sent it back by them to the king, with a promise that divine grace should encircle every British sovereign who was invested with this ring at the coronation. The sacred ring was long preserved at the shrine of St. Edward, and only brought out at the time of a coronation. It deserves to be remarked, that legends of the appearance of St. John continued to be told so late as the reign of Henry VIII.; his last visitation was to the King of Scotland, James IV.; the appearance of the evangelist is thus described by Pitscottie, whose language we have slightly modernized. "He was a man, clad in a blue gown, and belted about him in a roll of linen cloth; a pair of buskins on his feet, to the great of his legs, with all other hose and clothes conform thereto; but he had nothing on his head save hair of a reddish yellow behind, and the same on his cheeks, which went down to his shoulders; but his forehead was bald and bare. He seemed to be a man about fifty-two years old, and he carried a great pikestaff in his hand."

The Spurs.

The SPURS, called the great golden spurs, are elaborately wrought, both round the outer edge, and at the buckle and fastenings. They have no rowels, but end

in an ornamented point, being of that kind which are denominated prick spurs. It is sufficiently notorious, that putting on the gilded spurs, was the ancient investiture of knighthood, just as the hacking them off was the legitimate form of degradation.

The ARMILLÆ, or bracelets, are of solid gold, and open by a hinge for the purpose of being placed upon the wrist. They are an inch and a half in breadth, and two inches in diameter, and are adorned with chasings of the rose, thistle, harp, and fleur de lis, emblematical of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France; the edge are also garnished with pearls. These ornaments are not now employed in the coronation, and we shall see in a subsequent chapter, that the service appropriated to the bracelets, has been by some strange blunder, tranferred to the Armil, or Stole.

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CHAPTER III.

CORONATION VESTMENTS.

In this chapter we shall describe the garments of state with which the sovereigns of England are invested by the archbishop of Canterbury and his assistants during the ceremony of the coronation. The chief of these, the IMPERIAL PALL, called also the Dalmatica, Mantle,

The Imperial Mantle, or Pall of State.

or Open Pall, was at one period richly embroidered with golden eagles, but having been destroyed, with the rest of the Regalia, in the time of the Commonwealth, a very rich gold and purple brocaded tissue is used in its

D

stead, encircled with gold and silver trails, and large flowers of gold frosted. All the ornaments are edged round with purple, or a deep mazarine blue. The pall was originally part of the imperial habit, being a rich robe of state, reaching quite to the ground. It is said that Constantine the Great granted the use of this vest to the bishops of Rome, and that the same honour was subsequently granted to other patriarchs by his successors. The pall at length became the badge of episcopal dignity, and hence, when prelates were deprived of their sees, or quitted them voluntarily, they resigned their palls to the emperors. When the popes first assumed the power of granting this honorary badge, which they did previous to the pontificate of Gregory the Great, A. D. 590, they did not presume to do so without the permission of the emperor; but in process of time they usurped the privilege of conferring it according to their pleasure, and raised exorbitant sums from all the prelates of Europe, whom they compelled to purchase this ensign of dignity. They also made a canon, enacting, that a metropolitan until he have received the pall, cannot consecrate bishops or churches, or receive the archiepiscopal title; and they compelled archbishops to purchase a new pall on every translation. Tertullian informs us, that the pallium, or pall, was assumed as a dress by the Christians, to distinguish them from the heathens, who used the toga. The pall is used at the coronation of monarchs, because they are supposed by this ceremony to be invested with a sacred as well as a civil character. The name Dalmatica, is derived from an ancient clerical habit, so called because it was previously the ordinary dress of the people of Dalmatia. It covered the whole body, and had large loose sleeves; on which account it was thought to be convenient for the ministry of deacons. But it was also worn by bishops, as we learn from the acts of St. Cyprian, the celebrated martyr of the third century,