At the Coronation of Elizabeth a variety of pageants were exhibited: the principal one was the presentation of a Bible.
“Between two hills, representing a flourishing and a decayed commonwealth, was made artificiallie one hollow place or cave, with doore and locke inclosed, out of the which, a little before the queene’s highnesse commyng thither, issued one personage, whose name was Time, apparalled as an old man, with a sieth in his hand, havinge winges artificiallie made, leading a personage of lesser stature than himselfe, which was finelie and well apparalled, all clad in white silke, and directly over her head was set her name and title in Latin and English, Temporis filia, the daughter of Time. Which two, as appointed, went forwards toward the south side of the pageants, where was another, and on her breast was written her proper name, which was Veritas, Truth, who held a book in her hand, upon the which was written Verbum Veritatis, the Word of Truth. And out of the south side of the pageant was cast a standing for a child, which should interpret the same pageant. Against whom when the queen’s maiestie came, he spake vnto her grace these sweet words:—
“‘This old man with a sieth
Old father Time they call,
And her his daughter Truth,
Which holdeth yonder booke:
Whome he out of his nooke
Hath brought foorth to us all,
From whence this manie yeares
She durst not once out looke.
“‘Now sith that Time againe
His daughter Truth hath brought,
We trust, ô worthie queene,
Thou wilt this truth embrace,
And sith thou vnderstandst
The good estate and naught,
We trust wealth thou wilt plant,
And barrenesse displace.
“‘But for to heale the sore
And cure that is not seene;
Which thing the booke of truth,
Dooth teach in writing plaine:
Shee doth present to thee
The same, ô worthie queene,
For that, that words doo flie,
But written dooth remaine.’
Thus the queene’s highnesse passed through the citie, which, without aine foreigne person, of itself beautified itselfe, and received her grace at all places, as hath been before mentioned, with most tender obedience and love, due to so gratious a queene and sovereigne a ladie.”
The alleged presence of Prince Charles at the Coronation feast of George III. is interesting and somewhat pathetic. Of kings in exile the chronicler of the Nineteenth Century will have a good deal to say. Volumes will be written on the shadowy Courts of Exile of our time. But the historian will find no exiled Prince more romantic in his youth, and until a life of disappointment, and with no aims or hopes, ruined him, than Charles. It was fifteen years after Culloden; he was at this time perilously near forty; had he been detected one fears that even George III. could not have saved him; he came over, he entered Westminster Hall with the crowd, and he saw his rival seated where he would have been but for his grandfather’s obstinacy. One gentleman recognized him and whispered, “Your Royal Highness is the last of all mortals whom I should expect to see here.”
That the glove thrown by the Champion was picked up, or that a glove was thrown to the Champion from an upper seat in the Hall, was also reported, but the thing seems doubtful.
As for the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, who has described it in more fitting language than Dean Stanley, afterward her friend and most faithful servant?
“The last Coronation doubtless still lives in the recollection of all who witnessed it. They will long remember the early summer morning, when, at break of day, the streets were thronged, and the whole capital awake—the first sight of the Abbey, crowded with the mass of gorgeous spectators, themselves a pageant—the electric shock through the whole mass, when the first gun announced that the Queen was on her way—and the thrill of expectation with which the iron rails seemed to tremble in the hands of the spectators, as the long procession closed with the entrance of the small figure, marked out from all beside by the regal train and attendants, floating like a crimson and silvery cloud behind her. At the moment when she first came within the full view of the Abbey, and paused, as if for breath, with clasped hands—as she moved on, to her place by the altar—as in the deep silence of the vast multitude the tremulous voice of Archbishop Howley could be faintly heard, even to the remotest corners of the Choir, asking for the recognition—as she sate immovable on the throne, when the crown touched her head, amid shout and trumpet and the roar of cannon, there must have been many who felt a hope that the loyalty which had waxed cold in the preceding reigns would once more revive, in a more serious form than it had, perhaps, ever worn before. Other solemnities they may have seen more beautiful, or more strange, or more touching, but none at once so gorgeous and so impressive, in recollections, in actual sight, and in promise of what was to be.”