And her his daughter Truth,
Which holdeth yonder booke:
Whome he out of his nooke

Hath brought foorth to us all,
From whence this manie yeares
She durst not once out looke.

"Now sith that Time againe

His daughter Truth hath brought,
We trust, ô worthie queene,
Thou wilt this truth embrace,
And sith thou vnderstandst

The good estate and naught,
We trust wealth thou wilt plant,
And barrenesse displace.

"But for to heale the sore

And cure that is not seene;
Which thing the booke of truth,
Dooth teach in writing plaine:
Shee doth present to thee

The same, ô worthie queene,
For that, that words doo flie,
But written dooth remaine."

"Thus the queene's highnesse passed through the citie, which, without anie foreigne person, of itself beautified itselfe, and received her grace at all places, as hath been before mentioned, with most tender obedience and love, due to so gratious a queene and sovereigne a ladie."

JAMES I. made the most important "progress" for himself and family that we have yet recorded; when, as tranquilly as ever the crown of England had descended from father to son, the house of Stuart succeeded that of Tudor on the throne of Great Britain. Nor was his journey from Edinburgh to London unobserved by the people. They are said to have contrasted his hauteur and reserve at this period with the well-remembered affability and popular manner of Elizabeth on such occasions; but neither does his coronation progress, nor that of his immediate successors, Charles I. or II. (with whom this usage terminated) present any new features of interest. The great object of the conductors of the ceremony was to conform to the ancient precedents; while the personal disposition of each of the sovereigns of this house was to retain as much of the demi-god as possible in these stately movements of the monarch.

§3. ANECDOTES OF THE ASSISTANT OFFICES OF THE CORONATION.

THE assistant offices of the coronation are, for the far greater part, ecclesiastical or hereditary. They are connected therefore with all the religious changes, and family honours of the empire. The nobility bear in person a part in the royal day, and approach and actually touch that crown, from which, as the fountain of honour, they seem to renew, and re-invigorate, their most ancient claims to distinction: while the metropolitan of the English Church enjoys the exclusive right of consecrating and crowning the monarch.

As early as the Norman Conquest, this privilege of the see of Canterbury is spoken of as well-established; and but two subsequent instances occur of its being overlooked or denied: both remarkably associated with

the history of the papal power in this country*. In the first, that of the coronation by the archbishop of York of prince Henry, son of Henry II., may be traced the incipient cause of the assassination of archbishop Becket, whose martyrdom became conducive to the highest triumphs of that power: in the second, queen Elizabeth's coronation by Oglethorpe, bishop of Carlisle, and the refusal of all the other prelates to assist in the ceremony, we behold its dying struggles for a dominion never more to be renewed.

Mr. Lingard, who, as a Catholic, may be supposed to state these transactions with a sufficient leaning to his own church, as expressly connects the murder of Becket with a jealousy on this subject as any other of our historians. Henry II. had employed the known enemy of the archbishop, Roger of York, in the consecration of his son above alluded to; but the primate and the king met

There have been instances in which the see having been vacant, and the archbishop suspended or abroad, other prelates have officiated: but the right of the metropolitan see seems to have been still preserved.

on friendly terms at Rouen, in the following month; they compromised their differences; and the former set out on his return to his diocese. The Pope, however, "before he heard of the reconciliation, had issued letters of suspension or excommunication against the bishops who had officiated at the late coronation." The archbishop had at one time resolved to suppress these letters, our historian admits; and surely it was now an imperative duty so to do. But the prelates concerned, it seems, who knew that he carried them about him, had assembled at Canterbury, and sent to the coast Ranulf de Broc, with a party of soldiers, to search him on his landing, and take them from him. Information of the design reached him at Witsand: and "in a moment of irritation," says Mr. L., "he despatched them before himself by a trusty messenger, by whom, or by whose means, they were publicly delivered to the bishops in the presence of their attendants. It was a precipitate and unfortunate measure, the occasion, at least, of the catastrophe that followed."