English crown

“ His watchword is honour, his pay is renown,—
God strike with the Gallant that strikes for the Crown!
They may boast of their Fairfax, their Waller, and all
The roundheaded rebels of Westminster Hall;
But tell these bold traitors of London’s proud town, 15
That the spears of the North have encircled the Crown.
There’s Derby and Cavendish, dread of their foes;
There’s Erin’s high Ormond and Scotland’s Montrose!
Would you match the base Skippon, and Massey, and Brown,
With the Barons of England, that fight for the Crown? 20
Now joy to the crest of the brave Cavalier! ”

“ Then she took them to her own apartments and gave them a plentiful dinner, after which she presented each of them with six nobles and set them at liberty. The town was surrendered, and the English king fed the starving multitudes liberally.
Merciful queen, your generous pity for the stricken foe shall ever be the brightest jewel in your crown. In ages to come men will cherish the fame of your womanly tenderness, and will tell their children in many a tale and song the glorious story of your gracious clemency. ”

“ I think it is helpful to the memory, and useful, because of the great influence of the crown throughout English History, to bring out the personality of every sovereign, so that the names of each dynasty will not be a list of names and nothing more. But in every century we shall find certain great personalities, either on the throne or off it, which should be made as vivid as may be. ”

“ The Crown Prince is a typical case of a man who anglicises himself in regard to the excrescences upon our national character, but who cannot by any possibility, though he had an English grandmother, ever understand what a Britisher is. ”

“ Some, again, are memorials of the triumph of our princes over the liberties of the people, while others present the plainest proof of the noble and successful struggles of the people against the encroachments of the crown. [Pg 31]
The Recognition, with which the coronation, strictly so called, begins, is an elective rite, in which some of the more direct terms of appeal to the people are disused. Its title, "the Recognition," is of modern date [33] . After reciting the coronation oath, a respectable writer of queen Elizabeth's time thus gives the "sum of the English coronation." ”

“ Many an iron monarch has, since then, sat on the English throne, and many a fair princess has been led by her lover to the altar, but never has a happier or more beautiful pair wore the regal crown in the realm of our ancestors. ”

“ Hail to the Crown by Freedom shaped—to gird
An English Sovereign's brow! and to the Throne
Whereon he sits! Whose deep foundations lie
In veneration and the People's love,
Whose steps are equity, whose seat is law. ”

“ We Englishmen believe that our crown is held by somewhat different rights from yours of France. At the coronations of our kings, we by our free voices confirm them on their throne. The people of England have a say in the question of a monarch's title; and without that recognition they are not kings of England. To our present sovereign, the nobles of the land offered their homage ere the crown was placed upon his brow; but he, as wise in this as in all else, would receive none till he was proclaimed King, not by a herald's trumpet, but by the tongues of Englishmen. ”

“ To the people of the Continent it was a sight not every day to be had, to behold the King and Queen of England, and all its collected nobility in their highest grandeur; and foreign princes and princesses and nobility flocked thither from all parts, as they flock now-a-days to the coronation of a Russian emperor, and either were entertained by the proud and prodigal English king, or swelled the crush in the little town of Guisnes. ”

“ I have no doubt whatever that the commonest thought of all, in England, and possibly on the Continent, has been the longing to know how the youth himself felt when a crown was offered him—when a whole people was worshipping him, and he was not allowed to accept the homage or the throne. ”

“ While they keep the peace of the people and the honour of British law.
These are the men of action, who need not the world's renown,
For their valour is known to England's throne as a gem in the British crown;
These are the men who face the front, whose courage the world may scan,
The men who are feared by the felon, but are loved by the honest man ”

“ JUBILEE-SONG, FOR MUSIC, 1897
Hark! The world is full of thy praise,
England’s Queen of many days;
Who, knowing how to rule the free,
Hast given a crown to monarchy.
Honour, Truth and growing Peace
Follow Britannia’s wide increase,
And Nature yield her strength unknown
To the wisdom born beneath thy throne!
In wisdom and love firm is thy fame:
Enemies bow to revere thy name:
The world shall never tire to tell
Praise of the queen that reignèd well. ”

“ The King of England had been dining with the King of France, waited upon by the Dukes of Burgundy, Berry, and Bourbon, both monarchs having been much entertained by the amusing conversation of the last-mentioned prince, when the sound of trumpets and other music announced the approach of the young Queen of England, who entered the camp with a procession of surpassing magnificence, wearing royal robes covered with fleurs-de-lis, a gentleman of her train carrying a crown of gold before her carriage. ”

“ When the son of England's great Queen becomes subject to a subject, that he may learn wisdom, when the sons of England's chiefs and nobles leave the homes and wealth of their fathers, and with their young Prince endure hardships and sufferings in order that they may be wise and become a defense to their country, when we behold these things, we see why the English are a great and mighty nation. ”

“ For a race yields a nobility in some form, however we name the lords, as surely as it yields women.
The English nobles are high-spirited, active, educated men, born to wealth and power, who have run through every country, and kept in every country the best company, have seen every secret of art and nature, and, when men of any ability or ambition, have been consulted in the conduct of every important action. You cannot wield great agencies without lending yourself to them, and, when it happens that the spirit of the earl meets his rank and duties, we have the best examples of behavior. ”

“ Here also, huge, rough, and gray, is the stone sarcophagus of Edward the First, which, when opened, in 1771, disclosed the skeleton of departed majesty, still perfect, wearing robes of gold tissue and crimson velvet, and having a crown on the head and a sceptre in the hand. So sleep, in jewelled darkness and gaudy decay, what once were monarchs! And all around are great lords, holy prelates, famous statesmen, renowned soldiers, and illustrious poets. Burleigh, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Canning, Newton, Barrow, Wilberforce—names forever glorious!—are here enshrined in the grandest sepulchre on earth. ”

“ Should the good queen of England be alive there is no doubt she would rather lay her crown at the feet of Christ as the king of the whole earth than have it placed upon the head of the Prince of Wales. While there is much pomp and aristocratic show in England, her people are the most reverential and Bible-loving of all the earth. ”

“ But tell me, what is the King of England—what are the strength and riches of his realm?”
The clerk then spoke: “Our King is born of illustrious ancestors, his domains are rich in fertile pastures, forests, and mines; his people are mighty and handsome, possessed of sciences, and ruling over three tongues—Welsh, Latin, and French. The English understand all arts, especially mechanics and navigation, and they have gained the title of Island Kings.” ”

“ This, however, seems to have proceeded more from carelessness in that particular, than want of ability: for the following lines in his True Born Englishman, in which he makes Britannia rehearse the praises of her hero, King William, are harmoniously beautiful, and elegantly polished.
BRITANNIA. The fame of virtue 'tis for which I found,
And heroes with immortal triumphs crown'd.
Fame built on solid virtue swifter flies,
Than morning light can spread my eastern skies. ”

“ He went on to draw a picture of all that a foreign prince must be, if he would hope to gain the good-will of the English people. The affection of the nobility might, he explained, be won by rich banquets and entertainments, by dazzling them with great wealth, by giving them the means of enriching themselves, and by showing them an example of valour, in arms and knighthood. ”

“ Two kings in England cannot reign at once. But stay awhile, let me be [307] king till night, That I may gaze upon this glittering crown;60 So shall my eyes receive their last content, My head, the latest honour due to it, And jointly both yield up their wishèd right. [Pg 208] Continue ever thou celestial sun; Let never silent night possess this clime: Stand still you watches of the element; All times and seasons, rest you at a stay, That Edward may be still fair England's king! But day's bright beam doth vanish fast away, And needs I must resign my wishèd crown.70 Inhuman creatures! ”

“ If every man walked according [37] to his merit, the royal offspring that bespeaks you would have the crown of Great Britain tilted upon his left eyebrow at an angle of forty-five degrees.”
“For what reason have you not, sir, if you are indeed the king’s son and the crown is yours in the course of nature?”
“There was a little irregularity connected with my birth, which at the time of its occurrence I was not in a situation to adjust. Thenceforward a race of knaves and formalists have taken the wall of honest Dick, and have placed another upon the throne of England. ”

“ KING HENRY VI My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is called content:
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy. ”

“ But I will not adorn my victim with flowers, but with a royal crown. I will not plunge a knife into her breast, but will put a golden sceptre into her hand and say: Thou art a queen before men, but before God be thou a faithful and obedient servant. ”

“ And greet with delight, the sixth Edward by name.
But only six years did this King fill the throne,
When called to resign it and lay his crown down.
A worthier we think, has never set
On the throne of Great Britain—at least not as yet.
With pleasure we love to contemplate him now,
With a bright crown of Glory, encircling his brow,
In the region of light, love, peace, and of joy,
Where pleasures eternal can have no alloy.
Sin, sickness, and death, never find entrance there,
For the air is all balm, and the skies ever fair ”

“ The King of England has soldiers to watch day and night, lest any one should steal his crown. And so also you and I need to be constantly on our guard, lest wicked people and sinful influences should rob us of our heavenly crown. ”

“ Richard’s coronation is in one way the most memorable in all English history, for it is the occasion on which the form and manner of crowning a king of England were, in every essential point and in most of the lesser particulars, fixed for all after-time. ”

“ Is the British Peerage to grow brighter with high moral qualities, than with hereditary honours, and to be cherished by an enlightened spirit of public virtue as a standard of all that is honourable, and as a pattern of what is most excellent in the ideal of the true Christian gentleman? Or must the sad reverse be true, and must this House be the scene of the last act in the eventful history of England? Shall a factitious nobility be crowded into these chief seats of the realm; men devoid of ennobling antecedents, and not less so of honour and of worth? ”

“ How can we hope that England will ever win for herself such a crown, while the works of her highest intellects are set for the pointing of the finger and the sarcasm of the tongue, and the sole reward for the deep, earnest, holy labor of a devoted life, is the weight of stone upon the trampled grave, where the vain and idle crowd will come to wonder how the brushes are mimicked in the marble above the dust of him who wielded them in vain? ”

“ But, if this Prince should leave those principles he has so nobly pursued, and consent that we be subjected to the King of England, we will immediately expel him as our enemy, and will choose another king, for as long as one hundred of us remain alive, we will never be subject to the English. ”

“ It tells of the Empire of England over sea, of the passing and the mission of the Celt, of the power born in the West, and in the coming and crowning of the Seventh Edward do we see the beginnings of the reunion of the peoples into the greater force to be—mark them that assemble about the throne, heed ye the symbol of the crowning. For us mummers, we pass like shadows into the night. ”

“ Christ cares for the little ones, and men say how maybe the Christ took him to another kingdom, a better even than the fair kingdom of England, giving him first a blossom from the crown of thorns, and that is an everlasting crown, whose rubies are tears of blood, whose pearls are the milk of innocence, and the green stones in it are as the tender blossoms of the young Spring that is seen but for a moment with the inner eye and so passes out of sight. ”

“ But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of England? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the contumely she has endeavored to cast upon us? It is not in the opinion of England alone that honor lives, and reputation has its being. The world at large is the arbiter of a nation's fame: with its thousand eyes it witnesses a nation's deeds, and from their collective testimony is national glory or national disgrace established. ”

“ Whether the good public thought that the honors of the Crown were bestowed upon their favorite with a somewhat niggard hand, or whether the romance of the case—the elevation of one who had served in the ranks and was now a peer of the realm—had captivated their imaginations, certain it is they had adopted his cause as their own, and made of his success a popular triumph. ”