[240] "Ejusdem civitatis sumens dominium ... totiusque civitatis suscepit dominium," etc. (Cont. Flor. Wig.).
[241] Journ. B. A. A., xxxi. 382, 383.
[242] It is very singular that Mr. Freeman failed to perceive this parallel, since he himself writes of Henry (1100). "The Gemót of election was held at Winchester while the precedents of three reigns made it seem matter of necessity that the unction and coronation should be done at Westminster" (Will. Rufus, ii. 348). Such an admission as this is sufficient to prove my case.
[243] Early Plantagenets, 22.
[244] Const. Hist., i. 339.
[245] Norm. Conq., v. 303, 304. The footnote to this statement ("William of Malmesbury seems distinctly to exclude a coronation," etc., etc.) has been already given (ante, p. 62). Mr. Birch confusing, as we have seen, the reception of the Empress with her election, naturally looks, like Mr. Freeman, to the former as the time when she ought to have been crowned: "The crown of England's sovereigns was handed over to her, a kind of seizin representing that the kingdom of England was under the power of her hands (although it does not appear that any further ceremony connected with the rite of coronation was then performed)" (Journ. B. A. A., xxxi. p. 378). This assumes that the crown was "handed over to her" at a "ceremony" in the cathedral, whereas, as I explained, my own view is that she obtained it with the royal castle.
[246] Norm. Conq., v. p. 305.
[247] Gesta, 79. In the word "inthronizandam," I contend, is to be found the confirmation of my theory, based on comparison and induction, of an intended coronation at Westminster. So far as I know, attention has never been drawn to it before.