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of a king, and declared all persons once in his Majesty's service, to be discharged from their former duty.

On the return of the deputation, the new king was proclaimed in the metropolis by the heralds, in the following unprecedented form. "Whereas, sir Edward, late king of England, of his own good will, and with the common advice and assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and other nobles, and all the commonalty of the realm, hath put himself out of the government of the realm, and has granted and willed that the government of the said realm should come to sir Edward, his eldest son and heir, and that he should govern the kingdom, and be crowned king, on which account all the lords have done him homage; we cry and publish the peace of our said lord, sir Edward, the son, and on his part strictly command and enjoin under pain and peril of disherison and loss of life and member, that no one break the peace of our said lord the king. For he is, and will be ready to do justice to all and each of the said kingdom, both to the little and the great, in all things

And if

and against all men. any one have a claim against another, let him proceed by way of action, and not by violence or force."

At the coronation, February 1st, 1327, a similar assertion of the late king having resigned by his free-will, and with the consent of parliament, was made. The medal distributed during the ceremony, represented the son resting his sceptre on the heart of his people, within the motto, "Populo dat jura volenti;" having on the reverse a hand receiving a fallen crown, with the inscription, "Non rapit, sed recipit." The best comment on the "free-will" of the deposed monarch, appeared in his being murdered by the queen's party, in the course of the year following.

EDWARD III. married Philippa of Hainault, in 1327, on which occasion she was crowned at Westminster. She bore the king a son, the celebrated Edward the Black Prince, before he had reached his 19th year.

RICHARD II. succeeded his grandfather in 1377, being then in his eleventh year; and no coronation in our annals was more magni

ficent. The Liber Regalis, still preserved at Westminster, contains the ritual used on this occasion, and a record of the proceedings of the Court of Claims is also extant".

On the day after the death of Edward, this prince entered London in great state: triumphal arches were erected, conduits ran with wine, and the usual pageants of the coronation procession were displayed in the streets. Walsingham mentions in particular a turreted building, erected in the market of Cheap, out of which ran streams of wine, and at the angles of which, on the top, four young maidens of the age of the king were placed, dressed in white. On the approach of the sovereign, shreds of gold leaf were blown to him, and florins of paper were showered on his head!-such was what at this time was regarded as the "superior ingenuity of the merchants of Cheapside."

The progress through the city on the day preceding the coronation, (15th of July, 1377) was similarly distinguished. The king

* Rymer, vii.

dined at the Tower, from which he came forth dressed in white garments, and placed himself under the escort of the mayor and citizens, who conducted him to his palace at Westminster. On the following morning he rose early, and, having received mass in his pri vate chapel, came down into the great hall "arraid in the fairest vestments, and with buskins only upon his feet." The procession from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, was now marshalled in the usual order. While the litany was chanted the young prince lay prostrate before the altar, whence he was conducted to his throne on a platform in the centre of the nave. The entire ceremony of the coronation so much exhausted him, that he was borne back to the palace in a litter carried by knights. He soon, however, appeared at the banquet, where he created four earls and nine knights, and partook of a splendid though turbulent repast. The next morning a council of regency was formed, to exercise the royal authority, during the minority of the king. It is remarkable, that in the first parliament of this monarch's reign,

we find the archbishop of Canterbury recommending the young king to the affection of his subjects, because he was not an elected sovereign, but the true heir and representative of their former kings*.

On the 22d of January, 1382, this monarch espoused Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the late emperor Charles IV., and sister of Winceslaus, king of the Romans. As usual, she was crowned at the same period; and is said so entirely to have possessed, during the twelve years of her union with him, the affections of her husband and his people, as to be long remembered among the latter by the title of the good Queen Anne.

The tragic close of this prince's reign will never be forgotten while

"The hallowed crown

Shall round the mortal temples of a king,"

or Shakspeare's celebrated "Richard II." be extant. The march of his successor, Bolingbroke, from Ravenspur to London, and the

* Rot. Parl. iii.

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