coronations

Though the monarch succeeds automatically on the death of his predecessor, the coronation is a public avowal of his new position. Indeed, earlier tradition held that he was not really king until he had been crowned. Consequently, coronations followed accessions very swiftly, particularly if there were rival candidates, allowing little time for elaborate preparations. Harold II was crowned on the very day of Edward the Confessor's burial. The ceremony was, essentially, religious—a dedication to God's service. But the political opportunities were soon apparent. Monarchs wished for a widespread demonstration of their acceptance, especially by the most eminent in the land, with the chance to remind their subjects of the need for obedience: subjects found in the ceremony a chance to remind monarchs of their own rights. Hence, the evolution of the ceremony registers the ebb and flow of political power. The English ceremonial which developed was more religious and more elaborate than that in Scotland or Ireland. The first recorded instance in England of a ceremony reflects both its nature and its limitations. In 787 Ecgfrith, son of Offa of Mercia, was publicly anointed to ensure his succession: in the event he survived for only six months before he was overthrown by a cousin, Cenwulf. The coronation of Edgar at Bath in 973 suggests the development of considerable ritual: a ring, sword, and sceptre were delivered as tokens of authority and the anthem ‘Zadok the Priest’ chanted. Edward the Confessor was crowned at Winchester in 1043, but all later coronations have taken place at Westminster.

The central features of the ceremony have remained. The monarch is first presented, usually by the archbishop of Canterbury; takes a series of oaths; is anointed with holy oil; is crowned, receives the regalia, and accepts homage. Most of the ancient regalia of the crown was sold off after the execution of Charles I. The spoon and ampulla, in the shape of a golden eagle, survived. The ampulla was believed to contain holy oil, said to have been given by the Virgin Mary to Thomas Becket and rediscovered in time to assist Henry IV at his coronation in 1399. The rest of the regalia now consists of replicas fashioned in 1660 for Charles II, or later additions. A copy of the crown believed to have been worn by Edward the Confessor was made at the Restoration, and a lighter crown produced for Victoria in 1838. The coronation chair was made for Edward I, again on the pattern of Edward the Confessor's, and until 1996 included the stone of Scone, brought back from Scotland in 1296. Two swords of state were made in 1660, one of which subsequently went missing: a third was made in 1678. The sword of offering was made in 1821. An orb was introduced in the15th cent. to reinforce the monarch's imperial claims to the throne of France. A bible was added to the ceremony in 1689. Of the ritual, the ‘vivat’ by Westminster boys dates from 1625 and Handel's setting of ‘Zadok the Priest’ has been used since 1727. Politically, the alterations to the oath are instructive. The original oaths were fervent but vague. Mistrust of Edward II led in 1308 to a new oath being added, to maintain the laws as chosen by his subjects. After the experience of James II's reign, the oath for William and Mary was intended to bolt the door against catholicism and despotism, obliging the monarchs to observe ‘the statutes in parliament agreed on’ and to maintain ‘the Protestant reformed religion established by law’.

In practice coronation ceremonies have frequently had difficulty in living up to the solemnity of the occasion. William the Conqueror's coronation was marred by a massacre of his new Saxon subjects, whose shouts of acclamation were mistaken by nervous Norman guards as the signal for a rising. The pageantry of the royal champion has often caused problems. In 1377 Richard II's champion appeared at the abbey during mass and had to be told to go away. In 1685 James II's champion fell flat on his face, which suggests that it was just as well that the challenge was not taken up. In 1559 Elizabeth I complained that the holy oil was greasy and smelled unpleasant. In 1727 Queen Caroline had to borrow jewels since George I had given the rest to his mistress. A special hazard at the coronation of George IV was the arrival, in the middle of the ceremony, of his estranged wife, demanding to be let in. Victoria's own account tells of the pain she suffered when the archbishop pushed the ring on her wrong finger, and George VI's account of 1937 was that the archbishop juggled so much with the crown that he never did find out if it was on the right way.

The coronation of Scottish monarchs remained much simpler. Until the 13th cent. it was a ceremony of inauguration, usually at Scone, involving the elevation on a stone or chair. But later ceremony was restrained by the fact that so many Scottish monarchs succeeded as infants or children and could not sustain a demanding role: James III, for example, was inaugurated at Kelso, aged 8, a week after James II's death outside Floors castle in 1460. The last Scottish coronation, that of Charles II in 1651, was a hasty business in the midst of adversity: Charles was required to swear to the covenant, and anointing was dropped as a superstitious and popish practice.