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Now let us turn for a little to some of the Coronations of particular Kings. As we have seen, the Saxon Kings were usually crowned at Winchester, as Edward the Confessor himself was.

The first Coronation to take place in the great church founded and built by the Confessor was that of Harold the Saxon, son of Earl Godwin, and brother-in-law of the Confessor. There was much anxiety in the country about the succession, and Harold was crowned at Westminster in great haste and confusion the day after the Confessor died, and the very day of his funeral, January 6th, 1066.

The next coronation was indeed different, for many things had happened in England meanwhile. As we all know, William Duke of Normandy, cousin of Edward the Confessor, had claimed the throne of England by right of inheritance. He had sailed over to England, had defeated and slain Harold at the Battle of Hastings (or Senlac), and was now King. When we remember that Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in St. Peter’s at Rome by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, it makes it all the more interesting to think that the day chosen for the Conqueror’s Coronation was also Christmas Day. He stood there in the Abbey, close to the grave of the Confessor, having on one side of him the Saxon Aldred, Archbishop of York, and on the other the Norman Bishop of Coutances. Archbishop Stigand, of Canterbury, had fled.