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.
