THE CORONATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 957, 21 February 1911, Page 4

THE CORONATION.

(Continued from Page 3.) well by the token that he gave me, this ring with his own hands, which ring ye shall deliver to him again,” and when he had delivered to them the ring “ he departed from them suddenly.” This ring of Edward the Confessor, whatever its origin, was preserved in his shrine at Westminster as a sacred relic, being used at the coronation of his successors. It disappeared at the time of the Commonwealth, but was recovered subsequently, and is of all the royal insignia held the most sacred. THE RING AND THE FINGER. There has always been a certain amount of speculation as to what was meant by the ‘ ‘ fourth ’ ’ finger, and this uncertainty about the matter (says a writer in the New York Tribune) led to an awkward contretemps at the Coronation of Queen Victoria. The authorities of the Royal College of Heralds assumed that the fourth finger was the smallest aud last of the hand, and had made the Coronation ring to fit the Queen’s little finger. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, declared that the thumb counted as the first finger, and subsequently insisted at the proper moment during the Coronation in placing the ring by main force upon the third finger of the Queen’s hand. He took the ground that any departure from the ritual might impair the validity of the ceremony of Coronation.

The putting of the ring on the third finger of the Queen was only accomplished at the cost of much pain, which as time went on increased to such an extent that at last the young Sovereign could endure it no longer. Most of the principal actors in the ceremony seem to have lost their heads when she showed signs of fainting. One of them, however, namely the Rev Lord John Thynue, Canon of Westminster Abbey, was equal to the emergency. With the assistance of a verger he managed to procure a basin of water and some soap, by means ot which it was found possible to relieve the Queen of the ring, her finger, however, remaining swollen aud painful. King Edward, warned by this incident, took the precaution of impressing upon the Primate and the College of Heralds the necessity of coming to an understanding as to which ol his fingers was to be invested with the ring, and che finger finally decided upon was the one which we are accustomed to call the third finger of the left hand, this being in accordance with the ancient belief that a vein came direct from the heart to that particular finger. It is worthy of note that in the case of the Coronation of the Kings of the United Kingdom, as in those of the Czars of Russia, and of the Kings of France in olden times, the investiture of the sovereign with the ring of office is held to endow him with majesty of a more sacred character than that conferred by the placing ot the crown upon his head. Indeed, the placing of the ring upon the finger of the ruler precedes the act ot crowning, and is regarded as indicative of that episcopal nature of his sovereignity, which is still further demonstrated by the inclusion of the priestly stole and the dermatic among his Coronation robes, while Russian Czars at their Coronation take communion after the fashion of the clergy, instead of in accordance with the manner in which laymen are restricted. When the Primate of All England places the ring of St. Edward upon the third finger of King George at Westminister next June he will exclaim, in accordance with the time-houomed ritual, “ Receive this ring, the ensign of kingly dignity, and in defence of the Catholic faith, that as you are this day consecrated head of this kingdom and people, so enriched in faith, and abounding in good works, you may reign with Him who is King of Kings, and whom we honour aud glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” Ampulla and Golden Spoon. Another very ancient and important portion of the British Coronation regalia is the so-called ampulla and golden spoon with which King George will be anointed in Westminster Abbey. It is related that when St. Thomas a Becket, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, was in banishment at Lyons and was praying one night in a church, the Virgin appeared to him with a gold dove and a small vial of chrism, which she delivered to him, assuring him of the happiest effects on those kings who should be anointed therewith. She commanded him to deliver it to a

monk of Poictiers, who would conceal it in a large stone in the Church of St. Gregory.

In this place the ampulla, the chrism, aud an account of the vision in the handwriting of St. Thomas a Becket were preserved until the reign of Kdvvard 111., when they were discovered in consequence of a dream by a holy man, who brought the sacred vessel to the Duke of Lancaster, who delivered it to Edward the Black Prince, who in turn sent it for safe-keeping to the Tower of London. There it was kept until the coronation ot Edward IV., in 1399, when the ampulla and the spoon, both of them manifestly of twelfth century manufacture, were used for the first time. The head of the dove unscrews, so that the consecrated unguent can be poured iuto it, and it is poured out from an orifice in the beak iuto the thiu gold spoon, which bears traces of having been enamelled.

The anointing of King George will immediately follow the Coronation oath. The Monarch will be divested of his crimson robe by the Lord Great Chamberlain, and these, along with the Cap of State, which His Majesty will remove from his head, will be carried into the St. Edward’s Chapel. The King will then take his place on the throne of Edward the Confessor, which every sovereign of England since the Norman conquest has occupied on the occasion of his Coronation. The Stone of Destiny.

The seat of this throne is formed of the so-called Stone of Destiny, which is supposed to have been the stone pillow on which Jacob rested his head when he slept at Bethel and dreamed of Jacob’s ladder.

' Numbers of legends are extant as to the manner in which the Stone found its way from Bethel to Ireland. For a time it rested on the top of the sacred hill of Tara, and on it the kings of Ireland were crowned. From Erin it was mysteriously conveyed to Scotland more than a thousand years ago by King Kenneth 11., and preserved at Scone for use at the Coronation of Scottish kings. When Edward I. of England invaded Scotland in 1296 he carried off the Stone of Destiny from Scone, and placed it in Westminster Abbey, Although it was afterwards undertaken in the treaty which closed this long and bloody episode in the history of England aud Scotland to return the Stone to the northern kingdom, this undertaking was never carried out, and every English sovereign since the days of Edward 11. has been crowned sitting in the chair of which it now forms part.

As soon as King George has taken his place on this throne, four dukes, all Knights of the Garter, will hold above his head a rich canopy of cloth of gold, aud then the Archbishop of Canterbury, pouring some of the consecrated oil iuto a spoon, from the ampulla held by the Dean of Westminster, will first anoint the palms of the King’s hands in the form of a cross, exclaiming ‘‘Be these hands anointed with the holy oil! ” and will use the same words, in anointing subsequently the breast, the shoulders, the elbows and the head of the King. The Dean will then lay the ampulla and the spoon upon the altar, and the King kneeling, the Archbishop, standing on the north side of the altar, will pronounce the benediction.

The King will thereupon arise and resume his place on the throne, and the Dean of Westminister, having first dried with cotton wool all the places anointed, except the head and hands, will close with the ribbons attached the places opened for the anointing in the monarch’s crimson sarsenet coat. And then the Archbishop will place a coif of lawn on the King’s head, aud linen gloves on his hands, for a few moments, in order to remove the holy oil. How great is the importance attached to the use of the holy oils is seen by the fact that they are used both by the Roman Catholic and orthodox churches for the dying in order to prepare them to meet their Creator, in the belief that this extreme unction wipes away the sins and fills the moribund with the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is, therefore, not astonishing that their use in anointing certain Old World Monarchs should endow the latter with that divinity which in old time parlance “doth hedge the throne ” and with a prestige which not even crime can destroy. For according to the old rhyme—Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm from an anointed king.