[62] The first reference to the consecration of a Saxon king is found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 785, when Ecgferth was associated as king by his father Offa. [63] _DACL_, art. Bretagne (grande-), col. 1238. [64] Dom Cabrol, _loc. cit._, giving the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as his authority, most unjustifiably states that Ecgferth was ‘couronné et oint.’ In the case of Ecgferth the A.-S. Chronicle account goes back to the compiler of the Winchester Annals drawn up under Alfred. What his sources were we do not know. In the case of Eardwulf of Northumbria we have the contemporary Northumbrian Annals embedded in Simeon of Durham and known through him and certain passages common to him and the A.-S. Chronicle, extending from the death of Bede to 802. [65] Rich. de Cirencestria, _Speculum Historiale_ (Rolls Series), II. p. 27. We have the evidence of a charter of Burgred and Aethelswyth to show that crowns were among the regalia of the Mercian kings in the ninth century, but this does not necessarily imply any religious ceremony of coronation. J. M. Kemble, _Codex Diplom._, II. 94. [66] See Stubbs’ Introd. to William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Regum_ (Rolls Series), II. p. xlii, n. 4. ‘Filium vestrum Erfred quem hoc in tempore ad sanctorum apostolorum limina destinare curastis, benigne suscepimus et quasi spiritalem filium consulatus cingulo, honore, vestimentisque, ut mos est Romanis consulibus, decoravimus, eo quod in nostris se tradidit manibus.’ [67] Henderson, _Pontificale of Egbert_ (Surtees Soc., Vol. XXVII.), pp. 100 ff. Another text of the same Order is printed from the _Pontificale Lanalatense_ by L. G. Wickham Legg, _English Coronation Records_, Westminster, 1901, pp. 3 ff., who also gives the unimportant variations of the text of the Order as it appears in the Leoffric Missal. [68] Reference is made in this rite to seven prayers used, and _In diebus_ is therefore evidently regarded as an alternative. Sometimes it is very uncertain whether Alia means ‘or,’ or ‘also.’ [69] This detail follows the text of the Leoffric Missal. In the other two texts it is apparently stated that the people kiss the king, but the rubric is in all three texts confused and probably corrupt. [70] ‘For the nation of the West-Saxons does not allow a queen to sit beside the king, nor to be called a queen, but only the king’s wife.’ Asser, _De rebus gestis Aelfredi_, s.a. 856 (Petrie, _Mon. Hist. Brit._ p. 471). The _Annales Bertiniani_, which s.a. 856 recount the coronation of Judith in France, definitely state that the coronation of a queen was not practised among the Saxons. See Pertz, _M.G.H. Script._ I. 450. For the position accorded to the consorts of Anglo-Saxon kings, see Liebermann, _Gesetze der Angelsachsen_, II. s.v. ‘Königin.’