CORONATION, the act of crowning or consecrating a king. This rite is of remote antiquity, as may be gathered from the notices which we have in Scrip ture, in the first and second books of Kings, of the coronations of Solomon, and of Joash the son of Ahaziah, of the latter of whom it is said that Jehoiada the priest took him, put the crown upon his head, and gave him the testimony, and they made him king, and anointed him.
In England, after the kingdoms of the Heptarchy had become united, we find the ceremony of coronation alluded to in the Saxon Chronicle, under the term "gehalgod," by which is expressed that the king was hallowed or consecrated. Kingston-upon-Thames was the place where the Saxon kings were crowned during nearly the whole of the tenth century. (See Diceto and the other his torians in the Decent Scriptores.) Edgar, who succeeded to the throne in 959, is said to have been crowned either at Kingston or at Bath. Edward the Con fessor was crowned at Winchester in 1042. The copy of the Gospels upon which the Saxon kings were sworn at their corona tions is believed to be still preserved amongst the Cottonian Manuscripts in the British Museum, in the volume Tib. A. ii. Harold and William the Conqueror were crowned at Westminster. It was cus tomary with the Norman kings to be crowned more than once. Henry II. crowned his eldest son, and associated him with himself in the administration during his own life.
In one or two instances, in the Norman times, we find the regnal years of our kings dated from their coronations only ; the previous time, between the predeces sor's death and the performance of the inaugural ceremony, was considered as an interregnum. This is a fact of no small importance to those who would accurately fix the dates of public instruments and transactions in the reigns of Richard I., John, and their successors.
The first English coronation of which we have any detailed account is that of Richard 1., in the Histories of Diceto and Bromton. (Twysden, Script. x. 647, 1157.) An account of all the for malities observed at that of Richard II., taken from the Close Rolls,' is in fly mer's Fcedera,' the old edition, vol. p. 157. Froissart has given a short but interesting narrative of the coronation of Henry IV., which is printed in the Eng lish edition of his ' Chronicle,' by Lord Iferners, 4to., London, 1812, vol. ii. pp. 753, 754. The details of the English coronations of Henry V. and VI., and of
that of Henry VI. in France, are con tained in the Cottonian Manuscripts, Tib. E. viii. and Nero C. ix. Hall and Grafton have described the ceremonies at the coro nation of Richard III. The account of the coronation of Henry VIII., with the king's oath prefixed, interlined and altered with his own hand, is likewise preserved in the Cottonian Manuscript already mentioned, Tib. E. viii. The oath, with its interlineations, is engraved in fac simile in the first volume of the second series of Ellis's Original Letters illus trative of English History.' Fuller, in his Church History,' and Ellis's Let ters,' 1st Ser., vol. iii. p. 213, detail the particulars of the coronation of Charles I. Several editions of the Form and Order of Charles IL's coronation at Scone in 1651 were published at the time in 4to. at Aberdeen ; reprinted at London in folio, 1660 ; and the entertainment of Charles II. in his passage through London to his coronation, with a narrative of the cere mony at the coronation, by John Ogilby, with plates by Honor, fol., London, 1662. Sandford's 'History of tile Coronation of James II.,' fol. London, 1687, illustrated with very numerous engravings, is the most complete of all our works upon English coronations published by autho rity. That of George IV., of which two portions only appeared, was far more splendid, with coloured plates, but remains unfinished.
A very antient MS. of the ceremonial of crowning the German emperors at Aix-la-Chapelle was purchased at the last of the sales of Prince Talleyrand's libra ries, by the late Mrs. Banks, and is now among the additional manuscripts in the British Museum. Of foreign published coronations, that of Charles V. at Bologna as emperor, in 1530, is one of the most curious, engraved in a succession of plates upon a roll of considerable length. The Sacre de Louis XV., Roy de France et de Navarre, dans 1' Eglise de Reims, 25 Oct. 1722,' is a work of pre-eminent splendour, full of finished engravings. The Descrip tion of the Ceremonies at the Coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of France, with his Consort Josephine, 2 Dec. 1804,' is a work of equal size, but the engravings are chiefly in outline : folio, Paris, 1807. There is a volume, with engravings, of the coronation of the Empress Anne of Russia, fol. Petersburg, 1731 ; and many others might be enumerated.