d who, from the bath they took in company before assuming
their armour, were styled the Knights of the Bath. The young king was
taken out fainting from the long ceremonial just as Sir John Dymote, as
champion, rode up to the Abbey gates on his charger, to challenge any
who dared to dispute the royal succession. It is the first time we hear
of the Champion; but it was an age of knightly revivals, and this was
probably one of them.

We next see Henry IV. and Henry V. successively installed on the Stone
of Scone; and then comes Henry VI., a child of nine, "beholding all the
people about sadly and wisely;" his queen, Margaret of Anjou, was
crowned here fourteen years afterwards. The coronation of Edward IV.
presents no particular feature of interest. For that of Edward V. all
was ready, robes for the guests, provisions for the banquet. But the
Tower beheld the "midnight murder" of the only English monarch who never
wore the crown. Then with splendid ceremonial Richard III. tried to
cover the defects of his title. Six thousand gentlemen rode with him to
Westminster Hall on June 26th, 1483, and a few days afterwards there was
a very grand procession to the Abbey, when Richard and his wife were
anointed King and Queen of England. Amongst the Queen's train was
Margaret of Richmond, little dreaming that within three years her son
should be crowned here as Henry VII. But this monarch's real coronation
had already taken place, when the crown of England was found in the
hawthorn bush on Bosworth Field, and placed on Richmond's head by Lord
Stanley. The public ceremonial was only a poor display. Not so the next
event of this character, when Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon were
crowned with great splendour, and when for the last time a Roman
Catholic Archbishop performed the ceremony. Anne Boleyn's coronation
(commemorated by Shakespeare) was a noticeable one, and Cranmer, fresh
from sentencing Catherine, performed the ceremony.

Edward VI. came to the Abbey, now a Cathedral, amidst much curious
pageantry, and for the first time a Bible was presented to the
sovereign.... Mary's procession to the Abbey is signalised by the
exploits of a Dutchman, who sat astride on the weathercock of St. Paul's
five hundred feet in the air, as the Queen passed. The two Archbishops
and the Bishop of London were all in the Tower, so Gardiner, Bishop of
Winchester, put the crown on Mary's head. On Jan. 14th, 1559, London was
wild with joy, as Eliza