Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

We shall notice but one other claim, that of the lord of the Isle of Man to present the king with the interesting present of two falcons on the day of his coronation. "Hawks and

falcons were favourite subjects of amusement, and valuable presents in those days," says Mr. Turner*, " when the country being much over-run with wood, all species of the feathered race must have abounded. A king of Kent begged of a friend abroad two falcons of such skill and courage as to attack cranes willingly, and seizing them to throw them on the ground. An Anglo-Saxon, by his will, gives two hawks (hafocas), and all his staghounds (head or hundas) to his natural lord." And similarly to this claim of the king on the lord of Man, "Ethelstan," according to this writer," made North Wales furnish him with as many dogs as he chose, whose scent-pursuing noses might explore the haunts and coverts of the deer; he also exacted birds 'who knew how to hunt others along the atmosphere+.""

Hist. Anglo-Saxons, v. ii. p. 79. + Malmsb. lib. iii. p. 80.

The Isle of Man was given in the reign of Henry IV. to the Northumberland family; on the forfeiture of that earldom Sir John Stanley became possessed of it, on the present tenure of presenting the kings of England with two falcons on the day of their coronation; and although the sovereignty was purchased from the Duke of Athol by the crown during the late king's reign, that nobleman still holds his manorial rights by the performance of this duty.

§ 4. ANECDOTES OF THE ACTUAL CEREMONIES OF THE CORONATION,

CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.

ALTHOUGH the ceremonies of the royal investiture form a spectacle for the eye of the passing age, rather than a subject of historical record, presenting any thing characteristic of our monarchs, traces of the "form and body of the time" have occasionally been left by them on the page of history, which it is now our design to present to the reader.

The chief of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the octarchy at the close of the eighth century was Mercia; and hither we find Pope Adrian, the friend and favourite of Charlemagne, sending two legates to enforce a new code of ecclesiastical laws, as early as A.D. 785. A synod was held in Northumbria, and another in Mercia, to receive them; but while the former kingdom first embraced Christian

ity*, in the latter were first exhibited, at this time, the solemn rites of an ecclesiastical consecration in the person of EGFURTH, the son of Offa, who was "hallowed to king," in the presence of his father, then reigning. This phrase of the Saxon Chronicle describes all that is now known of the mode of this early coronation; but prince Egfurth seems, in virtue of it, to have reigned conjointly with his father afterwards. It is remarkable that, although the Archbishop of Canterbury soon obtained the entire ecclesiastical precedence

[ocr errors]

* The beautiful anecdote which Mr. Lingard furnishes from Bede of the debate on the conversion of the Northumbrian king, Edwin, we cannot forbear transcribing. The high priest of the heathen rites having spoken a thane "sought for information respecting the origin and destiny of man. Often,' said he, O king, in the depth of winter, while you are feasting with your thanes, and the fire is blazing on the hearth in the midst of the hall, you have seen a bird, pelted by the storm, enter at one door, and escape at the other. During its passage it was visible: but whence it came, or whither it went, you knew not. Such to me appears the life of man. He walks the earth for a few years: but what precedes his birth, or what is to follow after death, we cannot tell. Undoubtedly, if the new religion can unfold these important secrets, it must be worthy our attention.""-Lingard's History, vol. i. p. 92.

699443B

in the coronation of our kings*, at this same synod of Calcuith, (Chelsey, Bucks,) it was: decided that a metropolitan see should be established amongst the Mercians, taking from that of Canterbury all the territory between the Thames and the Humber; and that Adrian accordingly sent the pallium of archiepiscopal dignity to Adulph, Bishop of Lichfield. Charlemagne, who called himself in letters produced at this synod, "the most powerful of the kings of the east," gives to Offa the sounding title of "the most powerful of the kings of the west +." Egfurth, it would seem, was not again crowned on his accession to the entire regal authority.

There is one instance of a Northumbrian coronation, in the stormy close of that dynasty, i. e. that of EARDULF, A. D. 795. This prince had a singular escape from the hands of Ethelred, his predecessor, by whom he was brought to the church door of Rippon, in Yorkshire, and as the monarch and the spec

The see of Canterbury was restored to the primacy again by Cenulf, the successor of Egfurth.

+ Ep. Car. Mag. ap. Bouquet, tom. v. p. 260.

« AnteriorContinuar »