher conception of Scottish liberality. Later kings were not so generous, but they perhaps made a wider appeal by turning on wine through the water conduits. How they did it is not stated ; in the records, but for hours the delighted citizens found wine flowing in the streets and jetting from the fountains. This became a regular feature of ; a Coronation.

An Innovation Edward the Sixth, who was only nine years old when he was crowned t introduced apparently, on his own initiative an innovation which still marks the ceremonial to-day. Three swords were ■« carried' before tile bov-king, probably to symbolise his threefold title of King > of England, King of Ireland and King of France. Edward declared that one sword was missing, and held up proceedings till a Bible was brought in. "This is the Sword of the Spirit," he said, "and ought in all right to govern us."

In his account of the Coronation of' Charles 11. Pepys mentions that, after being in the Abbey from four in the morning until eleven, he found he could not see anything of the ceremonies, "to my great grief." But he had already seen Charles, when he landed at Dover, give a rehearsal of the Bible part of the ceremony. "The mayor of the town presented him from the town a very rich Bible which he took and said it was the thing that he loved above all things in-the world." Charles had been crowned King of Scotland at Scone nine years before, and had been preached nearly into unconsciousness, and told very frankly what manner of persons his parents had been. He was not keen on Scotland after that. At Queen Victoria's Coronation the Bible was presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury surrounded by the bishops, with the words: "Our Gracious Queen: we present you with this book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is wisdom: this is the Royal law: these are the lively oracles of God."