Archbishop Cranmer's address. young King the substitution, which he had all but effected,' of the Bible for St. George in the insignia of the Order of the Garter. There was no sermon; but the short address of Cranmer, considering the punctiliousness with which the ceremony had been performed, and the importance of his position as the Father of the Reformed Church of England, is perhaps the boldest and most pregnant utterance ever delivered in the Abbey: Most dread and Royal Sovereign!-The promises your Highness hath made here, at your coronation, to forsake the devil and all his works, are not to be taken in the Bishop of Rome's sense, when you commit anything distasteful to that see, to hit your Majesty in the teeth, as Pope Paul the Third, late Bishop of Rome, sent to your royal father, saying, 'Didst thou not promise, at our permission of thy ' coronation, to forsake the devil and all his works, and dost thou run 'to heresy? For the breach of this thy promise, knowest thou not 'that it is in our power to dispose of thy sword and sceptre to whom 'we please?' We, your Majesty's clergy, do humbly conceive that this promise reacheth not at your Highness's sword, spiritual or temporal, or in the least at your Highness swaying the sceptre of this your dominion, as you and your predecessors have had them from God. Neither could your ancestors lawfully resign up their crowns to the Bishop of Rome or his legates, according to their ancient oaths then taken upon that ceremony. The Bishops of Canterbury, for the most part, have crowned your predecessors, and anointed them Kings of this land; yet it was not in their power to receive or reject them, neither did it give them authority to prescribe them conditions to take or to leave their crowns, although the Bishops of Rome would encroach upon your predecessors by their act and oil, that in the end they might possess those bishops with an interest to dispose of their crowns at their pleasure. But the wiser sort will look to their claws, and clip them. The solemn rites of coronation have their ends and utility, yet neither direct force nor necessity: they be good admonitions to put kings in mind of their duty to God, but no increasement of their Anstis's Order of the Garter, i. 438. For the story of the King's remark on the Bible, in 'Chapters' (p. 174), I can find no authority. 2 Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, i. 204; Harleian MS. 2308. Its genuineness is contested in Hook's Lives of the Archbishops, ii. 232. dignity for they be God's anointed—not in respect of the oil which the bishop useth, but in consideration of their power, which is ordained; of the sword, which is authorised; of their persons, which are elected of God, and endued with the gifts of His Spirit, for the better ruling and guiding of His people. The oil, if added, is but a ceremony: if it be wanting, that king is yet a perfect monarch notwithstanding, and God's anointed, as well as if he was inoiled. Now for the person or bishop that doth anoint a king, it is proper to be done by the chiefest. But if they cannot, or will not, any bishop may perform this ceremony. To condition with monarchs upon these ceremonies, the Bishop of Rome (or other bishops owning his supremacy) hath no authority: but he may faithfully declare what God requires at the hands of kings and rulers—that is, religion and virtue. Therefore not from the Bishop of Rome, but as a messenger from my Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall most humbly admonish your Royal Majesty what things your Highness is to perform. Your Majesty is God's Vicegerent and Christ's Vicar within your own dominions, and to see, with your predecessor Josias, God truly worshipped, and idolatry destroyed; the tyranny of the Bishops of Rome banished from your subjects, and images removed. These acts be signs of a second Josias, who reformed the Church of God in his days. You are to reward virtue, to revenge sin, to justify the innocent, to relieve the poor, to procure peace, to repress violence, and to execute justice throughout your realms. For precedents on those kings who performed not these things, the old law shows how the Lord revenged His quarrel; and on those kings who fulfilled these things, He poured forth His blessings in abundance. For example, it is written of Josiah, in the Book of the Kings, thus: 'Like ' unto him there was no king that turned to the Lord with all his heart, ' according to all the law of Moses, neither after him arose there any 'like him.' This was to that prince a perpetual fame of dignity, to remain to the end of days. Being bound by my functions to lay these things before your Royal Highness the one as a reward, if you fulfil; the other as a judgment from God, if you neglect them-yet I openly declare, before the living God, and before these nobles of the land, that I have no commission to denounce your Majesty deprived, if your Highness miss in part, or in whole, of these performances: much less to draw up indentures between God and your Majesty, or to say you forfeit your crown, with a clause for the Bishop of Rome, as have been done by your Majesty's predecessors, King John and his son Henry, of Mary. The Procession, Sept. 30, 1553. this land. The Almighty God, of His mercy, let the light of His countenance shine upon your Majesty, grant you a prosperous and happy reign, defend you, and save you; and let your subjects say, Amen. 'God save the King!' 1 23. Mary's coronation was stamped with all the strange vicissitudes of her accession. Now first rose into view the difficulties, which in various forms have reappeared since, respecting the Coronation Oath. The Council proposed to bind the Queen, by an especial clause, to maintain the independence of the English Church; and she, on the other hand, was meditating how she could introduce an adjective sub silentio, and intended to swear only that she would observe the 'just' laws and constitutions. But these grounds could not be avowed. The Queen was told that her passage through the streets would be unsafe until her accession had been sanctioned by Parliament, and the Act repealed by which she was illegitimatised. With Paget's help she faced down these objections, and declared that she would be crowned at once; she appointed the 1st of October for the ceremony; on the 28th she sent for the Council, to attempt an appeal to their generosity. She spoke to them at length of her past life and sufferings, of the conspiracy to set her aside, and of the wonderful Providence which had preserved her and raised her to the throne: her only desire, she said, was to do her duty to God and to her subjects; and she hoped (turning, as she spoke, pointedly to Gardiner) that they would not forget their loyalty, and would stand by her in her extreme necessity. Observing them hesitate, she cried, 'My Lords, on my knees I implore you! '—and flung herself on the ground at their feet. The most skilful acting could not have served Mary's purpose better than this outburst of natural emotion; the spectacle of their kneeling sovereign overcame for a time the scheming passions of her ministers; they were affected, burst into tears, and withdrew their opposition to her wishes. On the 30th, the procession from the Tower to Westminster through the streets was safely accomplished. The retinues of the Lords protected the Queen from insult, and London put on its usual 'Strype's Cranmer, i. 205. In Harleian MS. 2308, the form of acclamation was Jesus save King Edward. outward signs of rejoicing; St. Paul's spire was rigged with yards like a ship's mast [an adventurous Dutchman outdoing the Spaniard at Edward VI.'s coronation, and sitting astride on the weathercock, five hundred feet in the air].' The Hot Gospeller, half-recovered from his gaol-fever, got out of bed to see the spectacle, and took his station at the west end of St. Paul's. The procession passed so close as almost to touch him, and one of the train, seeing him muffled up, and looking more dead than alive, said, 'There is one that loveth 'Her Majesty well, to come out in such condition.' The Queen turned her head and looked at him. To hear that any one of her subjects loved her just then was too welcome to be overlooked.2 Oct. 1, On the next day the ceremony in the Abbey was performed, The Corowithout fresh burdens being laid upon Mary's conscience. The nation, three chief prelates, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 1553. and the Bishop of London, were prisoners in the Tower. Gardiner therefore, as Bishop of Winchester, officiated, 'without 'any express right or precedent,' as Archbishop Parker afterwards indignantly wrote.3 The sermon was by Bishop Day, who had preached at her brother's funeral. She had been alarmed lest Henry IV.'s holy oil should have lost its efficacy through the interdict; and, accordingly, a fresh supply was sent through the Imperial Ambassador, blessed by the Bishop of Arras. She had also feared lest even St. Edward's Chair had been polluted, by having been the seat of her Protestant brother; and accordingly, though it is expressly stated to have been brought out, another chair was sent by the Pope, in which she sate, and which is now said to be in the cathedral of Winchester.5 Anne of Cleves was present, and also Elizabeth. The Princess complained to the French Ambassador of the weight of her coronet. Have patience,' said Noailles, and before long you will exchange it for a crown.'6 24. That time soon arrived. Taylor, p. 287; Holinshed. De Ant. Brit. p. 509. • Burnet, Hist. Ref. ii. 251. The coronation of Elizabeth, Elizabeth. doubt is expressed (in Gent. Mag. 1838, • Froude, vi. 102. The Procession, Jan. 14, 1559. like that of her sister, had its own special characteristics. The day (January 15) was fixed in deference to her astrologer, Dee, who pronounced it a day of good luck; and it was long observed as an anniversary in the Abbey.' The procession was on the day before. As she passed out to her carriage under the gates of the Tower, fraught to her with such stern remembrances, she stood still, looked up to heaven, and said— O Lord, Almighty and Everlasting God, I give Thee most 'humble thanks, that Thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare 'me to behold this joyful day; and I acknowledge that Thou hast ' dealt wonderfully and mercifully with me. As Thou didst with Thy 'servant Daniel the prophet, whom Thou deliveredst out of the den, 'from the cruelty of the raging lions, even so was I overwhelmed, 'and only by Thee delivered. To Thee, therefore, only be thanks, 'honour, and praise for ever. Amen.' She kissed she would She then took her seat, and passed on-passed on through thronged streets and crowded balconies, amidst a people to whom her accession was as the rising of the sun. Away in the country the Protestants were few and the Catholics many. But the Londoners were the firstborn of the Reformation, whom the lurid fires of Smithfield had worked only into fiercer convictions. The aldermen wept for joy as she went by. Groups of children waited for her with their little songs at the crosses and conduits. Poor women, though it was midwinter, flung nosegays into her lap. In Cheapside the Corporation presented her with an English Bible. it, thanking the City for their goodly gift,' and saying 'diligently read therein.' One of the crowd, recollecting who first gave the Bible to England, exclaimed, 'Remember old King Harry 'the Eighth!' and a gleam of light passed over Elizabeth's face—‘a 'natural child,' says Holinshed,' who at the very remembrance of ' her father's name took so great a joy, that all men may well think 'that as she rejoiced at his name whom the realm doth still hold of so worthy memory, so in her doings she will resemble the same.' 2 The pageants in the City were partly historical-partly theological: her grandparents and her parents; the eight Beatitudes; Time with his daughter Truth-a seemly and meet 6 1 See Chapter VI. Froude, vi. 38, 39. |