At the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III and Queen Camilla in May 2023, amongst the 2,200 or so guests were 14 who were the latest in a line of attendees going back to 1189 – the Barons of the Cinque Ports, amongst them Rye’s mayor at the time, Andi Rivett. You can read his memories of the day here.
The Barons were guests in 2023 with no actual role to play in the Coronation. This was far from the case in the past.
Barons were Freemen or Portsmen of the Cinque Ports, and although not formally created as barons in the peerage, they were considered to be barons, or Lords of Parliament, where they sat by a right granted to them by King Edward II in 1322, for the support they gave to his own supporters, the Despenser family.
They were titled barons because it was then considered that serving the king at sea was equal to service given on land. A 14th century document, Modus Tenedi Parliamentum, was a very idealised idea of what constituted the procedures of Parliament in England. This gave the barons precedence under the Lords Temporal, the non-royal, non-ecclesiastical land holders in the peerage and placed them above knights of the shires.
A Writ of Summons was sent to the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, after which barons were chosen to represent the ports. Each port had its own baronial seal, to be used on charters and other legal documents. Although used singly, the seal, once affixed, bound the whole confederation to honour what had been sealed – an early example of collective responsibility.
The coronation of King Richard I in 1189 marked the first appearance of the barons at a coronation. They were barons just for the day of the service. The role they played was to bear the canopies over the king and queen, 16 in total, four to each stave. The canopies were supported on silver staves with small, tinkling, silver-gilt bells. Their perquisite from the day, from which comes our word perk, was the cloth that the canopies were made of, which was to be sold to benefit their towns. This role continued up until the coronation of King George IV in 1821.
The next king, William IV, younger brother of George, was horrified at what he considered to be the needless expense and flummery of the previous coronation, which at £238,000, was the most expensive in our history. William’s coronation cost just £30,000 and was slightingly referred to as the Half Crownation. He dispensed with many of the participants, such as The King’s Herb Woman and the challenge thrown down by the King’s Champion, in full armour and mounted on a horse, who rode into the coronation banquet in Westminster Hall to deliver his challenge. The banquet was cancelled. No banquet, no champion.
The barons rather spoiled the king’s procession from the abbey to Westminster Hall in 1821. Wanting to be seen, he walked ahead of the canopy, which just made the rather elderly barons walk faster to keep up with him. This caused the canopy to sway dangerously, so the king started to walk even faster, which according to a contemporary newspaper report turned into, “a somewhat unseemly jog trot”. Their exclusion from all the fun in 1831 must have caused some unhappiness to the barons, who claimed carrying the canopy as their right rather than a favour granted by the sovereign.
At coronation banquets, the barons’ status was quite clearly shown, as they were placed at a table below the dais on which the king sat, to his right. After the coronation of King Charles II in 1661, the barons were involved in a rather unseemly brawl with the footmen attached to the Officers of the Removing Wardrobe. These weren’t, despite their name, furniture removal men. The wardrobe was the name for the department looking after the king’s clothes, treasures etc. They felt that the canopy should go back to the wardrobe, and the barons disagreed rather vehemently. After all, a perk is a perk, especially one that was granted ‘time out of mind, to which man’s mind cannot think the contrary.’ The result was something of a punch-up, which ended with the barons being dragged away, down the considerable length of Westminster Hall. His Majesty was furious and the offending footmen were sacked.
At the coronation banquet for King George III in 1761, by an oversight no places were reserved for the barons. That led to a stormy confrontation with the Lord High Steward, Lord Talbot, who just shoved them into the seats reserved for the Knights of the Order of the Bath, who were placed in the seats of the Great Officers of State. Talbot was something of a supporter of bare-knuckle boxing and described as having, ‘swaggering manners and rude demeanour.’ His manner of keeping the barons quiet was to challenge them all to a duel. Presumably the Great Officers of State ate standing up? An early example of that ordeal, the fork buffet. Karma struck Talbot. He was one of those who traditionally attended the banquet on horseback. He had carefully trained his horse so that it would back away from the presence of Their Majesties. So used to this backward procession was the horse that it also entered the royal presence in that manner, embarrassing his lordship at this terrible breach of etiquette and causing gales of laughter from those watching the banquet from the galleries built for the event.
That whole coronation was a bit of a shambles. The new gold state coach, intended for use at the wedding of King George and Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and the coronation, both in 1761, and costing £7,562, wasn’t ready in time, and was first used for the state opening of parliament in 1762. Someone had forgotten to order chairs of state for the king and queen. The sword of state had been left behind in the Tower of London, so the Lord Mayor of London had to lend his own sword of state. Then, to the dismay of the barons, no one had thought about the canopies to be held over Their Majesties. Something was hurriedly cobbled together, but we are told that the whole affair was rather precarious. Then the service hadn’t been planned or rehearsed properly, so, the king and queen, after leaving St. James’s Palace in good time in their sedan chairs, at 9.00 am, weren’t crowned until half past three, more than six hours after they had started their day.
If that wasn’t enough going wrong, the Bishop of Rochester almost dropped St. Edward’s crown. Fortunately, someone had the good sense to pin it to its cushion and disaster was narrowly averted. Supposedly one of the stones fell out of the crown, later seen to be an augury for the loss of the American colonies. His Majesty wasn’t actually crowned with St. Edward’s crown, but his own state crown (in fact no sovereign was crowned with it between William III in 1689 and George V in 1911.) Then The king wanted to remove his crown to take communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury asked the Dean of Westminster if he should, but he didn’t know either, so the king made the decision himself and removed it. Most of the congregation couldn’t hear the Bishop of Salisbury’s sermon, partly because they were hungry from the long wait, and the clatter of silver cutlery on plates, as they tucked into pies and cold meats, drowned him out. The final indignity came when Queen Charlotte needed to use what was discreetly referred to as her Retiring Room, set up in St. Edward’s Chapel, behind the High Altar. There, no doubt to her consternation, the new 17 year old queen found that her personal ‘throne,’ known as a close stool, was already occupied by the Prime Minister, the Duke of Newcastle, who was getting on for 70. The long wait was clearly more than he, or others, could cope with.
Later, when the king complained about the errors to Lord Effingham, the Deputy Earl Marshal, His Lordship confessed that there had been ‘some neglect,’ but, he hastened to assure the king, that the next coronation would be properly organised. This, fortunately for Effingham, amused the king, who had him repeat it several times. After all, why should he care about the next coronation, as it would follow his funeral.
Image Credits: © The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1862-1108-556 Creative Commons , Rebekah Gilbert , Joe Shlabotnik/Flickr CC , Picryl CC .