CORONATIONS

At the present time[1] the coronation is the Rome towards which all roads lead; and if a walk down Oxford Street lands us among ‘coronation’ cuffs and collars and soaps and souvenirs it is only to be expected that a MediÆval Byway should bring us into the subject of coronations. For of all the survivals with which we are surrounded in this conservative country the coronation ceremonies, though shorn of much of their grandeur and significance during the last hundred years, are still the most unchanged in spirit and in detail. For one thing, they restore to London for a brief period the predominant feature of mediÆval life—colour. For a few days, in 1911 as in 1236, the city is ‘adorned with silkes, banners, crownes, pals, tapers, lampes, and with certaine wonders of wit and strange showes’; and, though the colour-scheme is baulked of fulness by the sad clothes of the spectators, there is a blaze of gaiety which is pleasing in its appeal to primitive instincts and its disregard of business and utilitarianism.

‘Henry’s badge.’

The proceedings in connection with the coronation of our mediÆval kings began at the Tower. Very significant was it that before taking formal possession of his throne the king took practical possession of the fortress. But if his claim to the crown rested partly on force and the strong hand, it rested also upon the elective will of the people, and accordingly, on the day before the coronation the king rode from the Tower to Westminster Palace to show himself to his subjects that they might see what sort of man it was whom they were choosing for king. Naturally the processional ride was made as magnificent and impressive as possible. With the king went a crowd of nobles, all on horseback, conspicuous amongst them being the recipients of ‘coronation honours,’ the new-made Knights of the Bath, usually thirty or forty in number, upon whom the honour of knighthood had been bestowed, with the accompaniment of scarlet-furred robes and other gifts of apparel, the previous day. Richard III., whose cavalcade eclipsed the splendour of his predecessors, was accompanied by three dukes, nine earls, and a hundred knights and lords, all gorgeously attired, ‘whereof the Duke of Buckingham so farre exceeded, that the caparison of his horse was so charged with embroydered worke of gold, as it was borne up from the ground by certaine his footmen thereto appointed.’ Nor did Henry VII., though careful and even parsimonious in most matters, spare expense over his procession. He himself was arrayed in rich cloth of gold of a purple ground, of which ten yards were bought from Jerome Friscobaldi at the prodigious price of £8 the yard; the ‘trappour,’ or caparison, of his charger was made of crimson damask cloth of gold, costing £80, and either this or another trappour was adorned with 102 silver-gilt ‘portculiez’ (Henry’s badge, so often repeated upon the walls of his chapel at the Abbey) made by ‘Hanche Doucheman.’ Over the king’s head was a canopy of cloth of gold, the gilded staves of which were carried by relays of knights, changed at frequent intervals that many might partake of the honourable but arduous duty, and in attendance on him were the ‘henxmen,’ dressed in crimson satin (costing 16s. the yard) and white cloth of gold embroidered with the royal arms from designs by Christian Poynter, who also executed twelve ‘cotes of armes for herauldes, beten and wrought in oyle colours with fyne gold,’ and twelve similar trumpet banners. The henchmen led the spare charger which for some reason always formed part of the royal procession. It was, possibly, for this state charger that the ‘trappours of St. George’ were made, of white cloth of gold, but the ‘trappour of blue velvet with 102 red roses worked with Venice gold and dragons of red velvet,’ and the other ‘trappour’ with the arms of Cadwallader, clearly belonged to the queen’s portion of the procession. She was clad in white damask cloth of gold, reclining on cushions of the same material in a litter drawn by two horses with white harness and trappings, under a canopy of white damask with silver staves. Five henchmen in crimson and blue led her palfrey of estate; then came three ‘cheires,’ or carriages, each containing four ladies and draped in crimson, and then seven ladies in blue velvet ‘purfelled’ with crimson satin, riding on palfreys all of one colour with harness of crimson cloth of gold, her suite displaying a splendour of colour which formed an excellent foil to her own silvery radiance.

A ‘herauld.’

Our sovereigns no longer start from a fortress to ascend the throne, and they show themselves to their loyal subjects after they have been crowned instead of before the ceremony, not from any fear that they may prove unacceptable to the people, but because none would dream of challenging their right. But if Buckingham Palace is a less satisfactory starting-point than the Tower (and there are artists who consider the latter the more picturesque), there are some things in which we have improved upon our ancestors. Chief amongst these are the police arrangements. It is no longer necessary to proclaim, as was done when Edward II. was crowned, ‘That no one shall dare to carry sword, or pointed knife, or dagger, mace, or club, or other arms on pain of imprisonment for a year and a day’—the only weapon of offence thus sternly prohibited now-a-days being the aeroplane. Nor is the threat of a similar penalty needed to ensure the polite treatment of foreigners attending the coronation. A certain amount of severity was no doubt required to counteract the effects of nine conduits in the Cheap running red and white wine, with auxiliary fountains at Westminster, however weak the wine may have been. Modern coronations are not ‘hanseld and auspicated,’ as was that of Richard I., with the blood of many Jews, because some of their number had dared sacrilegiously to gaze upon the king—a privilege notoriously accorded to cats, but evidently forbidden to a dog of a Jew. On the other hand, we are spared such disastrous overcrowding as occurred at the coronation of Edward II., when the king had to go out of his palace by the back door to avoid the crush, and by the pressure of the crowd within the Abbey a stout earthen wall was broken down, a prominent citizen ‘threstyd to deth,’ and the area reserved for the ceremony invaded.It would seem from the instance just quoted that the temporary erections made by our ancestors on these occasions would not have passed the L.C.C. tests, and we may also flatter ourselves that they would never have been capable of hiding their churches and other public buildings under a sea of ingeniously constructed deal seats, but still the carpenters and upholsterers were kept pretty busy at the Abbey for some little time before the ceremony, though the tradesmen who most benefited were the leading mercers, who had to supply great quantities of cloth of gold, velvet, Turkish and Italian silks, samite, and fine linen of Tripoli. Within the Abbey, at the crossing of the transepts, a high stage had to be erected for the chair of state, where the king sat in full view of the people during the first part of the service. This stage was covered with rugs and hung round with silken cloth of gold, the chair of state being also provided with a golden canopy and silken cushions. Several varieties of cloth of gold were used, the bill for this material at the coronation of Edward III., in 1327, amounting to £450, much of it being bought from one John de Perers, who might very well have been the father of Alice Perers, that ‘busy court-flie’ who infatuated the king in his declining years. The most expensive variety was ‘silken cloth of gold of Nak,’ but what place is meant by Nak I cannot say with any certainty: just conceivably it might be Nasik close to Bombay, for much of this material came from at least as far east as Turkey; but whatever its place of origin, it was used for the king’s hose and shoes, and for the little tent or shrine before the high altar within which the ceremony of anointing, with its attendant disrobing, took place. The next most valuable kind is described as raffata—presumably ‘reeded,’ though the word is not to be found in Ducange (when will some one do for mediÆval Latin what Oxford and Sir James Murray are doing for modern English?)—was used for covering the archbishop’s chair, while of a third variety, diapered or damask, one whole cloth was offered at the high altar, and two cloths sewed together were used to cover the tomb of the king’s grandfather, Edward I. Others of these diaper cloths, with purple velvet and cloth of Tartar, or Armenian, silk, were used in the chancel and round the high altar, while canvas cloth of gold was mixed with the more precious kinds or employed in less important positions.

The young Edward III.’

The king, after his ride to Westminster Palace, partook of a light supper and retired to his chamber. If he had not already been knighted he prepared for that ceremony, a usual though not invariable preliminary to coronation, by keeping vigil. The room in which the young Edward III. rested was provided with red rugs with the royal arms worked in the corners, three ‘bankers’ or bench covers of a like design, and other ‘bankers’ of red, green, murrey and blue, and his bath was covered with silken cloth of gold, though for the bath of Henry VII. Flemish linen was considered good enough. On the morning of the coronation day the king, after the ceremonial bath, put on spotless raiment, to signify that ‘as his body glistens with the washing and the beauty of his vestments so may his soul shine,’ and went into Westminster Hall, where he was lifted by his lords into his throne. Presently the royal procession, the king walking barefoot and the various nobles carrying the regalia, started down the covered way, carpeted with the coarse burrell cloth of Candlewykstrete (now Cannon Street), so much of this carpet as lay outside the church being the perquisite of the lord of the manor of Bedford as almoner for the day, and were met by the monks and clergy, and by them conducted into the Abbey. With the details of the ceremony that then ensued, ‘whereof the circumstaunce to shewe in ordre wolde aske a longe leysoure,’ all who are interested must by this time be well acquainted, so often and so fully has it been described.

Crowns ancient and modern.

The ceremonial investiture was performed with the regalia of St. Edward, preserved in the Abbey treasury and regarded as too sacred for lay hands to touch, so that in the procession they were carried set out upon a covered board; but before the close of the service the king laid aside the crown of St. Edward and assumed his royal crown. This did not resemble the glittering monstrosity with which we now render our sovereigns’ heads uncomfortable and slightly absurd, but was a dignified and artistic circlet of the type known to heraldic writers as a ducal coronet. Edward III. had three crowns, all of gold, the chief—described in 1356 as ‘lately pawned in Flanders’—with eight fleurs-de-lys of rubies and emeralds with four great orient pearls and eight sprays of balas rubies and orient sapphires; the second, given to Queen Philippa, had ten fleurs-de-lys of rubies and emeralds with groups of emeralds and six pearls; the third was not, strictly speaking, a crown, but a chaplet, being an unflowered circlet with nine groups of great oriental pearls and in the midst a beautiful ruby. Wearing his crown and attended by his nobles bearing the other insignia of royalty, the newly anointed king returned to Westminster Palace for the great business of the coronation banquet. For this event Westminster Hall was prepared, a ‘siege royal,’ or throne, being set for the king at the upper end, covered with ‘Turkish cloth of gold,’ or other handsome material, with a canopy. The benches of the lower tables were covered with ‘bankers’ of red or blue cloth and ‘dorsers’ of the same material hung behind the guests—the ‘dorser’ being the mediÆval equivalent of the ‘thing they call a dodo, running round the wall.’ The ‘dorsers’ behind the royal seat were of cloth of gold and were protected from the dampness of the walls by a lining of canvas. When the guests were seated in their order of precedence, and the Earl Marshal and his attendants had ridden up and down the hall to make room for the attendants, the banquet began, and during its course a number of nobles and lords of manors had the duty or privilege of discharging various services to the king, receiving as a rule valuable perquisites. Thus the table had been laid by the lord of Kibworth-Beauchamp manor, in return for which service he kept the salt cellar, knives, and spoons; the cloths and napkins had been provided by the lord of Ashley in Essex, as Chief Napier, and remained his property. The important post of Chief Butler was filled by the Earl of Arundel, though at the coronation of Queen Eleanor, in 1236, his place was taken by the Earl of Surrey, as he had been excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a quarrel over sporting rights, but the lord of Wimondley had the privilege of passing the first cup of wine to the king, and then withdrew in favour of the mayor of London, who acted as chief cupbearer—not without reward, for at the coronation feast of Edward III. the mayor received as his fee a gold cup enamelled with the royal arms, and a gold ‘water-spout-pot,’ or ewer, ornamented with enamel and two Scottish pearls. At the same feast the Earl of Lancaster as steward secured four silver chargers stamped with the arms of Harclay, and four others bearing the badge of the Countess of Hereford, ten silver skewers, and eight sauce-boats, each marked with the royal leopard, and the chamberlain carried off two basins parcel gilt and enamelled with the arms of England and Scotland. The lord of Addington supplied a dish of gruel and the lord of Liston in Essex wafers; other persons brought water and held basins and towels, and the head of the family of Dymoke of Scrivelsby rode into the hall in full armour, with his punning crest of a moke’s ears on his helm, and offered to fight any one who would deny the king’s sovereignty.

‘Dymoke of Scrivelsby.’

But after all the main thing at a feast is the food. And that was plentiful—even at the banquet of Edward II., where the waiting was disgraceful. For his coronation feast Edward I. sent out orders to the sheriffs of the different counties to provide 27,800 chickens, 540 oxen, about a thousand pigs and 250 sheep, besides instructing the prelates to send up as many swans, peacocks, cranes, rabbits, and kids as possible, and also giving large orders for salmon, pike, eels, and lampreys. It is not surprising that his cook, Hugh of Malvern, required six oaks and six beeches to be made into tables for the kitchen. This suggests a certain grossness of feeding which a study of the actual menu might dissipate; certainly the banquets of later sovereigns were sufficiently elaborate and varied. When Henry VI. was crowned in 1429, at the early age of nine, he was served with three ‘courses.’ The first of these included not only boiled beef and mutton, capons, herons, and cygnets, but ‘Frument with venyson; viand royall plantyd losynges of golde; Bore hedes in castellys of golde and enarmed; a rede leche with lyons coruyn therin’—in other words, a pink jelly or mould ornamented with lions—and, as a crowning glory, ‘Custarde royall with a lyoparde of golde syttynge therein and holdynge a floure de lyce.’ The second course, besides chickens, partridges, cranes, peacock ‘enhakyll’ (with its feathers), and rabbits, contained ‘pygge endoryd’—gilded sucking-pig—‘a frytour garnysshed with a leopardes hede and two estryche feders; Gely party wryten and notyd with Te Deum Laudamus,’ and, as a masterpiece, ‘A whyte leche (or blancmange) plantyd with a rede antelop, a crowne aboute his necke with a chayne of golde; flampayne powderyd with leopardes and flower delyce of golde.’ After this the third course, with no creation more wonderful than ‘A bake mete lyke a shylde, quarteryd red and whyte, sette with losenges gylte and floures of borage,’ falls rather flat. With each course was presented a ‘sotyltie,’ or elaborate device made, presumably, of sugar and pastry, representing groups of kings and saints. These ‘subtleties,’ however, were not to be compared to those at the coronation banquet of Katherine of France, queen of Henry V. Her banquet also was of three courses, ‘and ye shall understand that this feest was all of fysshe,’ and a most astonishing variety of fish there was. Besides all the common fish—salmon, soles, turbot, etc.—there were lampreys, in comparison with which Henry III. once declared that all other fish were insipid, ‘sturgeon with welkes,’ a combination of the royal and the plebeian, fried ‘menues,’ or minnows, the mediÆval whitebait, conger, now much neglected, and ‘porpies rostyd,’ besides a score of other kinds, including certain mysterious ‘dedellys in burneux.’ The sweets included ‘Gely coloured with columbyne floures’; ‘flampeyn—a kind of raised pie—flourished with a scochon royall, therein three crownes of golde plantyd with floure delyce and floures of camemyll wrought of confeccyons’; ‘A whyte leche flourysshed with hawthorne levys and redde hawys;’ and ‘A march payne garnysshed with dyverse fygures of aungellys, amonge the whiche was set an ymage of Seynt Katheryne holdynge this rason, Il est escrit, pur voir et dit, per mariage pur cest guerre ne dure.’ Of the ‘sotylties’ the first showed a pelican and its young, and an image of St. Katherine (of Alexandria) holding a book in one hand and an inscribed scroll in the other; the second showed a panther, the Queen’s badge, and St. Katherine with her more usual emblem, the wheel. The third and most elaborate was ‘a tigre lokyng in a mirrour and a man sittyng on horse backe, clene armyd, holdyng in his armys a tiger whelpe, with this reason (i.e. motto), Par force sanz reson ie ay pryse ceste beste, and with his one hande makynge a countenaunce of throwynge of mirrours at the great tigre, the whiche helde this reason, Gile de mirrour ma fete distour.’ The legend of the Tiger and the Mirror has been very fully worked out in connection with the arms of the Kentish family of Sybill by Mr. G. C. Druce, a great authority on unnatural history, but he does not appear to have known this instance of its occurrence. An early bestiary informs us that ‘there is a beast which is called Tiger; it is a kind of serpent’ (this suggests the zoological classification of Punch’s railway porter—‘Cats is dogs and rabbits is dogs, but a tortoise is a hinsect’). ‘This beast is of a nature so courageous and fierce that no living man dares to approach it. When the beast has young the hunters ... watch until they see the tiger go off and leave its den and its young; they then seize the cubs and place mirrors in the path just where they leave. The character of the tiger is such that however angry it may be it is unable to look in the mirror without its gaze becoming fixed.’ (Surely this is more suggestive of Eve than of the serpent?) ‘It believes then that it is its cub that it sees in the mirror; it recognises its figure with great satisfaction and believes positively to have found its cub.’ (This property of the mirror may explain the puzzling question why so many ladies persist in dressing like their own daughters.) Thus the hunters escape while the tiger stops where it is, and I think that I had better follow the tiger’s example.

‘The tiger and the mirror.’