by The Laird o’Thistle
August 21 2005
It is August, and the royals have gone to ground for their annual holidays. After a brief delay, the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh have settled in at Balmoral. Prince Charles and his Duchess have dropped in at the Queen Mum’s old haunts in Caithness. And Fergie has made her first visit to the royal retreat in the Highlands since the disgrace that led to her divorce from Prince Andrew. There’s a new minister at Crathie Kirk, but all in all, it is a fairly slow time of year for news from Royal Deeside. So, I thought I’d carry on a bit from last month’s look at the historic Scottish regalia, and look ahead to the coming years.
For almost a century Britain has been the only European country to retain that sacred ritual for monarchs called “coronation”, consisting of the traditional rites of presentation, anointing, crowning, and homage. And that tradition is an unbroken one dating from well over a thousand years ago. The indications are that the Prince of Wales will not abolish it when his day comes, though he will want and need to update it. (One wonders how they’ll handle the homage part, with the old hereditary peerage now sidelined?)
I have long fantasized that when the day comes – hopefully still many years hence – for the United Kingdom to enthrone its next Sovereign that some particular new features might be added to the hoary rites and ceremonies. Or, rather, for some very old bits to be revived. For one thing, if I were among those giving counsel I would propose the thought that there should be some modest but distinctive ceremony in each of the various parts of the U.K., culminating in the anointing and crowning at Westminster. Rather than a post-coronation tour, it could be a pre-coronation “progress” expressing the emerging “federalism” of the U.K. I’m not sure what the ceremonies might entail in Wales, or Cornwall, or Ulster. But if I were planning the event in Scotland it would be a ceremony at the ancient coronation site at Scone, near Perth, involving historic Officers of State, the traditional clan chiefs, and representatives of the modern nation (non-chiefly peers, optional) participating together with the new King in a rite based on the historic way of taking possession of land in the act of Sasine via the receiving of symbolic bits of earth and stone.
Besides the earth and stone, this new Scottish ceremony would necessarily – says me! – involve a symbolic presentation of the Honours of Scotland. But it would not be a crowning. (That would be deferred to Westminster.) The hereditary banner bearers would carry the Lyon Standard and the Saltire. And, of course, there would have to be some Presbyterian bits for the Moderator of the Church of Scotland to do, hopefully along with the leaders of other religious communities. And we could even have the quaint ritual of Mr. Houison-Craufurd of Craufurdland in Fenwick performing his family’s hereditary function of washing the new King’s hands in the rite of Servitium Lavacri. (I think my great-great-grandfather, Archie Anderson, may have curled on the Crafurdland estate back about the time the Houison Craufurd of the day was washing George IV’s hands in Edinburgh.) BUT, above all else, the newly reincarnated rite would require the Lord Lyon King of Arms’ reviving the ancient tradition of reciting the new ancestry of the Ard Ri Alban [the High King of Alba / Scotland] back to Fergus mac Erc, the first King of Scots residing in what became Scotland. With that, I think you’d have a fine Scots prelude or prologue to the “Union” coronation at Westminster. (The Stone of Scone itself would be optional in this rite since it will be required at Westminster. And if you don’t understand what I mean here, go back and read last month’s column! <G>)
The recitation of the royal lineage by Lord Lyon, in Gaelic, would be – for me, at least – the breathtaking and climactic element. Following the practice of the ancient Celtic “Sennachie”, who without a doubt took it up from the Druids, it would set forth a pedigree now stretching back over sixteen centuries. If such a rite had occurred in 1953 it would have gone something like this:
Ealasaid nic [i.e. Elizabeth, “daughter of”] Seoras [George] mac Seoras mac Eideard mac “Victoria” [what is the Gaelic equivalent?] nic Eideard mac Seoras mac “Frederick” [?] mac Seoras mac Seoras mac Beathag [Sophia] nic Ealasaid nic Seumas [James VI/I] mac Mairi [Mary Queen of Scots] nic Seumas mac Seumas mac Seumas mac Seumas mac Seumas mac Raibert mac Raibert mac Marsali [Marjorie Bruce] nic Raibert [Robert the Bruce] mac Raibert mac Raibert mac Iseabal nic Daibhidh mac Eanruig [Henry of Huntingdon] mac Daibhidh [“Saint” David I, King of Scots] mac Calum [Malcolm III, Canmore, who was married to St. Margaret] mac Donnochadh [Duncan, slain by Macbeth] mac Bethoc nic Calum mac Coinneach [Kenneth II] mac Calum mac Domhnull [Donald II] mac Custantin [Constantine] mac Coinneach [Kenneth I, who united the Scots & Picts] mac Alpin mac Eochaid mac Aedh mac Eochaid mac Eochaid mac Domangart mac Domnall mac Eochaid mac Aidan [installed as King by St. Columba at Iona, ca. 574 A.D.] mac Gabhran mac Domangart mac Fergus [King in Argyll, died 501 A.D.] mac Erc [King of Da Riada in North Antrim, Ireland, 5th century]
Fifty-one generations. And in due course, I hopefully assume that the recitation will include “Tearlach mac Ealasaid” [Charles, the current Laird of Birkhall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Great Steward of Scotland, and Lord of the Isles] and “Uilleam mac Tearlach” [William, the “Master of Rothesay” according to traditional Scottish usage], and many others in their turn.
Silliness? Maybe to some. But if done well such a ritual can provide that sense of the embodiment of land and history and people that has characterized the “magic” of royal enthronements back into the mists of time. And it would not be some Sci-Fi Fantasy, or Renaissance Faire, creation.
One of the unspoken bits of genius that has characterized the Windsor dynasty throughout its century, beginning with George V and Queen Mary, has been the way in which they have managed to find and dust off the seemingly anachronistic old bits of ceremony that can serve in new ways to help fulfill their royal role and function. (The Royal Maundy Service is a case in point.) Hopefully, that gift can continue to function on into the new millennium. I would certainly be delighted to help stage manage it!
Yours aye,
– Ken Cuthbertson