whom the new crowned king might be honoured. Or it may be merely a prayer that he may be honoured more than his ancestors. 2 The usual text of the second recension acknowledges very fully the rights of the King of England over the Church of England, which our Anglo-Saxon fathers were wont to uphold.' In the prayer for the consecration of the King Omnipotens sempiterne Deus on p. 54 appear the words: "hic Domine quaesumus totius regni anglo-saxonum ecclesiam deinceps cum plebibus sibi commissis ita enutriat ac doceat, muniat et instruat contraque omnes visibiles et invisibiles hostes idem potenter regaliterque tuae virtutis regimine regat et defendat," which continued in our coronation orders until with the whole prayer they were removed by Dr. Compton from the coronation of William and Mary. In this edition of the second recension there is also an allusion to the teaching that the King rules the Church, which is contained in the new benediction on the delivery of the rod, on p. 58, with which the King is bidden to rule peaceably the church of God, per quam Ecclesiam Dei pacifice regere. And the anthems added to this edition show a further development of the idea that the office of a king is of affinity to the office of a bishop. For besides the prayer Deus qui populis, which is taken from the service of the consecration of a bishop, or the anniversary of the consecration of a pope,3 one of the anthems added to the present edition has a similar source. Redemptor mundi on p. 54 is taken from the service for the reception of a bishop. first words appears in the Corpus pontifical (44) a little before the coronation order, on p. 273 as part of the service for the reception of an archbishop. Its Another point in which the consecration of a King in this recension touches the consecration of a bishop is the direction, if I read the rubric on p. 53 aright, that three bishops at least shall assist in the coronation of the King, thus resembling the rule made in the first Council of Nicaea that three bishops shall assist in the consecration of a bishop. But there is no direction for any imposition of hands in any English order, although there is evidence which leads up to the thought that at one time there may have been some such ceremony at the coronation of an English King. For in the first account that we have of the benediction of a King in these islands, it is said that St. Columba laid his hand upon the head of King Aidan, consecrating him and blessing him. Also during the quarrel between Henry II. and St. Thomas of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York crowned the King's son at Westminster, thereby, it was said, doing a wrong to the Church of Canterbury, because the 1 See Dr. R. W. Church, late Dean of St. Paul's, On the Relations between Church and State, Macmillan, 1899. Reprinted from the Christian Remembrancer of April, 1850. See above, p. xxii. and below, p. 138. See below, in the notes, p. 164. 4 For the text of the anthem see notes, p. 165. below. 5 William Reeves, Life of St. Columba written by Adamnan, Book III. Chap. vi. Edinburgh, 1874. p. 81. COR. ORDERS d Archbishop of York had laid his hands upon the King's son within the province of Canterbury." There is also positive evidence that abroad a laying on of hands was, at one coronation at least, a part of the ceremony. It appears that when William, Count of Holland, was crowned King of the Romans on November 1st, 1248, immediately after the anointing by the Archbishop of Mentz, the Archbishop of Triers laid his hands upon the King saying: "May the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and true godliness, the spirit of counsel and strength come down upon thee; and mayest thou be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord."2 The form is allied to that of confirmation, rather than to the Accipe Spiritum Sanctum of orders. Our Treasurer, Mr. Dewick, has pointed out as remarkable the expression quae per manus nostrae impositionem hodie regina constituitur in the coronation of the Queen, which in this edition is on p. 62; and he considers it "possible that laying on of hands was once the general practice at coronations."3 In this second recension, however, there is none of that resemblance in structure to the order for an episcopal consecration which we see in the fourth recension, or Liber regalis; nor is it more marked in the third recension, although this has many points of contact with the fourth. In the fourth recension, with the delivery of the sacerdotal ornaments, the use of cream at the anointing, and the alteration of the structure of the coronation order, the mediaeval idea of the analogy between the office of a bishop and the office of a king seems to have reached its fullest developement.* In the Secret of the mass on p. 63, a considerable change in the meaning of the prayer has been brought about by the interpolation into the text of the word salutare, and the change of fiant into fiat, changes which are not found elsewhere. Proficiant later on has also been changed into proficiat. In the ordinary text the prayer is that the gifts may become to us the body and blood of the Son of God. In the text of this edition the prayer is that the body and blood of the Son of God may give health to us. Such a change if made in a later age would certainly be pointed out as indicating a modification of doctrine, which at this period is not likely. 1 J. C. Robertson, Materials for the history of Thomas Becket, Rolls Series, 1875. Vol. i. p. 81. "Asseverabant alii quia Cantuariensis ecclesiae derogaret dignitati. Imposuit autem ei manum archiepiscopus Eboracensis in Cantuariensi provincia [or: dioecesi, in ecclesia videlicet beati Petri apud Westmonasterium] contra dignitatem ecclesiae Cantuariensis et antiquam consuetudinem. 2 Iohannes de Beca, Historia veterum episcoporum Ultraiectinae sedis et comitum Hollandiae, Franequerae, R. Doyema, 1612. p. 67. "Archiepiscopus autem Treverensis Cancellarius Galliae manus illi superimposuit, ita dicens: "Descendat in te Spiritus sapientiae intelligentiae, scientiae, pietatis, fortitudinis, et consilii, replearisque spiritu timoris Domini." 90. 3 E. S. Dewick, Coronation Book of Charles V. of France, H.B.S. 1899. notes, p. 4 See my paper on the "Sacring of the English Kings," in Archæological Journal, 1894. vol. li. p. 28. The consecration of the Queen begins on p. 62, and three manuscripts give permission to a simple priest to perform this office: ab episcopo vel presbytero dicenda. In Appendix X. is printed the modern order; and it is of interest to see that, though the order for the King has undergone so many and repeated changes, yet the order for the Queen remains not unlike that which appeared nearly a thousand years ago. The constitutional lawyer may note that although the author of the second recension of our coronation order has retained in the prayer Omnipotens Sempiterne Deus on p. 55, the word eligimus, which in Liber regalis appears as consecramus, yet in Sta et retine there already exists hereditario iure in the sentence regni solium hereditario iure tibi delegatum per auctoritatem Dei. 1 |