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Douglas HydeMay 05, 2023
Elizabeth II proceeding past the Coronation Chair, the darker chair at right, at her coronation on June 2, 1953 (Wikimedia Commons).

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the May 30, 1953, issue of America, three days before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, titled “Catholic Roots of the Coronation.”

In London shops today you can buy (if you have a taste for such things) pickled onions colored red, white and blue with edible dyes. Your cocoa may come to you in a special Coronation tin, bearing the portrait of Elizabeth II, casting doubt on G. K. Chesterton’s dogmatic assertion that “cocoa is a cad and a coward, cocoa is a vulgar beast.” If you buy a pencil it may be an unusually gaily colored one, with a gilded coronet at one end. Instead of playing with lead soldiers, some British children now have small gilt Coronation coaches with imposing teams of decked-up horses to pull them along.

Every square and public place within sight of where the Coronation procession will pass on June 2 is filled with high stands specially constructed for the privileged among the hundreds of thousands who will be in London that day for the crowning of the young Queen. Every inch of rooftop and window space within remote view of the route has been sold. Hotels, boarding houses and private apartments are booked to capacity, and ships, anchored in suitably accessible spots, are being prepared for use as hotels.

It is a ceremony which at several points bears a marked resemblance to the consecration of a bishop and which, in its essence and most of its origins, is essentially Catholic.

Almost every country, at Britain’s invitation, is sending naval craft of one sort or another for a Coronation review. Even the Russians, who chopped their last King and Queen to pieces in a cellar, are sending the cruiser Sverdlov—named after a Communist leader.

The foregoing represents one side of the Coronation, an unforgettably colorful but highly commercialized public holiday. If you are cynical, you will say that it is the best racket of all time. If you are a Communist, you will say that it is a superbly organized circus aimed at lulling the masses into forgetting that they also need bread. If you are just a modern pagan Cockney, neither cynical nor communistic, you will see it as an exciting show which makes you feel patriotic in an old-fashioned sort of way. And it has the added interest that the central part in the pageant is played by a rather winsome, very obviously sincere young woman who somehow stirs a lot of somewhat underworked emotions which you vaguely feel to be almost religious.

In fact, the central act of the pageant, the Coronation itself, is essentially religious, with its roots going back through the centuries to ancient Rome and, further, to Old Testament times as well. It is a ceremony which at several points bears a marked resemblance to the consecration of a bishop and which, in its essence and most of its origins, is essentially Catholic. It is a living link with Britain’s Catholic past.

Westminster Abbey, in which Elizabeth will be crowned, has a Catholic history vastly longer than its Protestant one, for, according to tradition, it had already existed in one form or another for nine centuries when Henry VIII broke with the papacy.

Its story began within a few years of the landing of St. Augustine and his papal mission, probably in the year 604. It was rebuilt by King Edward the Confessor, a saint of the Church, whose Mass is still celebrated on October 13. And, out of all the abbeys of Catholic England, it is the only one which was left unscathed when the Reformation happened. What saved it was the fact that for centuries the kings of England had been crowned and anointed there. Considering its royal as well as its sacred traditions, even the avaricious Henry VIII shrank from the double sacrilege involved in sacking it.

But for this, the lead of its roof, its stained glass, its very stones might, as in the case of the other great abbeys, have gone to add to the wealth of the men who profited so richly from the Reformation that they became the most economically significant and politically powerful class in the new Protestant state. The physical setting for the main event of June 2 is, therefore, essentially Catholic in origin and tradition.

Now consider the ceremony itself. The Order of Service, in its bare outline and bereft of all the colorful detail, reads: The Preparation; the Entrance into the Church; the Recognition; the Oath; the Consecration; the Presentation of the Holy Bible; the Beginning of the Communion Service.

The various royal garments bear so close a resemblance to ecclesiastical vestments that in medieval times they were held to be ecclesiastical in origin.

The Presentation of the Holy Bible is a post-Reformation interpolation. So are parts of the Oath, which now contains the following:

Archbishop: “Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant reformed religion established by law? And will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of England, and to the churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?”
Queen: “All this I promise to do.”

Most of the Mass, of which the Communion was, of course, just a part, has disappeared entirely. But it was not the Mass alone, by any means, which made the Coronation essentially Catholic.

When Elizabeth arrives at Westminster’s great, elaborately carved west door, a procession will move up the nave with a choir singing Psalm CXXI: “There the thrones are set for judgment, thrones for the house of David.”

The words of the above passage I have taken from Msgr. Ronald A. Knox’s translation of the Psalms (which is definitely not the version that will be used at Westminster), and to it he has a footnote which reads: “‘Thrones for the house of David’: Vulgate: ‘thrones of authority over the house of David’.” This verse, in fact, in the Vulgate version, exactly expresses the ancient spirit of the Crowning ceremony, which, despite all its pomp and its great build-up for the monarch, went to pains to remind him (or her) that there was One, King of the House of David, who had authority over all monarchs.

In the procession will be peers (members of the House of Lords) bearing regalia, officers of state, bishops with Bible, paten and chalice, then the Queen Regnant and supporting bishops. Also carried in the procession will be an ancient crown, kept for this purpose alone and used only at the actual moment of crowning, which once was worn by St. Edward the Confessor, to whom I have referred above. (The Confessor’s tomb and relics, to which pilgrims once flocked in Catholic times, still occupy a prominent position in the Abbey.)

The Queen will be greeted by boys of the ancient Westminster School with shouts of “Vivat Regina Elizabetha! Vivat! Vivat! Vivat!” That is all that remains of the Latin in the ceremony, although at one point the Veni, Creator Spiritus is sung in the vernacular.

The Queen takes her place in the sanctuary, and the Archbishop asks the people if they are willing to do homage and service to the Queen. Then comes the Recognition, which corresponds to the banns of marriage, when the people have the opportunity to express, if any so desire, their opposition to the proposed Coronation. There is no case on recent record of anyone dissenting, and should this in fact happen, it would cause something of a sensation.

After the Recognition and the Oath comes the Consecration, which still retains a certain similarity to the consecration of a Catholic bishop. The Archbishop will anoint the Queen on her hands, her breast and the crown of her head, saying as he does so: “And as Solomon was anointed King by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be you anointed, blessed and consecrated Queen over the peoples whom the Lord your God hath given you to rule and govern.”

The Coronation ceremony remains an impressive and unmistakably religious one.

Authorities are divided as to the direct origin of the anointing rite. It is known to have been practised by the ancient Britons in pre-Roman times, but it is not clear whether it was merely taken from them or whether it came direct from the Old Testament. Certainly the crown and oil were both mentioned in the eighth century in Archbishop Egbert of York’s Pontifical, and the king was referred to as “the Lord’s anointed.”

Pope John XXII, in a letter written to King Edward I in 1318, said that the holy oil was that which was given by “the most Blessed Virgin” to the glorious martyr Thomas à Becket (who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral) when he was in exile in France.

In the fourteenth century, Bishop Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln said that in his opinion the anointing had a sacramental character and that those kings who were anointed were of higher dignity than those by whom the unctions had not been received. There was even a time when men thought that the anointing with chrism put the monarch somewhere between the layman and the priest. The exact spiritual significance of the anointing has been a matter of controversy throughout the ages, but there is agreement that it is the most sacred and mystical part of the rite. Anglican authorities regard it as a hallowing, corresponding to the imposition of hands in the consecration of a bishop.

After the anointing, the Sovereign is invested in a garment corresponding to a bishop’s rochet, the Colohium Sindonis, then with the Supertunica, or Close Pall of cloth of gold, and with a girdle. Her sword is laid on the altar by the Archbishop and then placed in her hand with the injunction to “do justice, stop the growth in iniquity, protect the Holy Church of God, help and defend the widows and orphans, restore the things which are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss and confirm what is in good order.” This is followed by a further act of symbolism when the Sovereign goes to the altar and offers her sword in the service of God.

Seated in the Coronation Chair (in which is the ancient Coronation Stone, stolen from the Abbey some time ago by Scottish Nationalists but in due course restored to the chair again) the Sovereign is invested with the Armill, which is a kind of stole, then with the Royal Robe, or Pall of cloth of gold.

The various royal garments bear so close a resemblance to ecclesiastical vestments that in medieval times they were held to be ecclesiastical in origin. The modern view is that their origins are probably secular, having been taken from the imperial robes of the Byzantine emperors.

Before the actual Crowning takes place the Queen is given the Orb, symbol of independent sovereignty under the Cross. The Archbishop tells her: “And when you see this Orb set under the Cross, remember that the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Christ our Redeemer.” St. Edward’s Crown is laid on the altar, a dedicatory prayer is said by the Archbishop, who then puts the Crown on the Queen’s head, while the people shout repeatedly: “God save the Queen!”

At the Enthronement which follows, the Queen “takes possession of her kingdom” and the Archbishop swears fealty for the bishops.

The ceremony ends with the “Service of Holy Communion,” which will be received by both Elizabeth and Prince Philip, her husband. After they have “offered bread and wine,” the Queen will make a “personal oblation,” which takes the form of an ingot of gold, said to parallel the bishop’s barrel of wine at a consecration.

Although the actual age of the Coronation rite is a matter of controversy, it is fully established that the service which will be used at the coronation of Elizabeth II comes directly from that used by Archbishop Dunstan at the coronation of King Edgar in the year 973. There have, of course, been many modifications in it since then. Most notable of these is that the Mass, originally incorporated in the Coronation rite, is no longer there. The presentation of a Bible to the Sovereign as “the most valuable thing this world affords” has taken its place. Anglican authorities themselves now deplore this particular innovation as a “not very happy change” which breaks the sequence of the ceremony. But it might, none the less, be held to symbolize fairly adequately what actually happened at the Reformation, with the substitution of “Bible Christianity” for a sacramental religion.

The Coronation ceremony remains, however, an impressive and unmistakably religious one. Cardinal Newman wrote in a letter to Pusey about the coronation of Queen Victoria:

I recollect, he says, the strange emotion which took by surprise men and women, young and old, when, at the Coronation of our present Queen, they gazed on the figure of one so like a child, so small, so tender, so shrinking, who had been exalted to so great an inheritance and so vast a rule, who was in such a contrast in her own person to the solemn pageant which centered in her. Could it be otherwise with the spectators, if they had human affection?

Some people find a certain piquancy in the fact that the Duke of Norfolk, who as Earl Marshal is responsible for the organization of all the formalities and ceremonial of the Coronation, is a Catholic. But this should surely mean that he is all the more likely to appreciate the ancient traditions and the ritual associated with it.

Assisting him in his duties are thirteen Officers of Arms, members of old and noble families who are the hierarchical descendants of the medieval heralds. Two of the Heralds, Hon. Sir George Rothe Bellew and Michael Roger Trappes-Lomax, are also Catholics, and a third has a Catholic wife—so that Britain’s Catholics, who are only some eight per cent of the population, are more than fully represented among those who play the most prominent lay part at the Coronation.

Many of Britain’s Catholics have for some time been playing their own special part by contributing prayers, Masses and Holy Communions to a “spiritual bouquet” for the Queen. The idea was started by an Anglo-Irish actor, Eugene Leahy, writing in the Catholic Herald, in response to an appeal for her people’s prayers made by Queen Elizabeth in her last Christmas broadcast.

It is not so remarkable, perhaps, that the Catholic minority should have such a special interest in the Coronation of their Protestant Queen, for if and when Britain returns to the ancient faith, the Coronation rite will require less alteration than any other state religious ceremony.

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