No. 3. The Sceptre
Is a more ancient symbol of royalty than the crown. Homer speaks of "sceptred kings"—σκηπτουχοι βασιληεσ; and the book of Genesis, "of far elder memory," of a sceptre, as denoting a king or supreme governor[14]. There is a very early form of delivering this ensign of authority preserved in the Saxon coronation services; and the coins and seals of succeeding reigns usually place it in the hand of our monarchs. Very anciently, too, our kings received at their coronations a sceptre for the right hand, surmounted by a cross; and for the left, sometimes called the verge, one that terminated in a globe, surmounted by a dove. The two great symbols of the Christian religion are thus professedly embraced; but the monarch never appears with two sceptres except on this occasion.
No. 4. The Ampulla, or Golden Eagle
And the "holy oil" which is poured from it, are connected, like the royal chair, with some of the miracles that no one now believes, and with some interesting historical facts.
Amongst the honours bestowed by the Virgin on St. Thomas à Becket, (according to a MS. in the Cotton Library,) he received from our Lady's own hands, at Sens, in France, a golden eagle, and a small phial of stone or glass, containing an unction, on whose virtues she largely expatiated. Being then in banishment, he was directed to give them in charge to a monk of Poictiers, who hid them in St. Gregory's church at that place, where they were discovered in the reign of Edward III., with a written account of the vision; and, being delivered to the Black Prince, were deposited safely in the Tower. Henry IV. is said to be the first prince anointed with these vessels.
"Holy oil" still retains its use, if not its virtue, in our coronations. The king was formerly anointed on the head, the bowings of the arms, on both shoulders, and between the shoulders, on the breast, and on the hands; but the ceremonials of the last two coronations only prescribe the anointing of the head, breast, and hands. In these, too, nothing is said of the "consecration" of the oil, which seems anciently to have been performed on the morning of the coronation[15].
Historically, the custom of anointing kings is to be traced to the times of the Jewish judges; the consecration of one of whose descendants, Abimelech (before noticed), connects the subject with the earliest and one of the most beautiful fables of the East—that of the trees going forth to anoint a king[16]. Selden regards this fable as a proof "that anointing of kings was of known use in the eldest times," and "that solemnly to declare one to be a king, and to anoint a king, in the Eastern parts, were but synonymies[17]." The elegant allusion to the olive tree, "honouring both God and man" with its "fatness" or oil, should not escape us, as corroborating this conjecture. This poem is dated by the learned antiquary "about 200 years before the beginning of the [Jewish] kingdom in Saul."
We have several instances in Scripture of the inauguration of the Jewish kings by anointing, and of its being performed at the express command of God[18]—a circumstance which was held to communicate an official sanctity to their persons, their attire, &c. The noble David twice spares the life of his bitterest enemy, Saul, upon this ground.—"Jehovah shall smite him," he says; "or his day shall come to die; or he shall descend into the battle, and perish"—"Who can stretch forth his hand against Jehovah's anointed, and be guiltless[19]?"—and he finely alludes to the general reverence of his country for these appointments, when he exclaims, in his memorable ode over his fallen rival, "The shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though it had not been anointed with oil!"
With the spread of Christianity, or rather of the papal domination, over the kingdoms of western Europe, came the adoption of this rite into the coronation ceremonies of its princes. It at once increased the influence of the church, and surrounded the monarch with a popular veneration. The three distinct anointings yet retained (i.e. on the head, breast, and hands or arms,) were said by Becket to indicate glory, holiness, and fortitude: another prelate, one of the greatest scholars of his age, assured our Henry III., that as all former sins were washed away in baptism, "so also by this unction[20]."
"Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king,"—