Читать книгу Adventures in Journalism онлайн

38 страница из 84

The ceremony is, indeed, the old ritual of knighthood, ending with the crowning act. The arms and emblems of kingship are laid upon the altar, as when a knight kept vigil. He is stripped of his outer garments, and stands before the people, bare of all the apparel which hides his simplicity, as a common man.

There was a dramatic moment when this unclothing happened to King George. The Lord Chamberlain could not untie the bows and knots of his cloak and surcoat, and the ceremony was held up by an awkward pause. But he was a man of action, and pulling out a clasp knife from his pocket, slashed at the ribbons till they were cut....

Looking down the great nave from a gallery above, I saw the long purple robes of the peers and peeresses, the rows of coronets, the little pages, like fairy-tale princes, on the steps of the sanctuary, the Prince of Wales himself like a Childe Harold, in silk doublet and breeches, the Archbishop and Bishops, Kings-at-Arms, and officers of state, busy about the person of the King who was helpless in their hands as a victim of sacrifice, clothing him, anointing him, crowning him, before the act of homage in which all the Lords of England moved forward in their turn to swear fealty to their liege, who, in his turn, had sworn to uphold the laws and liberties of England. A cynic might scoff. But no man with an artist’s eye, and no man with Chaucer and Shakespeare in his heart, could fail to see the beauty of this mediæval picture, nor fail to feel the old thrill in that heritage of ancient customs which belong to the poetry and the heart of England.