Coronation

Coronation, the formal taking up by a sovereign of the regal authority as opposed to his or her accession, which takes place, as a matter of course, immediately upon the demise of the Crown. The coronation in England is an occasion of much antiquarian display and ceremony. The essentials of the coronation are the religious part of the ceremony, which consists in the crowning and anointing of the sovereign by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and the political part of it, whose most important part since 1688 is the taking of an oath by the sovereign to govern according to statutes made by Parliament, to administer law and justice in mercy, and to maintain the Protestant religion. This part of the oath led to the long postponement of Catholic emancipation owing to the conscientious scruples of successive kings. Beneath the coronation chair of England is the stone of Scone, upon which the kings of Scotland used to take their seat at their coronation. This stone, said to be Jacob's pillow, and to have been carried to Tara in Ireland and thence to Scone, seems geologically to have originated at Scone.