treet, and the Strand, were lined with scaffolding.
The whole city had thus been admitted to gaze on royalty in the most
splendid and solemn form that royalty could wear. James ordered an
estimate to be made of the cost of such a procession, and found that it
would amount to about half as much as he proposed to expend in covering
his wife with trinkets. He accordingly determined to be profuse where he
ought to have been frugal, and niggardly where he might pardonably
have been profuse. More than a hundred thousand pounds were laid out in
dressing the Queen, and the procession from the Tower was omitted. The
folly of this course is obvious. If pageantry be of any use in politics,
it is of use as a means of striking the imagination of the multitude. It
is surely the height of absurdity to shut out the populace from a show
of which the main object is to make an impression on the populace.
James would have shown a more judicious munificence and a more judicious
parsimony, if he had traversed London from east to west with the
accustomed pomp, and had ordered the robes of his wife to be somewhat
less thickly set with pearls and diamonds. His example was, however,
long followed by his successors; and sums, which, well employed, would
have afforded exquisite gratification to a large part of the nation,
were squandered on an exhibition to which only three or four thousand
privileged persons were admitted. At length the old practice was
partially revived. On the day of the coronation of Queen Victoria there
was a procession in which many deficiencies might be noted, but which
was seen with interest and delight by half a million of her subjects,
and which undoubtedly gave far greater pleasure, and called forth far
greater enthusiasm, than the more costly display which was witnessed by
a select circle within the Abbey.

James had ordered Sancroft to abridge the ritual. The reason publicly
assigned was that the day was too short for all that was to be done.
But whoever examines the changes which were made will see that the
real object was to remove some things highly offensive to the religious
feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic. The Communion Service was not
read. The ceremony of presenting the sovereign with a richly bound copy
of the English Bible, and of exhorting him to prize above all earthly
treasures a volume which he had been taught to regard as adulterated
with false doctrine, was omitted. What remained, however, after all