Although the ceremonies of the royal investiture form a _spectacle_ for
the eye of the passing age, rather than a subject of historical record,
presenting any thing characteristic of our monarchs, traces of the "form
and body of the time" have occasionally been left by them on the page of
history, which it is now our design to present to the reader.
The chief of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the octarchy at the close of
the eighth century was Mercia; and hither we find Pope Adrian, the
friend and favourite of Charlemagne, sending two legates to enforce a
new code of ecclesiastical laws, as early as A.D. 785. A synod was held
in Northumbria, and another in Mercia, to receive them; but while the
former kingdom first embraced Christianity[68], in the latter were
first exhibited, at this time, the solemn rites of an ecclesiastical
consecration in the person of EGFURTH, the son of Offa, who was
"hallowed to king," in the presence of his father, then reigning. This
phrase of the Saxon Chronicle describes all that is now known of the
mode of this early coronation; but prince Egfurth seems, in virtue of
it, to have reigned conjointly with his father afterwards. It is
remarkable that, although the Archbishop of Canterbury soon obtained the
entire ecclesiastical precedence in the coronation of our kings[69], at
this same synod of Calcuith, (Chelsey, Bucks,) it was decided that a
metropolitan see should be established amongst the Mercians, taking from
that of Canterbury all the territory between the Thames and the Humber;
and that Adrian accordingly sent the pallium of archiepiscopal dignity
to Adulph, Bishop of Lichfield. Charlemagne, who called himself in
letters produced at this synod, "the most powerful of the kings of the
east," gives to Offa the sounding title of "the most powerful of the
kings of the west[70]." Egfurth, it would seem, was not again crowned on
his accession to the entire regal authority.
There is one instance of a Northumbrian coronation, in the stormy close
of that dynasty, _i.e._, that of EARDULF, A.D. 795. This prince had a
singular escape from the hands of Ethelred, his predecessor, by whom he
was brought to the church door of Rippon, in Yorkshire, and as the
monarch and the spectators thought, put to death. The body was carried
into the choir by the monks; who, in chanting the funeral service,
perceived it to breathe, dressed his wounds, and carefully preserved
their future sovereign in their monastery. He was consecrated and
assisted to the throne by AEanbald, Archbishop of York, and two other
prelates.
A consecration of ALFRED the Great, which is by many writers regarded as
"regal," took place at Rome, A.D. 754, when that prince was but five
years of age; and was performed by Pope Leo IV. at the request of his
father. Mr. Turner supposes that AEthelwulf thus intended to designate
him for his heir in preference to his elder brothers: and Mr. Lingard,
that it was to secure his succession to the crown _after_ his brothers,
to the exclusion of their children; a conjecture that is strongly
supported by the subsequent arrangements of the will of AEthelwulf, by
which the minor kingdom of Kent was left to his second son, Ethelbert;
and the kingdom of Wessex to Ethelbald, Ethelred, and Alfred, in order
of seniority. "If there be room here for conjecture, I rather think,"
says Selden, "that as the unction used in the baptism of king Clovis was
among the French made also by tradition to be an anointing him for king,
so here the use of chrisme in confirmation (for it appears that at the
same time Pope Leo confirmed king Alured,) was afterward, by mistaking,
accounted for the royal unction[71]."
Malmsbury says expressly that the pope gave him "the regal unction _and_
the crown;" and Robert of Gloucester
--Pope Leon h[.y]m blessede že he žuder com,
And že k[.y]nges crowne of ž[.y]s lond.--
It is also to be observed that no one of his brothers, Ethelbert,
Ethelbald, or Ethelred, seem to have received a regal consecration, and
that we do not read of a repetition of that ceremony when Alfred himself
was crowned at Winchester;--and here we leave the solution of the
meaning of this ceremony to the reader.
Our next is an instance of female coronation. AEthelwulf, devotedly
attached to the church, and fitted more for the cowl than the crowns she
was now in the habit of bestowing, espoused, on his return from a
pilgrimage to Rome, JUDITH, the daughter of Charles the Bold--and at the
close of the marriage ceremony caused her to be crowned and anointed by
the archbishop of Rheims. A regal seat was prepared for her by his side,
and she received the new or disused title of Queen. This was in the year
856. To his people the marriage seems to have been as distasteful as it
was in itself unnatural; the lady not having reached her 12th year, and
the king being advanced in age; but the "royal makings of a queen," with
which she was honoured, are said to have excited their particular
displeasure. Whether this arose, as is probable, from the consecration
of a female to the royal dignity being wholly unprecedented at the court
of Wessex, from some apprehension on the part of his subjects that the
king designed to transfer their allegiance to a female at his death, or
from disgust at the recent conduct of Eadburga, who had poisoned her
husband king Brichtric, must at this period be matter of pure
conjecture. Clear, however, it is that some of our most respectable
historians must be mistaken respecting the crime of Eadburga, causing
the honour of a coronation to be "_taken from_[72]" the Saxon queens. We
have no instance of a female coronation in England until so late as the
year 978, in the reign of Ethelred II.[73]: that of Judith, therefore,
was no revival of a discontinued custom. But a degradation of the
consorts of the kings of Wessex in regard to the _title_ of queen, and
the right to sit in equal dignity with the king upon a throne, in
consequence of the crime of Eadburga, is, perhaps, sufficiently
established. Mr. Lingard, whose accuracy as an historian is entitled to
the highest praise, adverts to this circumstance in the following
summary of the honours of an Anglo-Saxon queen. "The consort of the
c[.y]ning was originally known by the appellation of "queen," and shared,
in common with her husband, the splendour of royalty. But of this
distinction she was deprived by the crime of Eadburga, the daughter of
Offa, who had administered poison to her husband Brichtric, the king of
Wessex. In the paroxysm of their indignation the witan punished the
unoffending wives of their future monarchs by abolishing, with the title
of queen, all the appendages of female royalty. AEthelwulf, in his old
age, ventured to despise the prejudices of his subjects. His young
consort Judith was crowned in France, and was permitted to seat herself
by his side on the throne. But during several subsequent reigns no other
king imitated his example: and the latest of the Anglo-Saxon queens,
though they had been solemnly crowned, generally contented themselves
with the modest appellation of "the lady[74].""