THE THRONE OF ENGLAND
The Throne of England known as St. Edward’s Chair--Edward I.
brings it from Scotland in 1296--Kings and Queens of England
always crowned in this Chair--Jacob’s Stone--Its history--First
arrives in Ireland--Reaches Scotland B.C. 300--King Kenneth
encloses the stone in a chair A.D. 850--Edward I. copies
this chair, Jacob’s Stone being placed beneath the seat--The
Kingston Coronation Stone--A Druidical relic--Still preserved
at Kingston--The Coronation Book--The copy used from Henry
I. to Henry VIII. now in British Museum--Queen Victoria’s
Coronation Book.
THE THRONE OF ENGLAND KNOWN AS ST. EDWARD’S CHAIR
St. Edward’s Chair may be considered to be part of the regalia, and
since it has been in England its home has always been in Westminster
Abbey. It was brought from Scotland by Edward I. in 1296, after his
defeat of John Baliol. All our kings since that time have been crowned
upon it at Westminster, except Mary I.; and even when Cromwell was
installed Lord Protector, it was taken to Westminster Hall for him. The
seat holds “Jacob’s stone,” twenty-two inches long, eleven broad, and
about six in depth, on which tradition says the patriarch Jacob slept
in the plain of Luz. Holinshed in his _Historie of Scotland_ gives
a curious story of a Greek noble, Gathelus by name, son of Cecrops
the builder of Athens. Gathelus, it is said, being of a turbulent
and wandering disposition, went from Greece into Egypt with several
companions, “anno mundi 2416.” Here he made friends with Pharao, the
king, and eventually married his daughter Scota--from whom it is said
the name of Scotia is derived.
On the death of Pharao, Gathelus, not agreeing with his successors,
left Egypt and settled at Compostella, where he was “intituled by the
name of king,” and “sat upon his marble stone in Brigantia.” The two
sons of Gathelus, however, not liking Spain, migrated to an island
“lying north ouer agaynst Spayne,” and landed at “Dundalke,” the island
being called “Hibernia,” after one of them whose name was Hyberus.
[Illustration: FIG. 45. ST. EDWARD’S CHAIR.]
They are supposed to have brought with them Jacob’s stone, and it
is described as being “in fashion like a seate or chayre, having a
fatall destinie, as the Scottes say, following it, that wheresoever it
shoulde be founde, there shoulde the Scottish men raigne and haue the
supreme gouernance. Hereof it came to passe that first in Spaine, after
in Irelande, and then in Scotlande, the kings which ruled ouer the
Scottish men receyued the crowne sitting upon that stone, untill the
time of Robert the First, king of Scotlande.” It is said to have been
taken to Ireland about 700 B.C. by Simon Brech, king of Scots. Thence
it was taken to Scotland by King Fergus, about 330 B.C., and in 850
A.D. it was placed in the Abbey of Scone by King Kenneth. He found it
at Dunstaffnage, a royal Scottish castle, the sandstone of which has a
very near resemblance to the stone itself; in fact, it is undoubtedly,
geologically speaking, the same dull reddish sandstone. It must not be
forgotten that the Mohammedans say that Jacob’s stone is now preserved
at Jerusalem, and that consequently our story is not the true one. King
Kenneth had the stone enclosed in a wooden chair, of which the present
one is a copy made for Edward I. (Fig. 45), and particulars concerning
it are to be found in his Wardrobe Accounts. It was originally gilded,
painted, and inlaid in places with glass mosaics, traces of which can
still be seen on a careful examination, especially on the back of the
chair. It was dedicated by Edward I. to St. Edward the Confessor in
1297, and the part of the Abbey in which it is kept is still known
as St. Edward’s Chapel. Edward had an engraved plate inserted in the
stone, and on it the legend--
“Ni fallat fatum, Scoti hunc quoqunque locatum
Inveniunt lapidem regnare tenentur ibidem”;
which may be translated--
“Except old saws do fail, and wizards’ wits be blind,
The Scots in place must reign where they this stone shall find.”
This plate is now gone, but a space remains to mark the place to which
it was formerly attached. A cross is cut upon the stone, and it has old
handles at the ends. Another superstition concerning it was that it
would groan or speak whenever any of the monarchs of the Scythian race
seated themselves upon it. This must have been known to Hector Boece,
who gives a fuller version of the old Scoto-Irish prophecy which, being
translated, says--
“Unless the fixed decrees of fate give way
The Scots shall govern and the sceptre sway,
Where’er this stone they find, and its dread sound obey.”
[Illustration: FIG. 46. QUEEN VICTORIA SEATED IN ST. EDWARD’S CHAIR.]
During the Great War 1914-19, the stone was removed to the vaults for
safety against the German air attacks. The four lions upon which the
chair rests are gilded, and one of them had a new face given him for
the coronation of George IV. During the coronation ceremony itself the
chair is carefully covered with cloth of gold. Its appearance when thus
prepared shows admirably in Sir George Hayter’s beautiful picture of
the coronation of Queen Victoria, in which the Queen is seen just after
she has been crowned, holding in her right hand the royal sceptre with
the cross, and in her left the sceptre with the dove, and wearing the
colobium sindonis, stole, dalmatic, and mantle. She also has a high
footstool, and the Gothic pinnacles at the top of the chair were
apparently restored for the occasion (Fig. 46).
Sacred stones have been used in many countries and at many times as
seats for the coronation ceremonies of kings; and although the stone
which has been used in England since the time of Edward I. for this
purpose came, as we have seen, from Scotland, we possess at Kingston
an old piece of what was most likely a holy Druidical stone of purely
English origin. This stone was used for the coronations of some of our
Saxon kings certainly, and, probably enough, for more of them than
is recorded. As early as the reign of Edred, in 946, in a charter,
mention is made of Kingston as the royal town in which the coronation
was usually performed, and the fact of the stone being there gives the
place its name.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries seven of our kings are known to
have been crowned at Kingston, the Saxon monarchs having a palace, as
nearly as can be ascertained, on the spot where the stone now is. The
stone itself resembles the stones of the Druids at Stonehenge, and it
is extremely likely to have had some especially sacred character (Fig.
47).
It is now resting on a septangular block of stone enclosed within an
iron railing, with a pilaster of stone at each of the seven corners.
The arrangement and design of the railing and pillars is excellent,
and under each of the columns is a penny of one of the kings that were
certainly crowned there.
[Illustration: FIG. 47. THE KINGSTON CORONATION STONE.]
THE CORONATION BOOK
It seems rather curious that, considering the importance of the
coronation oath, we have no official Bible on which it is to be taken.
The Book has, at all events since the time of Henry VIII., been
provided anew at each coronation, and indeed it is probable that if
we had possessed a fine book--possibly covered with gold and gems--it
would have been destroyed in 1649 with the rest of the regalia.
The coronation oath is very old, and is traced back a long way.
Lingard, in his history of the Anglo-Saxon Church, says it is referable
to Anthenius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who refused to crown
Anastasius until he had sworn to make no change in the established
religion. This was in the fifth century; but it is most probable that,
long before, there was some form of oath administered to rulers, by
virtue of which their protection of the religion of their subjects was
secured.
In the library of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House, in
one of the scrap-books, is a drawing by Vertue of a curious old book
said to have been that on which our kings from Henry I. to Henry VIII.
took their coronation oath.
This same book is now in the manuscript department of the British
Museum, and, apart from its historical interest, it has the distinction
of being one of the very few decorative bindings of English workmanship
of the twelfth century now existing.
It is a vellum manuscript of extracts from the Gospels in Latin, with
interlinear Saxon version, and it also contains all the Gospel of St.
John except some missing pages, and a few other extracts. Inside the
book are several notes concerning its history; one signed by John
Ives at “Yarmouth, St. Luke’s Day, 1772,” says it “appears to be the
original book on which our Kings and Queens took their coronation oath
before the Reformation.” Powell, in the _Repertory of Records_, 1631,
at page 123 mentions “a little booke with a crucifix,” and says it is
preserved in the chest of the King’s Remembrancer at the Exchequer.
[Illustration: FIG. 48. THE “CORONATION BOOK” OF HENRY I.]
Mr. Thomas Madox, author of the _History of the Exchequer_, considered
that it was the book formerly belonging to the Exchequer, which
was mentioned by Powell. It was shown to Mr. Madox by “Mr. Thomas
Palgrave,” who owned it in the eighteenth century; but how it left the
“chest of the King’s Remembrancer at the Exchequer” there is nothing
to show. Early in the present century it belonged to Mr. Thomas Astle,
Keeper of the Records in the Tower, and on his death, with the rest
of his library, it became the property by purchase of the Marquis of
Buckingham. Although a beautiful Gothic room had been built at Stowe in
which to keep this library, it was all sold in 1849 to Lord Ashburnham.
From Lord Ashburnham the “Stowe” library was purchased by the Trustees
of the British Museum in 1883, and so this little book became once more
national property, and is not likely to leave its present guardianship.
It is covered with thick wooden boards three-quarters of an inch thick,
covered with deerskin. On the lower cover is a sunk panel, and in this
is a figure of our Lord, finely modelled and chased. The figure shows
remains of old gilding, and the workmanship is excellent. The corners
are protected by corner-pieces of gilt metal, each with a boss and a
design of a fleur-de-lys within a circle stamped upon them, and there
is an old clasp (Fig. 48).
The figure of our Saviour and the clasp are probably contemporary
with the rest of the binding and the manuscript itself, but the
corner-pieces are apparently a subsequent addition.
As far as can be ascertained from pictures of recent coronations, the
Bible upon which the oath has been taken was covered in dark blue
velvet with gilt clasp, centre-pieces, and corners. That used by Queen
Victoria was in 1883 the property of the Rev. J. H. Sumner, Rector
of Buriton, Hants. It came to him from his father, the Bishop of
Winchester, to whom it was given after the coronation.