Appertaining to the great salt cellars there remain a residue of twelve gold salt spoons, the missing numbers no doubt having been lost, or annexed by excessively loyal guests.
Two very handsome gold tankards are in the Jewel House, which were added to the Royal plate by George IV. Viewed from a discreet distance the effect is very fine, but a closer inspection is not recommended to those who disapprove of realism in art. Queen Victoria, it is reported, disliked these flagons intensely.
The silver trumpets and gold maces are placed in the Jewel House as part of the Royal Treasure. There were originally sixteen silver trumpets, but one disappeared in a bygone reign and has never been recovered, so that fifteen only remain. They are the ordinary shape of a cavalry trumpet, and are used not only at the King’s Coronation, but also when proclamations are made by the Heralds in the King’s name. They were thus used, for instance, when the Heralds rode to various parts of London and proclaimed the Peace at the end of the Great War, in 1919. Pendent from each trumpet is a crimson silk banneret richly embroidered in gold, displaying the Royal arms with the cypher of the reigning monarch. At the Coronation of the sovereign the trumpeters blow a fanfare on these silver trumpets, the ritual for which in the old world wording of the Coronation service is thus given:
“The Archbishop of Canterbury speaks thus to the people: ‘Sirs, I here present unto you King George, the undoubted King of this realm: wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?’ The people signify their willingness by loud and repeated exclamations, all with one voice crying out ‘God save King George.’”
Then the trumpets sound a fanfare.
Of gold maces there are eight in number at the Tower. The oldest of these are two made for Charles II; there are two also which date from the reign of James II, whilst three were supplied for William and Mary, and one for George I. They are all of very similar pattern. A mace was originally a weapon used by cavalry soldiers, and many and various patterns of these may be seen in the Armoury in the White Tower. It was, in fact, a bludgeon with a short handle and a heavy head, sufficiently heavy to beat in the steel helmets worn in those days. The ceremonial mace has, instead of a battle-head, a crown, and this crown is to denote the delegation of the Royal authority. The Sergeant-at-arms carrying the mace before the Speaker, and placing it on rests before him in the House of Commons, thus conveys the Royal Assent to the assembly. In the same way mayors of towns have crowned maces borne before with the same intention. When policemen, or peelers as they were then called, were first incorporated, they were served out with truncheons which were miniature maces with a Royal crown at the head of each. These crowns, however, were not very practical weapons with which to knock a burglar on the head; indeed, they generally broke off, which was an untoward catastrophe, so they were discontinued. Those who were in the streets of London when the Peace proclamation was made at the close of the Great War, will have noticed that sergeants-at-arms bearing their maces accompanied the heralds and trumpeters, thus signifying that the whole ceremony was with the King’s authority.
At the coronation of a sovereign the sergeants-at-arms, whose number seems to have varied in the course of centuries, carry their maces and form part of the procession. Originally the mace-bearers were a corps of twenty-four knights, or gentlemen of high degree, who formed a sort of bodyguard to the King, and thus they were in the reign of Richard Cœur de Lion. As late as the reign of Charles II the sergeants-at-arms bearing their maces are shown mounted on horses. At the present day a sergeant-at-arms walks and carries his mace, no mean weight, as those who have seen them stagger after a long day may well imagine. Thirty-four pounds do they each weigh.
We have now accounted for all the secular plate in the Tower pertaining to royalty, and proceed to describe the ecclesiastical plate used at the coronations of our monarchs, or on certain occasions during their reigns, either at Westminster, or at St. Peter ad Vincula, a Royal chapel within the Tower.