CHAPTER V.
THE ABBEY—III.
The history of the successive Coronations performed in Westminster Abbey from that of the Conqueror to the present day—especially those which were picturesque—may be found in the pages of Stanley. There may be read the dramatic Coronation of William the Conqueror; the joy of the people at the Crowning of Queen Maude; the murder of the Jews at the Coronation of Richard; here will be found Walpole’s account of the Coronation of George III.; and the somewhat unworthy note on the perspiring of George IV.
There are other points connected with the Coronations which may interest us. Thus, the creation of knights at every Coronation was a custom both graceful and symbolic. The candidate, after a bath, watched his arms all night; in the morning he confessed and heard mass; he thus entered upon his knightly duties cleansed and pure—body and soul; after the mass the new king conferred knighthood and presented him with robes. At the Coronation of Henry VI. there were thirty-six knights thus created; at that of Edward IV., thirty-two; at that of Charles II., sixty-eight. The part of the ceremony of a Coronation which most pleased the people was the procession from the Tower to Westminster. That of Henry IV. is thus described by Froissart:
“The duke of Lancaster left the Tower this Sunday after dinner, on his return to Westminster; he was bare-headed, and had round his neck the order of the king of France. The prince of Wales, six dukes, six earls, eighteen barons, accompanied him; and there were, of knights and other nobility, from eight to nine hundred horse with the procession. The duke was dressed in a jacket of the German fashion, of cloth of gold, mounted on a white courser, with a blue garter on his left leg. He passed through the streets of London, which were all handsomely decorated with tapestries and other rich hangings; there were nine fountains in Cheapside, and other streets he passed through, which perpetually ran with white and red wines. He was escorted by prodigious numbers of gentlemen, with their servants in liveries and badges; and the different companies of London were led by their wardens, clothed in their proper livery, and with ensigns of their trade. The whole cavalcade amounted to six thousand horse, which escorted the duke from the Tower to Westminster.”
Or in the words of Shakespeare:
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,
Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,
With slow but stately pace, kept on his course:
While all tongues cried, God save thee, Bolingbroke!
You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage: and that all the walls
With painted imagery had said at once
Jesu preserve thee! welcome Bolingbroke!
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck,
Bespoke them thus; I thank you, countrymen;
And thus still doing, thus he passed along.[5]
Another magnificent procession was that in which Elizabeth, Henry VII.’s Queen, and, in the minds of many, the lawful heiress of the Crown, received her Coronation, when the King perceived that there would be discontent until that honor was paid to her. But she was not crowned, as Mary II. was afterward crowned, as Queen Regnant, but as the Queen Consort. This nice distinction, however, was not comprehended by the people.
The Queen came first from Greenwich to the Tower by water: “There was attending upon her there the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of the city, and divers and many worshipful commoners, chosen out of every craft, in their liveries, in barges freshly furnished with banners and streamers of silk, richely beaton with the ‘armes and bagges’ of their crafts; and in especial a barge called the bachelors’ barge, garnished and apparelled passing all other; wherein was ordeynid a great red dragon spouting flames of fire into the Thames, and many other gentlemanly pageants, well and curiously devised to do her highness sport and pleasure with. And her grace, thus royally apparelled and accompanied, and also furnished in every behalf with trumpets, claryons, and other mynstrelles as apperteynid and was fitting to her estate Royal, came from Greenwich aforesaid and landed at the Tower wharf and entered into the Tower.”
Next day the court went in procession from the Tower to Westminster, the Queen dressed in white cloth of gold of damask, with a mantle of the same furred with ermine. She reclined on a litter and wore her fair yellow hair hanging down behind her back, “with a calle of pipes over it.” Four knights carried over her a canopy of cloth of gold; four peeresses rode behind her on gray palfreys; the streets were cleaned and swept; the houses were hung with tapestry and red cloth; the crafts of London in their liveries lined the way, and singing children came dressed as angels, singing welcomes as the Queen was borne along.
The same kind of procession was that of Henry VIII. and Queen Katharine. In addition, at the end of Old Change stood virgins in white holding branches of white wax, while priests in copes with crosses of silver censed the King and Queen. Another procession much the same called forth similar rejoicings when Anne Boleyn was carried from the Tower to Westminster, and equal popular rejoicing was shown when Queen Mary rode through the City to her Coronation.