Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/539

Rh Pictorial representations in early manuscripts, and the rude effigies on their coins, are not very helpful in deciding as to the form of crown worn by the Anglo-Saxon and Danish kings of England before the Norman Conquest. In some cases it would appear as if the diadem studded with pearls had been worn, and in others something more of the character of a crown. We reach surer ground after the Conquest, for then the great seals, monumental effigies, and coins become more and more serviceable in determining the forms the crown took.

The crown of William the Conqueror and his immediate successors seems to have been a plain circlet with four uprights, which terminated in trefoils (fig. 5), but Henry I. enriched the circlet with pearls or gems (fig. 6), and on his great seal the trefoils have something of the character of fleurs-de-lys. The effigy of Richard I. at Fontevrault shows a development of the crown; the trefoil heads are expanded, and are chased and jewelled. The crown of John is shown on his effigy at Worcester, though unfortunately it is rather badly mutilated. It shows, however, that the upper ornament was of fleurons set with jewels. Fig. 7 shows generally this development of the crown in a restored form. The crown on the effigy of Henry III. at Westminster had a beaded row below the circlet, which is narrow and plain, and from it rises a series of plain trefoils with slightly raised points between them. The tomb was opened in 1774, and on the king’s head was found an imitation crown of tin or latten gilt, with trefoils rising from its upper edge. This, although only made of base metal for the king’s burial, may nevertheless be taken as exhibiting the form of the royal crown at the time, and it may be usefully compared with that on the effigy of the king, which was made in Edward I.’s reign (fig. 8). Edward I. used a crown of very similar design. In the crown of Edward II. we have perhaps the most graceful and elegant of all the forms which the English medieval crown assumed (fig. 9), and it seems to have continued without any marked alteration during the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. The crown on the head of the effigy of Henry IV. at Canterbury evidently represents one of great magnificence, both of design and ornament. What is perhaps lost of the grace of form of the crown of Edward II. is made up for by a profusion of adornment and ornamentation unsurpassed at any later period (fig. 10). The circlet is much wider and is richly chased and jewelled, and from it rise eight large leaves, the intervening spaces being filled with fleurs-de-lys of definite outline. It will be noted that this crown is, like its predecessors, what is known as an open crown, without any arches rising from the circlet, but in the accounts of the coronation of Henry IV. by Froissart and Waurin it is distinctly stated that the crown was arched in the form of a cross. This is the earliest mention of an arched crown, which is not represented on the great seal till that of Edward IV. in 1461. The crown, as shown on Henry IV.’s effigy, very probably represents the celebrated “Harry crown” which was afterwards broken up and employed as surety for the loan required by Henry V. when he was about to embark on his expedition to France. Fig. 11 shows the crown of Henry V. The crown of Henry VI. seems to have had three arches, and there is the same number shown on the crown of Henry VII., which ensigns the hawthorn bush badge of that king. The crown of Edward IV. (fig. 12) shows two arches, and a crown similarly arched appears on the great seal of Richard III. Crowns, both open and arched, are represented in sculpture and paintings until the end of the reign of Edward IV., and the royal arms are occasionally ensigned by an open crown as late as the reign of Henry VIII. The crown of Henry VII. on his effigy in Westminster Abbey shows a circlet surmounted by four crosses and four fleurs-de-lys alternately, and has two arches rising from it. A similar crown appears on the great seal of Henry VIII. The crown of Henry VII. (fig. 13), which ensigns the royal arms above the south door of King’s College chapel, Cambridge, has the motto of the order of the Garter round the circlet. Fig. 14 shows the form of crown used by Edward VI., but a tendency (not shown in the illustration) began of flattening the arches of the crown, and on some of the coins of Elizabeth the arches are not merely flattened, but are depressed in the centre, much after the character of the arches of the crown on many of the silver coins of the 19th century prior to 1887. The crowns of James I. and Charles I. had four arches, springing from the alternate crosses and fleurs-de-lys of the circlet (fig. 15). The crown which strangely enough surmounts the shield with the arms of the Commonwealth on the coins of Oliver Cromwell (as distinguished from those of the Commonwealth itself, which have no crown) is a royal crown with alternate crosses and fleurs-de-lys round the circlet, and is surmounted by three arches, which, though somewhat flattened, are not bent. On them rests the orb and cross. The crown used by Charles II. (fig. 16) shows the arches depressed in the centre, a feature of the royal crown which seems to have been continued henceforward till 1887, when the pointed form of the arches was resumed, in consonance with an idea that such a form indicated an imperial rather than a regal crown, Queen Victoria having been proclaimed empress of India in 1877. In the foregoing account the changes of the form of the crowns of the kings have been briefly noticed. Those crowns were the personal crowns, worn by the different kings on various state occasions, but they were all crowned before the Commonwealth with the ancient crown of St Edward, and the queens consort with that of Queen Edith. There were, in fact, two sets of regalia, the one used for the coronations and kept at Westminster,

and the other that used on other occasions by the kings and kept in the Tower. The crowns of this latter set were the personal crowns made to fit the different wearers, and are those which have been briefly described. The crown of St Edward, with which the sovereigns were crowned, had a narrow circlet from which rose alternately four crosses and four fleurs-de-lys, and from the crosses sprang two arches, which at their crossing supported an orb and cross. These arches must have been a later addition, and possibly were first added for the coronation of Henry IV. (vide supra). Queen Edith’s crown had a plain