CORONATION, the ceremonial rite of placing a crown on the head of a monarch as a symbol of his assumption of rule. The prac tice is one of great antiquity and in most coun tries has been followed in some form or other. Accompanying the crowning has been the an ointing with oil, a custom that was followed in the dedication of the Hebrew kings, and is significant of consecration to the will of God. In England before the Norman Conquest the term employed was more "hallowing)) than °coronation." Egferth, Prince of Mercia, was "hallowed kine by Offa, his father, in 785; and the essential form of words employed has been altered little in the 12 centuries that have inter vened; but various.parts of the service employed in later times have been shortened and some omitted altogether. Thus the ceremonial, in the earlier days of the English monarchyverfornsed at Kingston-on-Thames or Winchester, is in essentials the same as that now performed at Westminster. The recognition of the king as rightful lord is followed by a sermon, the anointing, the presentation of the ring as the symbol of kingly dignity and of the sceptre as the symbol of lcingly power, the crowning, the presentation of the Bible, the enthronization, the homage. The service is one in which the religion of the nation is asserted; the covenant is one between God, the king and his people. In addition to anointing, the kings prior to the Reformation were signed on the head with chrism or sacred oil; and touching for the kings evil or scrofula was practised until the accession of the House of Hanover in 1714.
The ancient Scottish coronation stone— the Stone of Destiny— forms part of the corona tion chair at Westminster. It was brought from Scone, where the Scottish kings were crowned, by Edward I in 1296. It is traditionally be lieved to have been the stone which Jacob used for a pillow, to have been brotight.to Ireland and from Tara, the site of the Irish coronations, to Scone; but the unimaginative Skene says that from its geological composition it must have been quarried from rocks near Scone.
There have been variations in the oath taken from time to time. The declaration which was introduced in 1678 under the excitement pro duced by the so-called Popish Plot continued almost unabated down to the time of the last coronation, that of George V,.22 June 1911. That oath, aimed at securing a Protestant soy ereign and the safeguarding of the Protestant Succession, expressly repudiated two cherished doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church—in vocation of the Virgin Mary and the saints and transubstantiation. Subscription to this oath was given as the reason by George III and George IV why they would not consent to Catholic emancipation. King Edward VII wished to be relieved from that part of the oath which was offensive to his Catholic sub jects; but an attempt at emendation before his coronation fell through. The subject was again brought up before the crowning of George V, and by the Accession Oath Act of 1910 the objectionable phrases were withdrawn, and the king simply pledges himself as.a "faithful mem ber of the Protestant Reformed Church of England," to secure the Protestant succession "according to law.° In honor of Charlemagne, the emperors of Germany were always crowned at •Aix-la Chapelle, in the church •which he founded. Thirty emperors were crowned there, and until 1793 the regalia and robes were preserved there. The kings of France were crowned tit Rheims and their queen consorts at the church of Saint Denys, near Paris; those of Spain, at Toledo or Madrid; of Poland, at Guezna; of Hungary, at Pressburg; of Scotland, at Scone; and the native kings of Ireland, at Tara. The recent kings of Denmark have been crowned at Fredericksburg; those of Sweden at Upsala, and the emperors of Russia, at the Kremlin, Mos cow. Consult Johnston, W. F., (The Corona tion of a King; or, Ceremonies, Pageants and Chronicles of the Coronations of All Ages' (London 1902) ; and Perkins, Jocelyn, The Coronation Book; or, the Hallowing of the Sovereigns of England' (London 1911).