CORONATION TRAGEDIES

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7434, 21 June 1902, Page 4

CORONATION TRAGEDIES

DMMATIC INCIDENTS AT PREVIOUS CEREMONIES. ♦ — ■■ — ' )A (By CHARLES BENHAM, in the " Daily Mail.") " Cover your heads, and mock not flesh, and blood With solemn reverence." \ So -speaks Shakespeare's Richard 11., that luckless son of the "Black Prince," the King whose birth and death were equally wrapped in mystery, whose life if as spent in perpetual war, the most tragio, the most uwful of mediaeval figures. Is it not probable that Shakespeare had in his mind the same, historical memories that will suggest themselves to many whose eyes are turned towards the Coronation of the latest of the English Kings. With the exception of Georgia IV.'s Coronation, no crowning in national annals has ever been more magnificent than that of itichard H. on July 16, 1377, the King Voeing then in his eleventh year. It was the occasion of the first recorded appearance^ of the King's Champion, Sir John 'Dyinoke; and it was further remarkable as affdrdiing the first derailed account of the proceedings of the Court of Claims. ; PROSTRATE BEFORE THE ALTAR. On the morning in question the King rose early, and, having received mass in his private .chapel, came down into the great hall, "arraid in the fairest vestments, and with buskins only upon his' feet." At the Abbey, while the ILitany was chanted, the eleven-year-old King lay prostrate before the altar, whence he was conducted to his throne; on a platform in the centre of the nave. The entire ceremony of the Coronation so much exhausted him that he was borne bade to the palace on a litter carried by knights. He soon, however, appeared at the banquet, where he created four earls and nine, knights, and partook - of a splendid though somewhat disturbed; repast-. To make the joviality more or less general, " in the midst of the King's palace was a marble pillar, raised hollow Upon steps, on the top whereof was ai great gilt eagle placed, under whose feet, in the chapter of the pillars, divers kinds of wine came gushing forth at four several plaoes all the day long; neither was any forbidden to receive the same, were he never so poor or abased." After dinner the King retired with a number of ; nobility to his chamber, and was entertained fill the time of supper with dancing and minstrelsy. The profuse extravagance of this Coronation was mad© tbe excuse for the immense demands on Parliament afterwards ; it assuredly started that hatred which ended, in Richard's deposition and violent death. Poor little King! Not by any means enough sympathy has been expended upon his most lamentable history. THE FIRST GENTLEMAN OF EUROPE. The magnificence which attended the Coronation s of. George IV. had no such tragio ending, though it wais marred by one most tragic incident. So George IV. is -also to be pitied. He wanted the event tof be- the most -splendid ever celebrated in Europe. He passed days and nights with his familiar friends discussing questions of dress, colours, fashions, and -Effects. His own costume,' relates one industrious writer "of the time, was to him a' subject of intense anxiety, and when his costly habits were completed, so desirous was he to witness their effects that he had one of his own servants attired in the royal garments, nnd contemplated with considerable satisfaction the sight of a menial pacing up and down the room in the Monarch's garb. It may stand perhaps as a significant moral on the vanity of clothes that his Majesty in the earlier part of the day showed 6ome symptoms of bodily weakness, and was forced to wait for assistance before descending from the platform into the Abbey. • The date of the ceremony was July 19, 1821, and no less a writer than Sir Walter Scott has condescended to leave behind him an ecstatic account of a pageant, which, if it were the most gorgeous ever exhibited in England, excited far less enthusiasm in the publio generally than , the Coronaition of any of King George's predecessors. SIR WALTER SCOTT, COURTIER. "The effect of the scene in the Abbey," Sir Walter -wrote, -. "was beyond measure magnificent. . Imagine long galleries • stretched among the aisles of the venerable and august pile ; . those which rise behind the altar peaiing back their echoes to a full and magnificent choir of music, those which occupied the sides filled even to crowding with all that Britain has of beautiful and distinguished, (and the crossgallery "most appropriately occupied by the Westminster schoolboys in their white surplices, many of whom might on that day receive impressions never to be lost during the rest of their lives. Imagine this, I say, and then add the spectacle upon the floor — the altar surrounded" by the fathers of the Church,- the King encircled by the nobility of the land and the councillors of his throne, and by warriors' gearing the honoured marks of distinction bought by many a glorious danger. Add to this the rich ' spectacle of the aisles crowded with waving plumage and coronets and caps of. honour, amd the sun, which brightened and saddened as if on purpose, now beaming in full lustre on the rich and varied assemblage and no-v? darting a solitary ray which catched as it passed the glittering folds of a ba/nner or the edge of a group of battleaxes or partisans, ahd then rested full on' some fair, form, ' the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,' whose circlet of diamonds glistened under its influence. Imagine all this, and then tell me if I have made my journey of four hundred miles to little purpose." "It was peculiarly delightful," adds the same pious chronicle t "to see the King receive from the royal brethren, but in particular from the Duke of York, the fraternal! kiss in -which they acknowledged their Sovereign ... I never heard plaudits given more from, the heart than those that were thundered ' upon the royal brethren when they were thus pressed to each other's bosoms";, but so much for that appreciative pen. Let us glance at the other little picture of family affection which turned all George IV.'s elaborate magnificence to dust and ashes. • , THE SKELETON AT THE FEAST. This incident was no other than the unsuccessful attempt of his Majesty's repudiated Consort to be present in the Abbey and be crowned as Queen- Consort. Accompanied by Lord and Lady Hood; and Lady Hamilton, Queen Caroline, of unhappy memory, presented herself at one 0f... the Abbey doors as early as seven in the morning. ; Lord Hood, having desired admission for her Majesty, the doorkeepers drew across the entrance, and requested 1 to see the tickets. "I present you your Queen," exclaimed , ■ Lord Hood; "surely it is not necessary for her to have a ticket." Tho Queen herself, smiling, but still in some agitation, added : " Yes, I ani your Queen ; will you admit me?" "My orders are specific 2 " rejoined one of the doorkeepers ; "we are to admit no person without a peer's ticket." For a full quarter of an hour Queen and , doorkeepers and chivalrous noblemen _ wrangled in this way over the momentous = question, but without avail. Lord Hood ." gave in so far a^ to produce a peek's ticket » for one person; ' Th/iiame in whose favour i it had been drawnr had been' erased,, 'and " the name of "Wellington" substituted. - But the Queen declined to make use of this to enter the Abbey unattended. >Lord I -Hood then said that it was clear that no provision bad been made for the' accommo-

dation of her Majesty, and she had better retire to her carriage. Some persons within the perch of the Abbey laughed and uttered gome exclamations of disrespect. That called for a well-deserved rebuke from Lord Hood. "We expected, at- least, to have met- with the conduct of gentlemen. Such conduct is neither manly nor mannerly." As the Qtieen was escorted back to her carriage by constables it was noticed that she was crying tears of mortification. And mortification killed'her. Within a few weeks her body was borne through London in its coffin-pand farewell Queen! "Cover your heads,' and mock not flesh and blood with solemn reverence."