first time, above the Confessor's Chapel, the seats of the assembled Commons. There was a full attendance of the lay magnates of the realm, including even some who had voted for a Regency. Amongst the gifts was (revived from the coronation of Edward VI. and the installation of Cromwell) the presentation, continued from this time henceforward, of the Bible as the most valuable thing that this world affords.'1 The show of Bishops, indeed, was scanty. The Primate did not make his appearance; and his place was supplied by Compton. On one side of Compton, the paten was carried by Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, eminent among the seven confessors of the preceding year. On the other side Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, lately a member of the High Commission, had charge of the chalice [as Dean of Westminster]. Burnet, the junior prelate, preached [on the last words of David the son of Jesse 2] with all his wonted ability, and more than his wonted taste and judgment. His grave and eloquent discourse was polluted neither by adulation nor by malignity. He is said to have been greatly applauded; and it may well be believed that the animated peroration, in which he implored Heaven to bless the royal pair with long life and mutual love, with obedient subjects, wise counsellors, and faithful allies, with gallant fleets and armies, with victory, with peace, and finally with crowns more glorious and more durable than those which then glittered on the altar of the Abbey, drew forth the loudest hums of the Commons.3 There were, of course, bad omens observed by the Jacobites. The day was, for the first time, neither a Sunday nor a holyday. The King had no money for the accustomed offering of twenty guineas, and it was supplied by Danby. The way from the Abbey to the Palace was lined with Dutch soldiers. The medals had on their reverse a chariot, which was interpreted to be that on which Tullia drove over her father's Maskell, iii. p. cxix. Coronation Service of William and Mary. * Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, i. 521. 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, 4: He that ruleth * over man must be just, ruling in the ⚫ fear of God. And he shall be as the H light of the morning, when the sun 'riseth, even a morning without clouds; 'as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.' 3 Macaulay, iii. 118, 119. 4 Lamberty in Strickland, xii. 24. Corona tion of Anne. April 23, 1702. body. The more scurrilous lampoons represented a boxingmatch between the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London in the Abbey, and the Champion riding up the Hall on an ass which kicked over the royal tables.' The Champion's glove was reported to have been carried off by an old woman upon crutches. I heard the sound of his 'gauntlet when he flung it on the ground,' says a spectator; 'but as the light in Westminster Hall had utterly failed, no 'person could distinguish what was done."2 3 31. The coronation of Anne, the last Stuart sovereign, had been fixed long before to be, as that of her father and uncle, on St. George's Day; and so it took place, though William had been buried but ten days before. The Queen was carried, owing to her gout, from St. James's to the Abbey. The duties of Lord Great Chamberlain were performed by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Her train was carried by Lady Mary Wortley Montague. Archbishop Tenison crowned her.1 Sharp, Archbishop of York, preached the sermon on Isa. xlix. 23, Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers'-doubtless in the expectation, not altogether fruitless, of the advantages that the Church of England would derive from 'the bounty of good Queen Anne.' One important place was vacant. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, who should have supported her left side, was absent. For Ken was in his nonjuring retirement, and Kidder was in disgrace. It was remembered that the high offices of the Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine were represented by Jonathan Andrews and James Clark. The Queen received the homage of her husband, Prince George of Denmark, in the same form as that of the English nobles. 5 Macaulay, iii. 120. 2 Lamberty in Strickland. xi. 27. It is said that she had negotiated 48). But this could hardly have been tion of 1714. 32. George I.'s coronation was an awkward reconciliation Coronabetween the two contending factions and nations. The cere- George I. monies had to be explained by the ministers, who could not Oct. 20, speak German, to the King, who could not speak English, in Latin, which they must both have spoken very imperfectly. Hence the saying, that much bad language' passed between them.1 Bolingbroke and Oxford endeavoured to propitiate the new dynasty by assisting at the coronationAtterbury, by offering to the King the perquisites which he might have claimed as Dean.2 Bishop Talbot preached the sermon. The day was celebrated at Oxford by Jacobite degrees, and at Bristol by Jacobite riots.3 In this reign a permanent change was effected in one of the accompaniments of the coronation,-namely, the new arrangement of the Knights of the Bath. In the earlier coronations, it had been the practice of the sovereigns to create a number of knights before they started on their procession from the Tower. These knights being made in time of peace, were not enrolled in any existing order, and for a long period had no special designation; but, inasmuch as one of the most striking and characteristic parts of their admission was the complete ablution of their persons on the vigil of their knighthood, as an emblem of the cleanliness and purity of their future profession, they were called Knights of the Bath.' The King himself bathed on the occasion with them. They were completely undressed, placed in large baths, and then wrapped in soft blankets. The distinctive name first appears in the time of Henry V. The ceremony had always taken place at Westminster; the bath in the Painted or Prince's Chamber, and the vigils either before the 4 1 Chapters, p. 188. 2 Oldmixon, ii. 578. * Stanhope's England, vol. i. 167. The most remarkable bath' ever taken by a knight, for this purpose, was that of the Tribune Rienzi in the Nichols's History of the Orders, The Order of the Bath. 1725. 2 Confessor's Shrine, or (since the Reformation) in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Edward II. was thus knighted, at his father's coronation; and the crowd was so great that two knights were suffocated. Evelyn saw the bathing of the knights, pre'paratory to the coronation of Charles II., in the Painted Chamber.' The badge which they wore was emblematic of the sacredness of their Order-three garlands twisted together in honour of the Holy Trinity, and supposed to be derived from Arthur, founder of British chivalry. The motto -with a somewhat questionable orthodoxy-was, 'Tria 'numina juncta in uno.' The badge was altered in the reign of James I., who, by a no less audacious secularisation, left out numina, in order to leave the interpretation open for 'the junction in one' of the three kingdoms (tria regna) of England, Scotland, and Ireland.3 The Shamrock was added to the Rose and Thistle after the Union with Ireland, 1802.4 It occurred to Sir Robert Walpole to reconstruct the Order, by the limitation of its members to persons of merit, and by the title, thus fitly earned, of the most honourable.' It is said that his main object was to provide himself with a means of resisting the constant applications for the Order of the Garter. As such he offered it to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson. 'No,' she said, 'nothing but the 'Garter.' 'Madam,' said Walpole, 'they who take the Bath 'will the sooner have the Garter.' 5 The first knight created under the new statutes was William Duke of Cumberland, son of the future King, George II. The child-afterwards to grow up into the fierce champion of his house-was but four years old, and was, 'by 1 Brayley's Westminster, p. 97. 2 Diary, April 19, 1661. 3 Nichols, pp. 37, 38, 46. Ibid. pp. 192, 194. 5 Nichols, p. 39. Quoth King Robin, Our ribbons, Of St. Andrew's the Green, and St. George's the Blue; I must find out another of colour more gay, That will teach all my subjects with pride to obey.' (Swift's Works, xii. 369.) But he lations the Bath. 'reason of his tender age,' excused from the bath. presented his little sword at the altar; and the other knights were duly bathed in the Prince's Chamber, and kept their Instalvigil in Henry VII.'s Chapel, where also the installation took of the place, as has been the case ever since. The number of Knights of knights (36) was fixed to correspond with the number of the stalls in the Chapel. Every 20th of October-the anniversary of George I.'s coronation-a procession of the knights was to take place to the Chapel, with a solemn service.1 On occasion of an installation, they proceeded after the service, in their scarlet robes and white plumes, to a banquet in the Prince's Chamber. The royal cook stood at the door of the Abbey, with his cleaver, threatening to strike off the spurs from the heels of any knight who proved unworthy of his knightly vows.2 The highest functionary was the Great Master, an office first filled by Montagu, Earl of Halifax. In 1749 Lord Delamere asked the place for the Duke of Montagu, who died in that year; and from that time—to prevent the recurrence of such a precedent-no Great Master has been appointed, a Prince always acting on his behalf.3 Next to him ranks the Dean of Westminster, as Dean of the Order. The selection of a dean rather than a bishop arose from the circumstance that the statutes were framed on the model of those of the Order of the Thistle, which, being established in Scotland during the abeyance of Episcopacy, had no place for a prelate amongst its officers. According to this Presbyterian 1 Nichols, pp. 47, 52. The whole scene is represented in a picture painted by Canaletti for Bishop Wilcocks, in 1747, now in the Deanery. (See Chapter VI.) From this picture it would appear that on that occasion the procession came out by the west door. In 1803 (see Gent. Mag., lxxiii. pt. 1, p. 460) it entered and retired by Poets' Corner; and the cook accordingly stood, not (as in 1747) at the west entrance, asked whether there were any fees * Nichols, p. 82. |