From Edgar all the way to Elizabeth

Once upon a time, the young Roy Strong spent many hours, with the encouragement of Sir Anthony Wagner, researching the records of the College of Arms in connection with his interest in Elizabethan and Stuart portraits and pageantry. This resulted in what many regard as his best work, Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals. Now, 50 years and 24 books later, he has trawled the heralds’ records again, this time for a history of the English coronation service from its Saxon origins to Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The result is a well organised, sympathetic and fascinating account of the central ritual of the English people. This is a serious book with a full scholarly apparatus of notes, bibliography, charts, chronologies and index.

As Sir Roy states, it is remarkable that the English coronation remains such a neglected field of study, for it is by far the most important national ceremonial liturgy to survive. If it were a historic building or ancient monument in the care of the National Trust or English Heritage, it would be the subject of solemn monographs, illustrated guidebooks and television programmes. But there is no easily accessible current book. The standard work, long out of print, is Percy Schramm’s History of the English Coronation (Oxford 1937); that is a magisterial achievement which sets the English ceremony in its historic European context. So this new book fulfils a need.

Strong draws heavily on Schramm but adds completely new material and a spectacular array of nearly 500 illustrations. With justifiable pride, he calls these ‘the largest visual archive of the topic’. Their quality and interest transform this book into a model of the illustrated history genre. They range from glorious illuminations in mediaeval manuscripts to Handel’s score for George II’s coronation music, to Queen Victoria’s own sketch of Lord Melbourne bearing the sword of state in 1839, to photos of the BBC commentators with binoculars and microphones in 1953.