Читать книгу The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey - G. E. Troutbeck - Страница 5

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“Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king; and all the people rejoiced and said: God save the king, Long live the king, May the king live for ever.”—1 Kings i. 39, 40.

The greatest and most important ceremonies which have taken place in Westminster Abbey are, of course, the Coronations of our Kings and Queens, and so we will speak first of this most interesting part of the Abbey history.

Such a wonderful succession of coronations has never been seen in any other building in the world. Ever since 1066 our sovereigns have been crowned close to the spot where Edward the Confessor was first buried, and where the Saxon Harold and Norman William stood more than 800 years ago.

[D. Weller. CORONATION CHAIR, WITH SWORD AND SHIELD OF STATE.

Dean Stanley tells us that the coronation-rite of the Kings of Britain is the oldest in Europe, and that the inauguration of Aidan, King of the Dalriadic Scots, by St. Columba, in the sixth century, is the oldest ceremony of the kind in Christendom. It is good for us to remember these days of old, for it helps us to understand much better what is going on now, and teaches us the meaning of many of the solemn services and ceremonies of Church and State.

The Coronation Service has been slightly changed, of course, from time to time, but its chief parts are much the same as they were when William the Conqueror was crowned at Westminster in 1066. From very early times the coronations had been partly religious and partly civil ceremonies, and had taken place in a church, the day chosen being either a Sunday or some high festival, like Christmas Day, Whitsunday, or a Saint’s Day. The Saxon Kings were usually crowned in Winchester Cathedral. Canute was crowned at St. Paul’s.

Before speaking of any of the old Westminster Coronations, it will be a good plan to describe, very shortly, what is done at Coronations in our own day. We will take the little book of the “Form and Order for the Coronation of King Edward and Queen Alexandra,” and see what it says.

To begin with, the Sacred Oil for the anointing of the King was consecrated in the Confessor’s Chapel, and then placed on the altar. The Litany was said, and a hymn was sung as the clergy, carrying the Regalia, went down to the west door to meet the King and Queen.

When the King and Queen came into church the choir sang an anthem beginning with the words: “I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord.”

The Westminster scholars have for long years had the right of acclaiming the King and Queen at the Coronations, and their shouts of “Vivat Regina Alexandra,” “Vivat Rex Edwardus,” were heard in the anthem as the sovereigns, first the Queen and then the King, walked up the Abbey.

At Coronations a great platform, called the Theatre, is put up, and covers a wide space in front of the high altar. On this platform the Coronation Chair (King Edward’s Chair, as it is called) is placed, and also the thrones. Here all the principal people stand, and here the whole great ceremony is performed.

When the King and Queen reached this platform the Archbishop of Canterbury turned to the people, and asked for what is called the Recognition, that is to say, he asked whether the people of England were willing to accept the King, and to do him homage. They answered by shouting out: “God save King Edward.”

The Regalia were then placed on the altar, and the Archbishop began the Communion Service. After the Creed the actual Coronation began. The King first took the solemn Oath to observe the statutes, laws, and customs of the land, and to cause “law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all his judgments.” He also promised to maintain and preserve the Church of England as by law established. The King then kissed the Book of the Gospels, and signed the Oath. The Archbishop then began the beautiful hymn “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,” sung as a prayer for the blessing of the Holy Spirit on the King and Queen. After the hymn, the King, sitting in the Coronation Chair, on the Stone of Scone, was solemnly anointed with the Holy Oil. Then the Lord Great Chamberlain girt the King with the Sword of State, and after that the Sub-Dean of Westminster, acting for the Dean, put on him the Imperial Robe, and the Archbishop presented him with the Orb. The King then received the Ring, as a sign of kingly dignity, and then the two Sceptres,—the sceptre with the cross and the sceptre with the dove.

After this came the putting on of the Crown itself, which was brought by the Sub-Dean and placed on the King’s head by the Archbishop. The people again shouted “God save the King”; the peers put on their coronets; the trumpets sounded, and the great guns at the Tower were fired off.

The Archbishop then presented the Holy Bible to the King, saying these beautiful words: “Our Gracious King, we present you with this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is wisdom; this is the royal law; these are the lively oracles of God.”

After this came the Benediction. The King was then led to his throne, and received the homage of all the princes and peers, the Prince of Wales being the first to do homage to his father. When that splendid ceremony was over the Queen was crowned by the Archbishop of York. As Queen Alexandra was Queen-Consort, she did not sit in King Edward’s Chair, as of course Queen Victoria did, but she knelt at the altar-step to be crowned. As she was led to her throne she made a deep obeisance to the King, who rose and bowed to her.

The actual Coronation being finished, the Archbishop proceeded with the Communion Service, and the King and Queen received the Holy Communion, which was administered to them by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean of Westminster.

At the end of the service the “Te Deum” was sung, and the whole assembly cheered as the King walked down the Abbey, in his Royal Robe and Crown, and bearing the Sceptre and Orb.

This is an outline of the Coronation Service of King Edward VII, and it is especially interesting because, in spite of some few small changes, it shows us what the Coronations of our Kings have been like ever since the Confessor’s days. It may be well just to explain what is meant by the word “Regalia,” because the history of the Regalia carries us back to times even before Edward the Confessor, as Offa, King of the Mercians, is said to have placed the Regalia and Coronation Robes in the church at Thorney Isle. We should notice that the Regalia, that is, the crowns, sceptres, and orbs, had Anglo-Saxon names. The King’s crown was called the crown of Alfred, or of St. Edward; the Queen’s crown was called the crown of Editha, wife of Edward the Confessor. The sceptre with the dove was a remembrance of the peaceful days of the Confessor’s reign, after the Danes were driven out. The Coronation oath used to be taken on a copy of the Gospels which was said to have belonged to Athelstane. The orb appears in the famous Bayeux tapestry, showing that it must have been used in Saxon days.

Now let us turn for a little to some of the Coronations of particular Kings. As we have seen, the Saxon Kings were usually crowned at Winchester, as Edward the Confessor himself was.

The first Coronation to take place in the great church founded and built by the Confessor was that of Harold the Saxon, son of Earl Godwin, and brother-in-law of the Confessor. There was much anxiety in the country about the succession, and Harold was crowned at Westminster in great haste and confusion the day after the Confessor died, and the very day of his funeral, January 6th, 1066.

The next coronation was indeed different, for many things had happened in England meanwhile. As we all know, William Duke of Normandy, cousin of Edward the Confessor, had claimed the throne of England by right of inheritance. He had sailed over to England, had defeated and slain Harold at the Battle of Hastings (or Senlac), and was now King. When we remember that Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in St. Peter’s at Rome by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, it makes it all the more interesting to think that the day chosen for the Conqueror’s Coronation was also Christmas Day. He stood there in the Abbey, close to the grave of the Confessor, having on one side of him the Saxon Aldred, Archbishop of York, and on the other the Norman Bishop of Coutances. Archbishop Stigand, of Canterbury, had fled.

In the church were many of the Saxon people of London, and mixed with them were a number of Normans. Outside, the Norman horsemen kept guard. When the people began to acclaim the King in the usual English fashion, the Norman soldiers did not understand what was going on, and thought it was a riot. Being afraid of what might happen, they set fire to some of the thatched buildings near the Abbey. The crowd rushed out in alarm, leaving William alone in the church, with the bishops and other clergy. A terrible tumult followed, and even the Conqueror trembled. The rest of the Coronation was hurriedly finished, Archbishop Aldred making William promise to defend the Saxons before he would put the crown on his head.

The Conqueror, like the Saxon Kings before him and the Norman Kings after him, used to appear in church on the great festivals wearing his crown.

From this time onward the Coronations always took place in Westminster Abbey. All the Regalia were kept in the Treasury at Westminster until the time of Henry VIII, and some of them until the time of the Commonwealth. It was part of the duty of the Abbot of Westminster to instruct and prepare the King for his Coronation. Further, it was settled by Lanfranc, the first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, and not the Archbishop of York, was to have the right to crown the King.

The next Coronation of special interest is that of Henry III, the King who built the present Abbey Church. When Henry succeeded to the throne in 1216, after the sad and unfortunate reign of his father, King John, London was in the hands of the Dauphin of France, Prince Louis. Henry, therefore, could not be crowned at Westminster, and was first crowned at Gloucester, by the Bishop of Winchester, not with the crown, but with a chaplet or garland. It will be remembered that King John’s baggage and treasures, with the Regalia, had been swept away by the tide as he was crossing the Wash.

[W. Rice, F.R.P.S. NORTH AMBULATORY, WITH TOMBS OF HENRY III. AND EDWARD I.

It was not until Whitsunday 1220 that Henry was solemnly crowned in the Abbey by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was the last King to be crowned in the Confessor’s Norman Church. The day before his Coronation he had laid the foundation-stone of the Lady Chapel, that beautiful chapel which once stood where Henry VII’s Chapel now stands.

Edward I was in the Holy Land when his father died, and therefore was not crowned until the year 1274, when he and his beloved Queen, Eleanor of Castile, were crowned together,—the first King and Queen who had been jointly crowned. At this Coronation five hundred great horses, which had been ridden by the princes and nobles, were let loose among the crowd for any one to catch who could.

The Coronation of Edward I brings two very interesting things to our mind. These two things are, first, that Edward I was the King who brought the Stone of Scone from Scotland to England; and secondly, that it was he who ordered the present Coronation Chair to be made. This Coronation Chair, which was made in 1307 to contain the Stone of Scone, is perhaps the most precious thing in all the Abbey, excepting the Confessor’s shrine.

Some beautiful old stories are told about the Stone of Scone. One of these stories says that it was the Stone on which Jacob laid his head in Bethel when he had the wonderful vision of angels ascending and descending on the ladder which reached from earth to heaven. The sons of Jacob are said to have taken this sacred stone with them into Egypt, whence it was carried in after years to Spain, and then to Ireland, where it was used at the coronations of the Irish Kings. It was placed on the sacred hill of Tara, and was called “Lia Fail,” or the “Stone of Destiny.” If a true King sat upon it to be crowned, the stone made a noise like thunder, but if the King elect was only a pretender the Stone was silent. One story tells us that the Stone was carried across from Ireland to Scotland about 330 B.C., by Fergus, the founder of the Scottish monarchy, and that it was placed, first at Dunstaffnage, and then at Iona. In A.D. 850 it was brought by Kenneth II to Scone, where it was enclosed in a wooden chair, as it now is at Westminster. The Kings of Scotland, from Malcolm IV to John Baliol, sat on the Stone to be crowned. Edward I himself is said to have been crowned King of Scotland on the Sacred Stone of Scone after he had defeated John Baliol at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296. Whether this was so or not, Edward I carried off the Stone and the Scottish Regalia to Westminster, and placed them near the Confessor’s shrine.

In the last year of his reign Edward I ordered a chair to be made in which the Stone was to be enclosed, and in which the Kings of England were to sit to be crowned. In this very chair every English sovereign has been crowned, from Edward II to Edward VII. It has only once been taken out of the Abbey, and that was when it was taken into Westminster Hall for the inauguration of Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Realm on December 16th, 1653.

In Edward III’s reign the Scots tried very hard to get the Stone back again, and the King, who wished to content them, very nearly allowed them to have it. But the people of London would not hear of such a thing, and, as an old writer says, “would not suffer the Stone to depart from themselves.”

We must now speak of some other Coronations. Richard II’s Coronation was very splendid, and the ceremony was so long and tiring that the King, who was still quite a boy, fainted from fatigue. Two interesting ceremonies began at this Coronation. One was the first appearance of the “Champion,” as he was called. The Champion was a knight who threw down his glove as a challenge to any one who disputed the King’s claim to the throne. The last appearance of the Champion was at the Coronation of George IV, in 1820, so this curious old custom lasted for more than four hundred years.

Again, Richard II was the first King to be accompanied at his Coronation by a body of Knights, the Knights who were afterwards called the “Knights of the Bath.” It became the custom for the King to create a number of Knights on the eve of his Coronation, and these Knights accompanied him in his procession. Part of the solemn ceremony of receiving Knighthood was the taking of a bath, as a sign of purity both of body and soul.

The Knights of the Bath once used to be installed in Henry VII’s Chapel, and the Dean of Westminster is always the Dean of the Order. However, no Knights have been installed at Westminster for a long time past. Many of the old banners of the Knights of the Bath still hang over the stalls in Henry VII’s Chapel, just as the banners of the Knights of the Garter hang in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. On the backs of the stalls are the coats-of-arms of the Knights, emblazoned on gilded metal plates.

But to return for a moment to the Coronation of Richard II. It has an especial interest for Westminster, as the Abbey possesses a most valuable book, called the “Liber Regalis,” which was drawn up by Abbot Litlington, and which gives the whole order of the Coronation service. This has been followed, more or less, at all the Coronations since that time.

We must now pass over nearly two centuries, and pause to think of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, remembering that it was she who finally founded Westminster Abbey as a Collegiate Church, and who re-established the School much on the present plan. Elizabeth’s accession was a very happy event for her subjects, and there were great rejoicings everywhere. Her Coronation was the last at which the ancient Latin Coronation Mass was celebrated, and the Abbot of Westminster took his part in the service for the last time. His place is now, of course, taken by the Dean, or by the Sub-Dean, should the Dean be ill or unable to attend. At Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation the Litany was said in English, instead of in Latin, and the Epistle and Gospel were read in both Latin and English, showing that, for the future, our own English language was going to be used for our Church services.

At the Coronation of Charles I several things happened which people considered unlucky, and as a sign that misfortunes were coming upon the King. To begin with, Charles wore white instead of the usual red or purple, and this was thought to be a bad omen, as if meaning that the King was to be a victim, there having been some old prophecy of trouble for a “White King.” Then the sceptre with the dove was broken, and as the dove could not be mended without the mark being seen, a new dove had to be made. In the later part of the day a shock of earthquake was felt. All these things were regarded as signs of coming evil, and were no doubt remembered in the sad days of the Civil War, and at the time of the King’s imprisonment and death.

Westminster is a Royal foundation, and the old Royalist spirit always remained strong there, especially among the boys of Westminster School; and this in spite of the changes made at the Abbey by the Puritans during the Commonwealth.

The famous Archbishop Laud, the friend of Charles I, was one of the twelve Prebendaries of Westminster, and took the Dean’s place at Charles I’s Coronation.

Charles II and James II were both crowned on St. George’s Day, the festival of the Patron Saint of England.

William and Mary were crowned as joint sovereigns, Mary sitting in a Chair of State made for the occasion, a chair which is now to be seen in Henry VII’s Chapel. She also had the sword and other symbols of sovereignty given to her, just as her husband, King William, had.

The Coronation of George IV is remembered partly for its magnificence, but chiefly, perhaps, on account of the sad and foolish attempt to get into the Abbey made by poor Queen Caroline, and the manner in which she was turned away from the doors.

The Coronation of Queen Victoria brings us nearer to our own time, and the thought of that day reminds us of the good Queen whose long life of anxious work and responsibility began in her early girlhood. She took upon her the cares of sovereignty at an age when most girls think mainly of amusing themselves, and we all know how well she kept the solemn promises made on her Coronation Day at the Abbey.

King Edward VII’s Coronation has already been described. That beautiful and stately ceremony was all the more touching and impressive because of the thankfulness of the people for the King’s recovery from a dangerous illness, a feeling which made their gladness and enthusiasm all the greater.

This short account of some of the Coronations will help to explain still further how and why the Abbey has always held such an important place in our national life. We see that the Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian sovereigns have all come here to be crowned, close to the shrine of the last Saxon King, much in the same way as the French Kings used to go for their coronations to the great cathedral at Reims, and as the Tsars of Russia go to the Kremlin at Moscow.

We must now leave the Coronations, and turn to think of some of the great people who are buried and commemorated in the Abbey.

[D. Weller. SHRINE OF KING EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.