The Coming Coronation.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 25, 19 June 1902, Page 1

The Coming Coronation.

In his learned work entitled The English Coronation Oath, the late Father Bridgett, C.SS.R., gives the following particulars regarding the appointment of kings in England which will be of interest to our readers in view of the approaching coronation of his Majesty King Edward VII. in Westminster Abbey: 'In the history of the anointings of Jewish kings,' says he, ' we have no mention of a coronation oath. Their powers, however, were strictly regulated and limited by the Divine law. The earliest record of royal unction among Christian kings certainly belongs to our island [England]. It is a sad one. Gildas, writing of the British kings who ruled in various parts after the retirement of the Roman legions, says: " Ungebantur reges, et paulo post ab unctoribus tnicidabantur" — " Kings were anointed, and soon after slain by their anointers." The most ancient order for the benediction of a king is found in an English pontifical, that of Archbishop Egbert, who died in 766.'