[58]
WIKIPEDIA
EDWARD I OF ENGLAND
[59]
WIKIPEDIA
STONE OF SCONE
[60]
”Historically, the artefact was kept at the now-ruined Scone Abbey in Scone, near Perth, Scotland. It was seized by Edward I’s forces from Scone during the English invasion of Scotland in 1296, and was used in the coronation of the monarchs of England as well as the monarchs of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, following the Treaty of Union of 1707”
WIKIPEDIA
STONE OF SCONE
”In 1296, the English king Edward I seized a block of sandstone from Scone Abbey in Perthshire called the Stone of Scone, or the Stone of Destiny. This stone had been used by Scottish kings for centuries to sit upon when they were crowned. Edward brought the Stone to England and commissioned the Coronation Chair to hold it”
WIKIPEDIA
CORONATION CHAIR/HISTORY
ORIGINAL SOURCE
WIKIPEDIA
CORONATION CHAIR
[61]
”In 1296, the English king Edward I seized a block of sandstone from Scone Abbey in Perthshire called the Stone of Scone, or the Stone of Destiny. This stone had been used by Scottish kings for centuries to sit upon when they were crowned. Edward brought the Stone to England and commissioned the Coronation Chair to hold it”
WIKIPEDIA
CORONATION CHAIR/HISTORY
ORIGINAL SOURCE
WIKIPEDIA
CORONATION CHAIR
[62]
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
THE CORONATION CHAIR
The Coronation Chair
The Coronation Chair in St George’s Chapel is one of the most precious and famous pieces of furniture in the world. It has been the centrepiece of coronations for over 700 years when it is placed in the centre of the Abbey, in front of the High Altar.
Origins and decoration
The Coronation Chair was made by order of Edward I to enclose the famous Stone of Scone, which he brought from Scotland to the Abbey in 1296, where he placed it in the care of the Abbot of Westminster. The King had a magnificent oaken chair made to contain the Stone in 1300-1301, painted by Master Walter and decorated with patterns of birds, foliage and animals on a gilt ground. The figure of a king, either Edward the Confessor or Edward I, his feet resting on a lion, was painted on the back. The four gilt lions below were made in 1727 to replace the originals, which were themselves not added to the Chair until the early 16th century. The Stone was originally totally enclosed under the seat but over the centuries the wooden decoration had been torn away from the front.
History
At coronations, the Chair – height 2.05m (6 feet 9 inches) – with the Stone stands facing the High Altar. The Chair has been in use at the coronation ceremony since 1308 although opinion is divided as to when it was actually used for the crowning, but this was certainly the case from 1399 when Henry IV was crowned in the Chair.
There have been thirty nine coronation ceremonies for reigning monarchs held at the Abbey (William and Mary were crowned in one ceremony. Edward V, one of the “Princes in the Tower” and Edward VIII, who abdicated, were never crowned). Fifteen queen consorts also had separate coronation ceremonies.
Joint coronation
At the joint coronation of William III and Mary II in 1689 a special chair was made for Mary, as William used the ancient chair. Mary’s chair is on display in the new Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries at the Abbey.
Removal
The ancient Chair was taken out of the Abbey when Oliver Cromwell was installed upon it as Lord Protector in Westminster Hall. It was used by Queen Victoria at the 1887 Golden Jubilee Services in the Abbey. During the Second World War the Chair was evacuated to Gloucester Cathedral and the Stone was secretly buried in the Abbey.
Graffiti and damage
Most of the graffiti on the back part of the Chair is the result of Westminster schoolboys and visitors carving their names in the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the tourists carved “P. Abbott slept in this chair 5-6 July 1800” on the seat.
A bomb attack in 1914 thought to be organised by the Suffragettes even knocked a small corner off it.
Move to St George’s Chapel
The Chair was kept in the Chapel of St Edward the Confessor for many centuries until that chapel was closed to general visitors in 1997. In February 1998 the Chair was moved out to the ambulatory and raised on a modern pedestal near the tomb of Henry V.
In April 2010 it was moved to a specially-built enclosure within St George’s Chapel at the west end of the Nave for essential conservation work. During conservation and cleaning, under the supervision of the Hamilton Kerr Institute, a rare pigment called orpiment was discovered in the compartment which housed the Stone. Tiny traces of vivid colour were found on the Chair. New wooden tracery was put in at the front of the Chair (the original had been missing since the 18th century). It was discovered that originally there was no seat and a cushion on top of the Stone was probably used in earlier times.
Stone of Scone
Legends abound concerning the Stone of Scone. Tradition identifies it with the one upon which Jacob rested his head at Bethel – “And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it” (Genesis chapter 28, verse 18). The legend then says that Jacob’s sons carried it to Egypt and from thence it passed to Spain with King Gathelus, son of Cecrops, the builder of Athens. About 700 BC it was said to be in Ireland, whither it was carried by the Spanish King’s son Simon Brech, on his invasion of the island. There it was placed upon the sacred Hill of Tara, and called “Lia-Fail”, the “fatal” stone, or “stone of destiny”, for when the Irish kings were seated on it at coronations the Stone groaned aloud if the claimant was of royal race but remained silent if he was a pretender. Fergus Mor MacEirc (died 501?), the founder of the Scottish monarchy, and one of the Blood Royal of Ireland, received it in Scotland, and Kenneth MacAlpin (died 860) finally deposited it in the monastery of Scone in Perthshire (846).
Setting aside the earlier myths it is certain that it had been for centuries an object of veneration to the Scots. Upon this Stone their kings, down to John Balliol in 1292, were crowned, and it is said that the following words were once engraved on the Stone by Kenneth:
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocunque locatum
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem
[If Fates go right, where’er this stone is found
The Scots shall monarchs of that realm be crowned]
The prophecy was fulfilled at the accession of James VI of Scotland and I of England in 1603. The Stone weighs 152 kg (336 pounds) and is composed of sandstone.
Theft and return to Scotland
It was stolen by Scottish Nationalists on 25th December 1950. After its recovery in April 1951 it was kept in the vault in which it had been stored during the Second World War and was not replaced in the Chair until February 1952, after elaborate precautions had been taken for its future safety.
However, on 3rd July 1996 the Prime Minister (John Major) announced that the Stone of Scone would be returned to Scotland by the end of the year, returning to the Abbey only for coronations. On the evening of 13th November 1996 the Stone was removed from the Chair by representatives of Historic Scotland and put in a specially made crate. It was transported by stretcher to stand in the Lantern of the Abbey overnight and was removed in silence to the waiting police escort early on the morning of 14th November to make the long journey to Scotland by road. It can now be seen in Edinburgh Castle. The Stone was indeed temporarily returned to be re-united with the Chair for the coronation of King Charles III in 2023.
So the Coronation Chair, once the oldest piece of furniture in England still used for the purpose for which it was originally built, now stands empty after 700 years.
Further reading
For further information on the Stone see Edinburgh Castle
(the Stone is due to be moved, probably in 2024, to a new exhibition site in Perth, Scotland)
A Service to to mark the arrival of The Stone of Destiny: Order of Service (PDF, 301KB)
The Official site of the British Monarchy
Guide to the Coronation Service (PDF, 18KB)
The Coronation Chair and Stone of Scone. History, archaeology and conservation by Warwick Rodwell, 2013
The Georgianisation of the Coronation Chair by W. Rodwell in “The Georgian” Issue 1, 2013
The Coronation Chair and Stone of Destiny by James Wilkinson, 2006 (available from the Abbey Shop)
The Stone of Destiny – artefact and icon, edited by R. Welander & others, 2003
Scotland’s Stone of Destiny by Nick Aitchison, 2000
The Coronation Chair. An historical and technical enquiry by W. Percival-Prescott, 1957
An in-situ treatment report 2004 and tree ring analysis report 2011 on the Chair are available for consultation at Westminster Abbey Library
WIKIPEDIA
HENRY IV OF ENGLAND
[63]
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
THE CORONATION CHAIR
SEE FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, NOTE 60
SEE ALSO THE NEXT ARTICLE
THE CORONATION CHAIR: HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO
KNOW ABOUT THE 700-YEAR OLD ARTIFACT
21 APRIL 2023
When King Charles III is coronated on May 6, he’ll do so from a very historic point. The coronation chair, which was commissioned by King Edward I and finished around 1300, has served as the seat for 38 monarchs as they were crowned and is thought to be one of the oldest pieces of British furniture still in use. Made of gilded oak, it’s been painstakingly preserved over centuries and was given a thorough restoration ahead of King Charles III’s crowning.
“It is one of the oldest surviving artifacts associated with coronations for which we have a complete provenance,” Dr. R. M. Morris, honorary senior research associate at the Constitution Unit of University College London tells AD. Because a great number of coronation items were lost during the interregnum that lasted from 1649 to 1660, little, except for the chair and a spoon used in the ceremony, remains. “It is a remarkable survival and a more than 700-years-old link with an unimaginably remote past, and yet still also a witness to the wonderful fact of the long continuity of our society.”
Late last year, a restoration of the chair, led by Westminster Abbey conservator Krista Blessley, began with the aim of cleaning it and preserving the gilding where it had flaked. The six-foot-nine-tall chair, which resides in Westminster Abbey’s St. George’s Chapel when it’s not in use, was originally designed to hold the Stone of Scone, a Scottish symbol of monarchy that King Edward I captured and brought back to England. It was enclosed in a wood platform that served as the seat of the chair. While the stone was given back to Scotland in 1996, it will be sent from Edinburgh Castle to Westminster Abbey for the coronation.
The chair features ornate detailing of plants, birds, and other animals. On the back, a king (which is believed to have been Edward I or Edward the Confessor) is depicted. Westminster Abbey curator Susan Jenkins believes the chair’s decoration is its greatest virtue. “You need to get up close to the chair to see the level of detailed decoration that still survives on it. The chair has what is called punchwork and stenciling in the gilding, which originally completely covered it,” she tells AD. “The gilding still shows signs of flowers and birds in delicate markings on the inner and outer sides. It also had colored glass that would have sparkled in the candlelight.”
Historians see incredible detail in the chair that brings to life the complex history of the royal family. Much would be very easy to miss at first glance. “I think relatively little is known about the chair—about its age and its continual use. Visitors probably don’t realize that a copy of it was made for the coronation of Queen Mary II (Stuart) in 1689, so that she could be crowned alongside her husband, King William III,” Jenkins shares. The queen had a stronger claim to the English throne than Dutch-born William, but he was crowned in the 14th-century chair, and she was crowned in one that was made for her coronation.
Every element of the chair’s design highlights the living history of British royalty and the sanctity with which it is seen. “During the coronation service, the chair is positioned on the Cosmati pavement of the sacrarium and it is the closest seat to the high altar, with its back towards the rest of the congregation,” Jenkins says. “The use of a chair that was commissioned by a king of England over 700 years ago helps to emphasize the ancient and traditional nature of the coronation service and the reverence owed to the monarch.”
END OF THE ARTICLE
[64]
”
Origins and decoration
The Coronation Chair was made by order of Edward I to enclose the famous Stone of Scone, which he brought from Scotland to the Abbey in 1296, where he placed it in the care of the Abbot of Westminster. The King had a magnificent oaken chair made to contain the Stone in 1300-1301, painted by Master Walter and decorated with patterns of birds, foliage and animals on a gilt ground”
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
THE CORONATION CHAIR
SEE FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, NOTE 62