At the coronation of Henry IV, Sir John Dymoke, the Champion of England, rode into the Hall of Westminster Palace, where dinner was being served to the King, on horseback in complete armor, with a knight before him bearing his spear, and his sword and dagger by his side, and presented a label to the king on which had been written a challenge to any knight, squire, or gentleman, who dared declare that Henry was not rightful King of England. He then had a trumpet blown, and cried out that he was ready to fight in the quarrel. The label was then taken and cried by the heralds in six places in the town of Westminster, but no person seemed ready to fight although Richard II had been deposed by Henry IV and was then in a neighboring dungeon. That most atrocious medieval fraud, Richard III, when about to be crowned King, walked barefoot from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, a distance of about six hundred feet, to let the crowds witness his resignation and humility. When Edward VI, a boy of sixteen, was about to be crowned, he laid himself down upon the steps of the altar on his stomach while Cranmer, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, opened his shirt and rubbing the oil between his shoulder blades, anointed him. James I, who hated tobacco and witches, forbade the people to come to Westminster to witness his Coronation, as the plague was then raging, and James did not wish to catch the distemper. [Sidenote: OMEN OF ILL LUCK.] Charles I was crowned February 2, 1626, and his Queen, Henrietta, being a Catholic, was not a sharer in the Coronation, nor was she a spectator, and she would not accept the place fitted up for her in the Abbey, but stood at the window of the Palace gates to look at the crowd and procession, while her retinue of French ladies, nobles and servants, were dancing within. When Charles walked up to the altar to ascend the throne, Laud, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke of Buckingham, Lord High Constable of England, offered him their hands on either side to ascend the throne, but the King smilingly refused their hands and said: "I have as much need to help you, as you have to assist me." Then Laud presented the King to the great crowd of Nobles and people, and said, in an audible voice, "My masters and friends, I am here come to present unto you your King: King Charles, to whom the crown of his ancestors and predecessors is now devolved by lineal right; and therefore I desire you by your general acclamation, to testify your consent and willingness thereunto." Not a voice answered, and there was a stillness as of the grave through the vast spaces of the Abbey. It was a bad omen of a reign, which ended so disastrously, for the listening monarch. At last the Earl-Marshal, Lord Arundel and Howard, said to the spectators present: "Good people, I pray thee, why call ye not right lustily, 'God save King Charles?'"