The ceremonies of coronation were very grand in the olden time and much of their splendor has passed away or has become obsolete. [Illustration: CORONATION CHAIR.] One of the grandest sights ever witnessed in the Abbey was when Aldred, Archbishop of York, crowned William the Conqueror, King of England. The mail clad bodies of Norman soldiery lined every part of old London to keep down the Saxons, while William, superbly mounted, and followed by a train of two hundred and sixty barons, lords and knights, entered the Abbey. When the multitude reached the high altar, Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, asked the Normans if they were willing to have the Duke crowned King of England, and the nobles, knights, and priests, among whom the English lordships and abbeys were already parceled out, cried aloud with one voice that they were. The Norman horsemen without the walls of the abbey hearing the shout, fancied that the Saxons within had attacked their countrymen, and immediately they set fire to the houses around the abbey, and in a few minutes the abbey was deserted of friend and foe alike with the exception of William and a few priests who stood firm, although the Duke trembled violently as the crown was placed upon his head. He declared that he would treat the English people as well as the best of their kings had done, vowing by the Splendor of God, his usual oath. The coronation of Richard I, the Lion Heart as he was called, was attended with great pomp. On the third of September, 1189, the Archbishops of Canterbury, Rouen, Treves in Germany, and Dublin, arrayed in silken copes, and preceded by a body of clergy bearing the cross, holy water, censers and tapers, met Richard at the door of his privy chamber in Westminster Palace, and proceeded with him to the Abbey. In the midst of a numerous body of bishops and ecclesiastics, marched four barons, each with a golden candlestick and taper, then in succession--Geoffrey de Lacey with the royal cap, John the Marshal with the royal spurs of gold, and William, Earl of Striguil and Pembroke, with the golden Rod and Dove. Then came David, brother to the King of Scotland, and present as Earl of Huntington, and Robert, Earl of Leicester, supporting John the King's brother, the three bearing upright swords in richly gilded scabbards. Following them came six barons bearing a chequered table, upon which were the King's robes and regalia, and now was seen approaching the central object of this gorgeous picture--Richard himself, under a gorgeous canopy stretched by six lances, borne by as many nobles, having immediately before him the Earl of Albemarle with the crown, and a bishop on each side. The ground on which he walked was spread with rich cloths of Tyrian dye. [Sidenote: THE MASSACRE.]