over his shoulders, and took the sword of the Kingdom from the Archbishop to subdue the enemies of the Catholic Church, and then put on the golden sandals and the royal mantle, which last was splendidly embroidered, and was led to the altar, where the Archbishop charged him on God's behalf, not to presume to take this dignity upon him unless he were resolved to keep inviolably the vows he had made; to which the king replied:

"By God, His grace, I will faithfully keep them all: Amen." The crown was then handed to the Archbishop, by Richard himself, in token that he held it only from God, when the Archbishop placed it on the King's head; he also gave the sceptre into his right hand, and the royal rod into his left.

At the close of this part of the ceremony Richard was led back to the throne, and High Mass being performed with grand pomp, Richard offered as was usual, a mark of pure gold to the altar.

While the coronation was going on inside massacre and arson reigned outside of the Abbey. Before the ceremony, Richard, by proclamation had forbidden all Jews to be present at Westminster, either within or without the Abbey, but some members of that persecuted race had rashly ventured within the walls, and a hue and cry being set up at what was deemed a sacrilege, the populace ejected a prominent Israelite and beat him with sticks and stones. In a few minutes a report spread that the King had ordered the destruction of the Jews, and the furious mob spread all over the city, burning the houses and destroying the lives of the miserable Jews. Men, women, and children of tender age were burned alive in their domiciles, where resistance was made to the mob, and the cries of the murdered children blended discordantly with the sounds of the shaums, and jongleurs, and the shouts of the rabble, who were celebrating the coronation. The riot became so formidable that at last Richard, who was at dinner in Westminster Hall, ordered the Chief Justiciary of the Kingdom, Ranulf de Glanville, to go and quell it, but this was more easy to order than to perform, and the King's officers were driven back to the Hall.

Through all that night and day the pillage, arson, and mas

sacre continued, and the next day the King hanged three of the rabble as an atonement.

At the coronation of Henry IV, Sir John Dymoke, the Champion of England, rode into the Hall of Westminster Palace, where dinner was being served to the King, on horseback in complete armor, with a knight before him bearing his spear, and his sword and dagger by his side, and presented a label to the king on which had been written a challenge to any knight, squire, or gentleman, who dared declare that Henry was not rightful King of England. He then had a trumpet blown, and cried out that he was ready to fight in the quarrel. The label was then taken and cried by the heralds in six places in the town of Westminster, but no person seemed ready to fight although Richard II had been deposed by Henry IV and was then in a neighboring dungeon.

That most atrocious medieval fraud, Richard III, when about to be crowned King, walked barefoot from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, a distance of about six hundred feet, to let the crowds witness his resignation and humility.

When Edward VI, a boy of sixteen, was about to be crowned, he laid himself down upon the steps of the altar on his stomach while Cranmer, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, opened his shirt and rubbing the oil between his shoulder blades, anointed him.

James I, who hated tobacco and witches, forbade the people to come to Westminster to witness his Coronation, as the plague was then raging, and James did not wish to catch the distemper.

Charles I was crowned February 2, 1626, and his Queen, Henrietta, being a Catholic, was not a sharer in the Coronation, nor was she a spectator, and she would not accept the place fitted up for her in the Abbey, but stood at the window of the Palace gates to look at the crowd and procession, while her retinue of French ladies, nobles and servants, were dancing within. When Charles walked up to the altar to ascend the throne, Laud, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke of Buckingham, Lord High Constable of England, offered him their hands on

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either side to ascend the throne, but the King smilingly refused their hands and said:

"I have as much need to help you, as you have to assist me." Then Laud presented the King to the great crowd of Nobles and people, and said, in an audible voice, "My masters and friends, I am here come to present unto you your King King Charles, to whom the crown of his ancestors and predecessors is now devolved by lineal right; and therefore I desire you by your general acclamation, to testify your consent and willingness thereunto."

Not a voice answered, and there was a stillness as of the grave through the vast spaces of the Abbey. It was a bad omen of a reign, which ended so disastrously, for the listening monarch.

At last the Earl-Marshal, Lord Arundel and Howard, said to the spectators present: "Good people, I pray thee, why call ye not right lustily, 'God save King Charles?""

Thus admonished, they with one voice exclaimed, "God save Charles, our King." In the adjoining hall, Oliver Cromwell was inaugurated Lord Protector of England, with a quiet ceremonial, attended by ushers, life guards, State coaches, the Long Parliament, and several troops of horse.

When James II was crowned, the Royal bauble tottered on his head, and this was supposed to be a prophetic omen of ill luck.

When George III was made King, with great pomp and circumstance, there was present, unknown to the crowd, a young man who must have witnessed the placing of the Golden Circlet on the brow of this fat, Hanoverian Prince, with strange emotions. He could have said with truth, "My place should have been by that chair; my father should have been sitting in it," for it was the young Pretender, Charles Stuart; the last of his royal and unfortunate race.

At all the late Coronations, the magnificent pomp and ceremonial of the Middle Ages have been omitted, and the last time that these Ceremonies were carried out was at the Coronation of George IV, when the Celebration was a very fine one.

The wood-work of the Choir was removed and boxes erected, affording an uninterrupted view of the Nave and Chancel, showing the Peers and Peeresses in all their magnificence of robes, of satins and silks, and head-dresses of feathers and diamonds. To these were added the brilliantly illuminated surcoats of the Heralds and Kings-at-arms, while the King himself sat in the royal Chair of State, which is over two thousand years old, and there received homage from the great officers of State, and Peers of the Realm, the Crown on his head and Sceptre in his hand, the Garter and George around his neck, and the velvet robes enfolding his body, which was then scorbutic from disease and dissipation.

The challenge of the Champion of England was at this ceremony delivered for the last time. After the banquet was over, at which seventeen thousand pounds of meat, three thousand fowls, one thousand dozen of wine, ten thousand plates, and seventeen thousand knives and forks, were among the items, came the challenge to all who dared to dispute the right of George to the throne of England.

It was an imposing sight, as the Duke of Wellington, with his Ducal Coronet ornamented with strawberry leaves, on his head, and in his flowing Peer's robes walked down the hall, cheered by the officers of the Life Guards, who were present. He shortly afterwards returned, mounted, and accompanied by the Marquis of Anglesey, the one-legged cavalry officer of Waterloo, and Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the Hereditary Earl Marshal of England.

The three Nobles rode gracefully to the foot of the throne, paid their homage, and then backed their horses down the lofty hall. The hall doors of the Palace opened again, and outside, in the twilight, a man in complete armor of Milan proof, appeared on horseback, outlined against the shining sky. He then moved, passed into darkness, and under the massive arch, and suddenly Howard, Wellington, and Anglesey, stood in full view of the vast assemblage, with the palace doors closed behind them. This was the finest sight of the day, as the Herald read the challenge, a glove was thrown

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down by a gauntleted hand as a token of defiance, which was taken up instantly by Wellington, and then they all proceeded to the throne, trumpets blowing, people shouting, and flowergirls strewing the way with baskets of flowers.

The funerals of Lady Palmerston and George Peabody were the last that have taken place in Westminster Abbey, and at the funeral of the former a London reporter, in his eagerness to get an item, fell into the grave of Lady Palmerston and nearly frightened a young lady mourner out of her senses. Such is the story of this Mausoleum of Royalty and Heroism. Westminster Abbey is only equaled for the antiquity and grandeur of its mortal remains by the Abbey of St. Denis, in France, and those world-old cemeteries, the Pyramids of Egypt.