Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1914 — RITES IN MAKING KINCS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RITES IN MAKING KINCS

IN THE long roll of England’s kings, running back Into the remote mists of legendary lore which enshroud the early rulers, the record of the coronations stands out with peculiar distinctness. A coronation, it would seem, is a function that impresses itself upon a man’s mind. It is something that is not forgotten. Even the ancient chroniclers, who romaneed upon so many subjects, were inclined to Btick to the sober truth when it came to describing the events that attended the coronation of kings. For that is what the coronation has always meant In Christian lands. A temporal ceremony it undoubtedly is. Some of the elements in it are essentially earitiily, involving the pledging of homag*the granting of fealty. But overshadowing all these is the vast, subtle Influence of the spiritual significance which attends tbeh king’s assumption of a bauble crown, a bauble only in outward shape, because it is symbolical of sq many other things that are not to be understood in so many words. '' . : ' ITI Perhaps it will not be amiss to cast an eye backward over England’s history, and review some of the coronalions of the past. It seems strange to find that Alfred thfe Great, who rivaled Charlemagne in the traditions of the splendor of his reign, should never have been crowned aS people understand the word today. He began to reign over Wessex in 872. but by 886’ he had gained sway over most of the present land of England, exclusive of Scotland and Wales. When he attained to this magnificence he was formally elected king of England by the soldiers of his army, who clashed their swords on their shields and shouted his name. That was how Alfred was crowned. Elevated King on Their Shields. Edward the elder’s coronation in 941 was much the same. It took place on Whitsunday at Kingston-on-Thames and his soldiers followed the good old Teutonic custom of elevating him on their shields. Edward the Martyr, however, was officially anointed and crowned at St. Dunstan at the same spot in 975, which shows that already the enthronement of a king had taken on a particular religious significance in the eyes of the Saxons, who were the Englishmen of that day. No more would the votes of wild warriors, the clamor of sword .on buckler, and elevation upon a platform of shields to the accompaniment of shouts of savage approval constitute the consecration of an English king. Harold, last of strictly English kings of Saxon stock, was crowned by Alfred, archbishop of York, in Westminster abbey on January 5, 1066. Perhaps of all England’s coronations none was ever more dramatic than that. jSore at heart over the breaking of his forced oath to Duke William of Normandy, terribly worried by the threatened double Invasion of hiß realm, torn this way and that, conscious that he was surrounded by Norman spies, be occupied a situation whichonecanreadlly appreciate. Looking down the misty vista of the crowded nave —much the same then, more than eight centuries ago, as it is today—streaked with the winter sunlight falling through the high windows, perhaps he saw across the intervening months to the glory he should win at Stamford bridge, and beyond that the threatened shadow of Senlac field. Visions of Harold Hardrada, the sea king of the north, of the traitorious Earl Tostig, of the stout house carles of the Saxon thanes, of the long lines of armored Norman men-at-arms, and archers that came up the Senlac the day of that last great fight—all these throng through the echoing isles of Westminster, hovering over the tombs of soldiers and statesmen of the past. They are part of the heritage of that Saxon England bequeathed to the generations that followed her, part of the memories of Harold, the son of Godwin, whose eye was pierced by » Norman arrow Just before the shield wall broke and Saxon England passed. Slaughtered People Who Cheered.* On Christmas day of . that same year, or less ~ than ft months later/ another coronation was held In Westminster abbey, when Aldred of York,

he who had placed the crown on Hat* old’s fallen head, did like office for the conqueror. A saturnine memory, that coronation. Outside, in the Btreets of the little village that clue* tered about the gray walls of the min* ister, the people were gathered ae* cording to the old English custom to shout their acclaim of their new master. But the Norman soldier on guard about the tape took the shouts to mean a threat that an attack was imminent, and that swept down upon the village and massacred all the inhabitants. So that Duke William began his new reign with slaughter and oppression that formed a terrible climax to the tragedy at Senlac. So one comes down to the comparatively civilized crowning of t Henry VIII. and his consort, Catherine of Aragon, by William Warbam, archbishop of Canterbury, on St. John the Baptist's day, being also a Sunday and midsummer day of 1549. And after that came the only crowned queen regnant of England, the beautiful and ill fated Lady Jane Grey, who signed her accession proclamation on July 9, 155*3, and before the month was out was ft prisoner, held fast in "Bloody Mary’s” grip. Ten days was the length of her reign, one. of the saddest interludes in English history. Mary, first of that name, was formally crowned in Westminster abbey on Sunday, October 1, by the cardinal bishop of Winchester. That coronation" was big with coming events, Protestantism hung in the balance, the future of the nation, the happiness of the people. Elizabeth followed Mary, being crowned on Janaary IS, 1559, and if possible occasion was yet more portentious than any that had preceded it. It determined the fate of England. It marked the beginning of the English renaissance; of the budding of new thought and feeling, of the growth of the nation's i oversea traffic, and of the inception of that series of bitter shrewd blows at the sea power of Spain that ultimately gave England the right to claim the supremacy of the ocean. When John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, placed the crown on tbs head of James I. and his consort, Anne of Denmark, on July 25, 1603, in the same historic abbey, it marked another stage In the development of Great Britain: For England had ceased to be England now. She was Great Britain and Ireland, just as later she was to become Great Britain and Ireland and the empire of India, and the dependencies over seas. James L wore a crown heavier than any of his predecessors had worn. It is interesting to note that Henrietta Maria, consort pf Charles 1., refused to be crowned with him, because, being a Catholic, she did not wish to be consecrated In a ceremony of the Protestant church. One wonders if Charles, as he sat on the “stone of scone,* “the stone of destiny,” on Candlemas day, 1626, was able to visualize the scene in Westminster hall, Jane 26, 1657, when Aliver Cromwell/ sat on that same seat and heard himself proclaimed lord protector ‘krith ceremonies almost equal in splendor to those of a coronation. And so that tale goes on, down through Anne, last of the Stuart sovereigns. William and Mary, who were crowned together; the Georges and the "sailor king,” bluff William IV., into the new era that began when Victoria came to the throne and her slim, girlish figure, buttressed by the stern visages of Peel, Wellington and all the other notables who guarded her youth, stood gracefully erect In that spot above the crossing ot the nave and transept, where the rulers ot England take their place, so tha« all may see them assume their dignity and the responsibilities it en, tails.

PREPARATION FOR MODERN CORONATION