Produced by David Yingling, Jane Hyland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) CORONATION ANECDOTES, ETC. ETC. ETC. LONDON: PRINTED BY J. MOYES, GREVILLE STREET. CORONATION ANECDOTES; OR, SELECT AND INTERESTING FRAGMENTS OF ENGLISH CORONATION CEREMONIES * * * * * BY GILES GOSSIP, ESQ. "In pensive thought recal the fancied scene, See _Coronations_ rise on every green."--POPE. * * * * * LONDON: PRINTED FOR ROBERT JENNINGS, IN THE POULTRY. 1823. [Transcriber's Notes: A letter with a dot over it, is denoted in the following way [.y] Superscripts are denoted by a carat ^ ] ADVERTISEMENT. The coronation of our monarchs presents a wide field of meditation to an intelligent eye. It is an epitome of the genius of the monarchy, and a miniature exhibition of the leading events of our annals. Connected, in point of fact, with the first establishment of Christianity in this island, it also perpetuates some of the earliest British notions of public liberty; and while it confirms the hereditary claims of each succeeding prince, it is introduced by a recognition of some of the most ancient rights of the people, "Mighty states, _characterless_, are grated To dusty nothing," says that great dramatist who has so largely alluded to English coronations in his historical plays. These ceremonies exhibit the character of each constituent portion of the political body from age to age; and are chiefly valuable, perhaps, as preserving a chain of _national identity_, unbroken by conquest, or by civil war; by changing dynasties, or the most important revolutions of the empire: on the other hand, they present to us a vast _variety_ of character and events.--They are associated with the gloom, "the dim religious light" of Anglo-Saxon history, with the stormy character of the Conquest and the Norman domination; they bring before us the lofty Plantagenet, the proud Tudor, and the tyrannical but unfortunate House of Stuart, in all the pomp, and strife, and vanity of their respective pretensions.