The oath was at first quite simple, short, and direct. It developed into an interrogatory form, the king swearing in answer to questions put to him by the consecrating prelate. In England and France the oath covered the king’s duties to Church and State and People, but elsewhere it frequently included a promise of subjection to the See of Rome. The benediction of the Church was subjected to the greatest developement. An unction was introduced, and the porrection of the royal ornaments, Sword, Crown, Ring, Sceptres, and Verge, which naturally lent themselves to spectacular effect, tended to become more and more elaborate. Thus in process of time each ornament was delivered with its own form and prayer. Added to this, the conflation of prayers, originally alternative, has increased this portion of the rite until it comprises the greater part of the whole ceremonial. It appealed to sentiment, and the Church was always ready to make use of sentiment. If it is desired to make a comparison between this and any other rite of the Church, it is the marriage rite which is really the closest to it. So King Charles I felt, of whom we are told that ‘His Majesty on that day was cloathed in white contrary to the custom of his predecessors who were on that day clad in purple. And this he did ... at his own choice only, to declare that Virgin Purity with which he came to be espoused unto his Kingdom[174].’ In marriage a covenant is made with vows between the two contracting parties. To the covenant so made the Church adds her benediction. In the giving of her benediction she makes use of emblems, a Crown and Ring, investing the contracting parties with insignia, as it were, which are highly significant of the covenant betwixt them made. Of these the nuptial Crown, still used throughout Eastern Christendom, has long been dispensed with in the West, the Ring alone remaining. The rite of the coronation of a queen consort is not really in the same category with the consecration of a king. It is merely complimentary. As we have seen it had no place in the earliest English order, nor yet in the corresponding rite of Milan, and perhaps the same is true of the oldest Frankish forms. The second English recension gives a form for the coronation of the queen with the preliminary explanation that the office is performed out of consideration for her honourable position as consort of the king. This is borne out by the earlier forms at her unction, ‘Let the anointing with this oil increase thine honour.’