coronations were said to be outdone by the feasting and
joviality on this occasion.

There was high rejoicing when Edward I. came back from the Holy Land,
two years after his accession, and was crowned in company with his
beloved Eleanor, the first royal couple who were crowned in the Abbey
together. Alexander III. of Scotland did homage on the following day,
and in his honour 500 great horses were let loose in the crowd for any
persons to catch and keep that could.

Edward I. brought from Scotland the noted stone upon which for centuries
the Scottish monarchs had been installed, and had it placed in this
oaken chair which still covers it. According to tradition, this stone
was the one on which Jacob slept at Bethel, and which by a series of
remarkable adventures had been transported successively to Egypt,
Sicily, Spain, and Ireland. In Ireland they say it stood on the hill of
Tara, and that upon it were enthroned the ancient Irish kings. Fergus,
founder of the Scottish monarchy, took the stone to Dunstaffnage Castle,
and Kenneth II. (here we get hold of historic fact) placed it at Scone
in the ninth century. Wherever it may have wandered, it is
unquestionably a piece of sandstone from the western coasts of Scotland,
and is most probably (says Stanley) the stony pillow of St. Columba, on
which his dying head was laid in the Abbey of Iona. On this stone the
reign of every English monarch from Edward I. to Victoria has been
inaugurated. Only once has it been taken out of the Abbey, and that was
for Oliver Cromwell to be installed upon it as Lord Protector in
Westminster Hall.

At the coronation of Edward II. the crown was carried by Piers Gaveston,
the unworthy favourite whom it had been the dying wish of Edward I. to
have excluded from the court. In 1327, Edward III. (by consent of his
deposed father) was crowned whilst his mother Isabella, "the she-wolf of
France" (as Gray calls her), pretended to weep all through the ceremony.
Of the coronation of Richard II. full details are preserved in the
"Liber Regalis," a book drawn up by Abbot Littlington, and ever since
carefully preserved by the Abbots and Deans, as it sets forth the order
which has been observed in all subsequent ceremonials. Proceedings
commenced with a grand procession through the city from the Tower, a
custom which was kept up till the time of Charles I. The young king rode
bareheaded, and was escorted by a body of knights, created for the
occasion, an