The history of the successive Coronations performed in Westminster Abbey from that of the Conqueror to the present day—especially those which were picturesque—may be found in the pages of Stanley. There may be read the dramatic Coronation of William the Conqueror; the joy of the people at the Crowning of Queen Maude; the murder of the Jews at the Coronation of Richard; here will be found Walpole’s account of the Coronation of George III.; and the somewhat unworthy note on the perspiring of George IV.

There are other points connected with the Coronations which may interest us. Thus, the creation of knights at every Coronation was a custom both graceful and symbolic. The candidate, after a bath, watched his arms all night; in the morning he confessed and heard mass; he thus entered upon his knightly duties cleansed and pure—body and soul; after the mass the new king conferred knighthood and presented him with robes. At the Coronation of Henry VI. there were thirty-six knights thus created; at that of Edward IV., thirty-two; at that of Charles II., sixty-eight. The part of the ceremony of a Coronation which most pleased the people was the procession from the Tower to Westminster. That of Henry IV. is thus described by Froissart:

“The duke of Lancaster left the Tower this Sunday after dinner, on his return to Westminster; he was bare-headed, and had round his neck the order of the king of France. The prince of Wales, six dukes, six earls, eighteen barons, accompanied him; and there were, of knights and other nobility, from eight to nine hundred horse with the procession. The duke was dressed in a jacket of the German fashion, of cloth of gold, mounted on a white courser, with a blue garter on his left leg. He passed through the streets of London, which were all handsomely decorated with tapestries and other rich hangings; there were nine fountains in Cheapside, and other streets he passed through, which perpetually ran with white and red wines. He was escorted by prodigious numbers of gentlemen, with their servants in liveries and badges; and the different companies of London were led by their wardens, clothed in their proper livery, and with ensigns of their trade. The whole cavalcade amounted to six thousand horse, which escorted the duke from the Tower to Westminster.”

Or in the words of Shakespeare:

Another magnificent procession was that in which Elizabeth, Henry VII.’s Queen, and, in the minds of many, the lawful heiress of the Crown, received her Coronation, when the King perceived that there would be discontent until that honor was paid to her. But she was not crowned, as Mary II. was afterward crowned, as Queen Regnant, but as the Queen Consort. This nice distinction, however, was not comprehended by the people.

The Queen came first from Greenwich to the Tower by water: “There was attending upon her there the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of the city, and divers and many worshipful commoners, chosen out of every craft, in their liveries, in barges freshly furnished with banners and streamers of silk, richely beaton with the ‘armes and bagges’ of their crafts; and in especial a barge called the bachelors’ barge, garnished and apparelled passing all other; wherein was ordeynid a great red dragon spouting flames of fire into the Thames, and many other gentlemanly pageants, well and curiously devised to do her highness sport and pleasure with. And her grace, thus royally apparelled and accompanied, and also furnished in every behalf with trumpets, claryons, and other mynstrelles as apperteynid and was fitting to her estate Royal, came from Greenwich aforesaid and landed at the Tower wharf and entered into the Tower.”

Next day the court went in procession from the Tower to Westminster, the Queen dressed in white cloth of gold of damask, with a mantle of the same furred with ermine. She reclined on a litter and wore her fair yellow hair hanging down behind her back, “with a calle of pipes over it.” Four knights carried over her a canopy of cloth of gold; four peeresses rode behind her on gray palfreys; the streets were cleaned and swept; the houses were hung with tapestry and red cloth; the crafts of London in their liveries lined the way, and singing children came dressed as angels, singing welcomes as the Queen was borne along.

The same kind of procession was that of Henry VIII. and Queen Katharine. In addition, at the end of Old Change stood virgins in white holding branches of white wax, while priests in copes with crosses of silver censed the King and Queen. Another procession much the same called forth similar rejoicings when Anne Boleyn was carried from the Tower to Westminster, and equal popular rejoicing was shown when Queen Mary rode through the City to her Coronation.

At the Coronation of Elizabeth a variety of pageants were exhibited: the principal one was the presentation of a Bible.

“Between two hills, representing a flourishing and a decayed commonwealth, was made artificiallie one hollow place or cave, with doore and locke inclosed, out of the which, a little before the queene’s highnesse commyng thither, issued one personage, whose name was Time, apparalled as an old man, with a sieth in his hand, havinge winges artificiallie made, leading a personage of lesser stature than himselfe, which was finelie and well apparalled, all clad in white silke, and directly over her head was set her name and title in Latin and English, Temporis filia, the daughter of Time. Which two, as appointed, went forwards toward the south side of the pageants, where was another, and on her breast was written her proper name, which was Veritas, Truth, who held a book in her hand, upon the which was written Verbum Veritatis, the Word of Truth. And out of the south side of the pageant was cast a standing for a child, which should interpret the same pageant. Against whom when the queen’s maiestie came, he spake vnto her grace these sweet words:—

Thus the queene’s highnesse passed through the citie, which, without aine foreigne person, of itself beautified itselfe, and received her grace at all places, as hath been before mentioned, with most tender obedience and love, due to so gratious a queene and sovereigne a ladie.”

The alleged presence of Prince Charles at the Coronation feast of George III. is interesting and somewhat pathetic. Of kings in exile the chronicler of the Nineteenth Century will have a good deal to say. Volumes will be written on the shadowy Courts of Exile of our time. But the historian will find no exiled Prince more romantic in his youth, and until a life of disappointment, and with no aims or hopes, ruined him, than Charles. It was fifteen years after Culloden; he was at this time perilously near forty; had he been detected one fears that even George III. could not have saved him; he came over, he entered Westminster Hall with the crowd, and he saw his rival seated where he would have been but for his grandfather’s obstinacy. One gentleman recognized him and whispered, “Your Royal Highness is the last of all mortals whom I should expect to see here.”

That the glove thrown by the Champion was picked up, or that a glove was thrown to the Champion from an upper seat in the Hall, was also reported, but the thing seems doubtful.

As for the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, who has described it in more fitting language than Dean Stanley, afterward her friend and most faithful servant?

“The last Coronation doubtless still lives in the recollection of all who witnessed it. They will long remember the early summer morning, when, at break of day, the streets were thronged, and the whole capital awake—the first sight of the Abbey, crowded with the mass of gorgeous spectators, themselves a pageant—the electric shock through the whole mass, when the first gun announced that the Queen was on her way—and the thrill of expectation with which the iron rails seemed to tremble in the hands of the spectators, as the long procession closed with the entrance of the small figure, marked out from all beside by the regal train and attendants, floating like a crimson and silvery cloud behind her. At the moment when she first came within the full view of the Abbey, and paused, as if for breath, with clasped hands—as she moved on, to her place by the altar—as in the deep silence of the vast multitude the tremulous voice of Archbishop Howley could be faintly heard, even to the remotest corners of the Choir, asking for the recognition—as she sate immovable on the throne, when the crown touched her head, amid shout and trumpet and the roar of cannon, there must have been many who felt a hope that the loyalty which had waxed cold in the preceding reigns would once more revive, in a more serious form than it had, perhaps, ever worn before. Other solemnities they may have seen more beautiful, or more strange, or more touching, but none at once so gorgeous and so impressive, in recollections, in actual sight, and in promise of what was to be.”

When the Commons separated from the Lords, they met within the walls of Westminster Abbey, while the Lords took the Painted Chamber of the Palace. For two hundred years the Commons assembled in the Cloister Court, or in the Refectory, or in the Chapter House. They changed the Chapter House for the no less beautiful church of St. Stephen in 1547, not long after the Dissolution of the Religious Houses. But the History of the Houses of Parliament belongs to the History of the Country.

We have now gone through the Abbey without attempting any description of it. That has been done over and over again; now well, now ill. It is a treasury of architectural interest; it is crammed full of historical associations; one may linger among its ruins, among its monuments, under its noble roof, book in hand for days and weeks and years. I have shown you the monastic life and what it meant; I have told over again some of the stories that happened in the Abbey; I have shown you of what kind were the pageants and processions outside, witnessed by the people, belonging to the Coronations. Those who want the story of the Royal Tombs and Monuments, the Functions and Ceremonies, the Funerals and Weddings, that have been celebrated within these walls, may consult the courtly page of Stanley, the learned page of Loftie, and the laborious page of Dart.