The precise significance of this so-called “coronation” is not easy to determine. Richard, we are told, “when he had called together the prelates of England, asked and received from them counsel that he should renew his kingship[1139] and permit the crown to be placed on his head by the archbishop of Canterbury at the Easter festival. He followed this counsel of the prelates; and as there was not time to prepare for so great a solemnity by Easter Day, it was deferred until the octave. And because the manner of a crowning of this sort had for many years passed away from the minds of men, the directions for it were sought and found in the church of Canterbury, where Stephen had been thus crowned with his queen.”[1140] These directions clearly apply not to a coronation in the usual sense of the word—a ceremony of which the pattern for all after-time in England had been set less than five years before—but to the old English custom, obsolete since 1157, of “wearing the crown” in public on certain high festivals. The king was arrayed in his full robes, the sceptre and verge were placed in his hands, and the crown set upon his head by the archbishop, not in the church, but in the royal chamber; thence he was conducted in procession to the church, where he was enthroned with special prayers and suffrages; after which the Mass was celebrated and he made his offering and his Communion. When the service was ended the procession returned to the royal apartments, and the king, after changing his heavy crown for a lighter one, sat down with his magnates to a banquet, held on this occasion in the refectory of the cathedral monastery.[1141] “Thus,” says Gervase of Canterbury, “by the counsel of the prelates was King Richard crowned on the octave [Sidenote: _April 17_] of Easter at Winchester, because being set free from captivity he had unexpectedly returned to his kingdom.”[1142] The revival of the old custom which Henry II had abandoned thirty-seven years before seems to be thus sufficiently explained as an expression of the joy and thankfulness of king, Church, and nation at a deliverance of which they had almost despaired, and which promised the beginning of a new era in his reign. There are, however, indications of something behind this. One phrase used by Gervase, and two other phrases used by other writers of the time, suggest that during Richard’s captivity something had taken place, or was supposed or suspected in England to have taken place, derogatory to his regal dignity and making it advisable for that dignity to be publicly re-asserted or “renewed.”[1143] That something, if not altogether imaginary, could hardly be anything else than his alleged homage to the Emperor; and if that homage were, or were understood to be, merely for the kingdom of Burgundy, it could scarcely be regarded as affecting his position or his dignity as king of England. The evidence is, however, too scanty and too vague to warrant any definite conclusion on the point.