Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/203

THE ANCESTOR a monk of St. Albans, which gives several additional interesting details concerning the royal ornaments. When the moment for the anointing came the archbishop approached the king, and rending asunder his vestments with his hands from top to bottom,^ put them all off him except his shirt. Then while the Wardens of the Cinque Ports con- tinued to hold over the king the great sky-blue silk canopy, a golden cloth was brought by earls, under which he was hidden while the archbishop anointed him. He was next vested, first with the tunic of St. Edward and after with St. Edward's dalmatic,^ and the stole was put about his neck. After the delivery and girding of the sword the armils were put upon him, and last of all the royal mantle. After the crowning and the investment with the ring, the Lord Furnival offered to the king a red glove, which the archbishop blessed and put on his hand, and then delivered to him first the sceptre and lastly the rod. Walsingham describes the rod as having a dove on top, but the sceptre he says ' consur- rexit de rotundo globo aureo, quern tenebat in manu chirothe- cato, et habebat in summitate signum crucis.' It will be seen that Walsingham does not mention the sleeveless tunic of sindon, but he describes the putting on of St. Edward's dalmatic as well as that king's tunic, both of which, as we have seen above, are included in Sporley's list of a later date than this. Walsingham also describes the putting on of the stole as well as the armils. It has been shown above that the first of the coronation orders to name any vestments directs the investiture of the king with the armilla and pallium after the anointing, and before the imposition of the crown and delivery of the ring, sceptre, and rod. That armilla here mean bracelets there can be little doubt, such ornaments being regarded from very early times as distinctly kingly. But none of the royal effigies nor any contemporary pictures represent the king as wearing them, and they are not included in any of the documents already quoted. Yet a pair of enamelled gold bracelets are found among the regalia to-day, which were made for the coronation of Charles II. to replace a pair destroyed in 1649. These ^ If these were of simple linen, as suggested above, the rending of them would be an easy matter. The order of Edward II.'s coronation directs that the vest which the king is wearing is to be rent to the girdle for the anointing. 2 The dalmatic, as noted above, is not mentioned in Liber Regalis.