The Chief Lardiner is also still entitled to notice, as having the care and management of the royal larder, and being duly careful of "the remainder of beef, mutton, venison, kids, lard, and other flesh; as also the fish, salt, &c. remaining in the larder," which fall to his share of the feast. This office has been attached to the manor of Scoulton, in Norfolk, from the reign of Henry II.
Nor should we omit to notice that the Lord Mayor and Citizens of London claim a snug "seat next the cupboard, on the left side of the hall," in virtue of their right to assist the Chief Butler in his duties at the coronation feast; or that his lordship serves the king after dinner with wine in a gold cup, having the cup and its cover for a fee. It is remarkable that the city claims a right to perform the same service, and to receive a similar fee, at the coronation of our queens: but as this escaped Her Majesty's law officers in the late argument for her coronation, we will not suppose it had any connexion with the strong desire for that event at the Mansion House. The mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of Oxford also claim to assist in the office of butlery, and receive the humbler reward of three maple cups.
With other presents—of grout or gruel, maple cups and napkins, to the king, gentle reader, we will suppose thou hast of late been sufficiently acquainted; but the conspicuous duty of the Barons of the Cinque Ports must not pass unnoticed.
These ports claim to furnish sixteen supporters of the royal canopy, in the following proportion, i.e.—Hastings, 3; Dover, 2; Hithe, 2; Rye, 2; Sandwich, 3; Rumney, 2; Winchelsea, 2. It is called in an account of the coronation of Richard I. "a silk umbraculum, borne on four lances:" but is now generally composed of cloth of gold, having a gilt silver bell at each of the four corners, which are supported by four staves of silver. The origin of this claim is involved in such remote antiquity, that a charter of Charles II. speaks of "the time of the contrary being never remembered to have been." We have seen that a crown, ascribed to the days of King Alfred, bore a couple of bells on its sides. These accompaniments of royal and pontifical dignity, appear to be of Eastern origin; but the modern application of them is curiously contrasted with the ancient design. At the doors of the tents or houses of grandees a bell or sonorous body was generally placed, that applicants for admission might announce their desires[65]: thus the Jewish High Priest wore bells round the lower border of his sacerdotal garments, "that his sound might be heard" on approaching the presence of God. It was clearly designed to indicate an application for the audience of a superior: but in the roar of cannon, the clatter of church bells, and the warm gratulations of such a people as received His Majesty on a late occasion, what tidings of any kind could the feeble bells of the canopy convey?
We shall notice but one other claim, that of the lord of the Isle of Man to present the king with the interesting present of two falcons on the day of his coronation. "Hawks and falcons were favourite subjects of amusement, and valuable presents in those days," says Mr. Turner[66], "when the country being much over-run with wood, all species of the feathered race must have abounded. A king of Kent begged of a friend abroad two falcons of such skill and courage as to attack cranes willingly, and seizing them to throw them on the ground. An Anglo-Saxon, by his will, gives two hawks (hafocas), and all his stag-hounds (head or hundas) to his natural lord." And similarly to this claim of the king on the lord of Man, "Ethelstan," according to this writer, "made North Wales furnish him with as many dogs as he chose, whose scent-pursuing noses might explore the haunts and coverts of the deer; he also exacted birds 'who knew how to hunt others along the atmosphere[67].'"
The Isle of Man was given in the reign of Henry IV. to the Northumberland family; on the forfeiture of that earldom Sir John Stanley became possessed of it, on the present tenure of presenting the kings of England with two falcons on the day of their coronation; and although the sovereignty was purchased from the Duke of Athol by the crown during the late king's reign, that nobleman still holds his manorial rights by the performance of this duty.
§ 4. ANECDOTES OF THE ACTUAL CEREMONIES OF THE CORONATION,
CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.
Although the ceremonies of the royal investiture form a spectacle for the eye of the passing age, rather than a subject of historical record, presenting any thing characteristic of our monarchs, traces of the "form and body of the time" have occasionally been left by them on the page of history, which it is now our design to present to the reader.