Читать книгу The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey онлайн

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In the last year of his reign Edward I ordered a chair to be made in which the Stone was to be enclosed, and in which the Kings of England were to sit to be crowned. In this very chair every English sovereign has been crowned, from Edward II to Edward VII. It has only once been taken out of the Abbey, and that was when it was taken into Westminster Hall for the inauguration of Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Realm on December 16th, 1653.

In Edward III’s reign the Scots tried very hard to get the Stone back again, and the King, who wished to content them, very nearly allowed them to have it. But the people of London would not hear of such a thing, and, as an old writer says, “would not suffer the Stone to depart from themselves.”

We must now speak of some other Coronations. Richard II’s Coronation was very splendid, and the ceremony was so long and tiring that the King, who was still quite a boy, fainted from fatigue. Two interesting ceremonies began at this Coronation. One was the first appearance of the “Champion,” as he was called. The Champion was a knight who threw down his glove as a challenge to any one who disputed the King’s claim to the throne. The last appearance of the Champion was at the Coronation of George IV, in 1820, so this curious old custom lasted for more than four hundred years.