The Coronation of Edward I, 1274

On Sunday 19 August, the day itself dawned. Regrettably, we have no detailed eye-witness accounts of the kind that survive for some other medieval coronations. Past precedent and later example indicate that Edward, accompanied by Eleanor, led by the clergy and the magnates, would have processed the short distance from the palace to the abbey. The new abbey, of course, was Henry III’s greatest legacy, and Edward was the first king to be crowned in it. Henry and his architect had been acutely conscious of Westminster’s longstanding role as the coronation church, and had tailored the new building accordingly. Its ornate north portal was sufficiently huge to admit with ease those processing from the palace; the galleries around its transepts allowed spectators to view the proceedings from on high. The crossing of the church, where much of the ceremony would be acted out, seems to have been rendered deliberately massive for this reason. On the day of Edward’s coronation, as on later occasions, it was very likely filled with a giant wooden stage. This was elevated so that those standing in the nave could observe the king, and – most remarkably – of sufficient height that those earls, barons and knights among the congregation could ride underneath it. In seeking to picture Edward’s coronation, we must imagine the north and south transepts of the abbey filled with aristocrats who were not merely elaborately dressed, but apparently mounted on their horses too.

Once the procession from the palace had passed inside the abbey, the ceremony itself began. In keeping with the grandeur of the setting and the splendid array of the participants, it was a magnificent piece of religious drama. Solemn prayers were intoned, censers were swung, torches and candles burned, glorious anthems rang out. If this all sounds slightly vague, it is because, once again, we cannot say precisely what took place. Indeed, contemporaries would have struggled to do so. The long years from one king’s inauguration to the next gave ample scope for old practices to be forgotten and new ones to be introduced. In the case of Edward’s coronation, one senses that Henry III, as well as designing the theatre, must also have contributed many details to the script. Later medieval kings, for example, would begin by making an offering at the altar of two gold figurines, one of Edward the Confessor, the other of St John the Evangelist – a ‘tradition’ almost certainly introduced in 1274 on the posthumous instructions of the Confessor’s most avid devotee.

            Nevertheless, at the heart the proceedings lay strong strands of continuity. In its bare essentials, the English coronation service had changed (and has changed) very little across the centuries. The coronation oath, for example – Edward’s next significant act after making his offering at the altar – had been a central part of the service since it was first devised in the tenth century. By this long-established convention, the new king made three basic promises: to protect the Church, to do good justice, and to suppress evil laws and customs. A fourth promise, to protect the rights of the Crown, had been added in the mid-twelfth century. This was, of course, a much more self-interested pledge as far the king was concerned, and one to which Edward would attach much importance later in his reign.

            The next part of the service, the unction, was of similar long standing. Edward would have descended from the stage towards the altar and disrobed down to his undershirt, in order that the archbishop of Canterbury could anoint various bits of his body with holy oil. The most mystical part of the whole ceremony, it took place on a suitably mystical pavement of multicoloured marble mosaic, the work of Italian craftsmen, and another finishing touch supplied by Henry III. The unction was the point where medieval practice drew on Biblical precedent: the Old Testament kings, David and Solomon, had been anointed in this way, and, for this reason, the choir in Westminster Abbey sang the anthem Unxerunt Salomonem (‘They Anointed Solomon’) while the act was performed. Traditionally this had been the critical part of the service – the religious ritual that transformed a mere man into a king – and Edward, although king in name already, must nevertheless have regarded it as the supreme spiritual moment. At this moment his rule became blessed, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit were bestowed upon him. In more practical terms, it meant that, in addition the holy oil that had been applied to his breast, shoulders and elbows, Edward also had chrism – an even holier oil – poured over his head, where custom decreed that it must remain for a full seven days.

            Lastly came the investiture: the part of the ceremony where the king was re-dressed in the most elaborate royal fashion and adorned with all manner of symbolic baubles (collectively known as the regalia). These had tended to multiply over the years, with the result that by the thirteenth century the new king was weighed down with glittering ornament. Edward was vested in a golden tunic, girded with a sword, and robed with a mantle woven with gold. A gold ring was placed on his finger, and golden spurs were attached to his heels. Once he was wearing his special coronation gloves, a golden rod and a golden sceptre were placed in his hands. These items had for the most part been wrought in the early thirteenth century but, thanks to the enthusiasm and credulity of Henry III, by 1274 each was believed to have been an original first used by Edward the Confessor himself. When, therefore, Edward was invested with the greatest item of all – described in an later account as ‘a great crown of gold…with precious jewellery of great stones, rubies and emeralds’, he understood this to be the same object once worn by his sainted namesake.

            Edward’s coronation, therefore, for all that it took place in a magnificent new church, and despite the manifold small details of staging introduced by Henry III, was essential traditional in format and stuck to a time-honoured script. There was, however, one genuine moment of novelty in the proceedings, a deviation so striking that several chroniclers saw fit to record it, even though they recorded nothing else. It was supplied by the king himself, at what was literally the crowning moment. Once the great gold crown been placed on his head, Edward immediately removed it and set it aside, saying (according to one chronicler) ‘he would never take it up again until he had recovered the lands given away by his father to the earls, barons and knights of England, and to aliens’.

 

A Great and Terrible King, pp. 113-15.