CORONATION DRESS--PARLIAMENTARY ROBES--MISTAKES IN COURT DRESS--VESTIGES OF THE WIG AND OF THE CHAPERON--COURT CARDS The English sovereigns are heads of the Church as well as of the State, and in connection with their coronation dress there are, as might be expected, many survivals from the past. The vestments used on the occasion in question agree almost entirely with those which we have described as being worn by a bishop at mass. We may except, however, the amice and the maniple, while the sceptre and crown take the place of the crosier and the mitre. The first vestment to be put on is of linen, and is an albe or rochet, and up to the time of James II it was provided with sleeves--it is known as the _Colobium sindonis_. Over this is placed the tunicle or dalmatic. This is made of silk, and across it is worn the stole in the same way as deacons were ordered to do in the year 561. The custom is still followed in Greece and Rome, whereas priests generally put on the stole immediately after the albe. Over the dalmatic comes the imperial mantle which seems to have been originally a chasuble, but is now slit up in front. This garment, which is of cloth of gold, is embroidered with eagles, that are interesting as probably representing the claim of the King of England to be Emperor of Britain and Lord Paramount over all the Islands of the West. In Charles II's reign further ornaments occurred in the shape of roses and fleur-de-lys, and on Queen Victoria's mantle there were roses, half red and half white, as well as thistles, shamrocks, and fleur-de-lys, while the eagles were embroidered in silver. At the coronation of King Edward VII the vestments which we have described were all used with the exception of the albe, and to the other devices on the imperial mantle the lotus flower was added as a symbol for India, as the King was the first sovereign to be crowned as Emperor of India. The robe which the King wears at the opening of Parliament has a cape of ermine made up in miniver style, and it is lined throughout with the same fur. We might here say that ordinary ermine is decorated with the tails of the stoat, which remain black when this animal puts on its winter dress, whereas in the case of miniver the fur is spotted all over with little black pieces made from the skin of some other animal. This has not always been the same, but at the present time Persian lamb is used. The magnificence of the King's parliamentary robe and its train of crimson velvet may be gathered from the fact that in the making of the miniver, upwards of ten thousand pieces of black fur were used. In a portrait of the King, taken when wearing this robe, he is shown in the uniform of a Field Marshal, and holds in his hand the Field Marshal's baton. The latter originally was a box in which the general carried the orders of his sovereign, and it is rather curious that what was once the emblem of the servant should come to be used by a crowned head himself.