On the whole, what is left of this ceremony seems rather unmeaning. The people are addressed, "ye that _are come_ this day _to do_ your homage, service, and bounden duty, are ye willing to do the same?" A feudal "recognition," and feudal "homage," it is not for the people, but the prelates and peers to perform; the ceremony, however, establishes what our history will corroborate, the undoubted right of the people to interfere with, and limit the succession of their princes, on extraordinary occasions, while it is the peaceful and sound policy of the Constitution to keep as near to the hereditary line as the emergency of the times shall allow.
It was at Edward VI.'s coronation that the ancient form of receiving the king's oath, prior to the recognition, was first reversed.--See the Chronological Anecdotes.
Coronations were anciently regarded as a species of parliamentary meeting between the king and his subjects. Writs of summons issued for the coronation of Edward II. are preserved in Rymer, which require the attendance of the people by their "knights, citizens, and burgesses;" and which differ very slightly from the ordinary parliamentary writs. Selden observes that at the coronation of Henry I. _clerus Angliæ et populus universus_ were summoned to Westminster, "when divers lawes were both made and declared[39]."
The coronation oath has undergone some remarkable changes. The oath of Æthelred II. dated A.D. 978, is extant both in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, and agrees exactly with that of Henry I. preserved in the Cotton Library--a proof, as Lord Lyttleton observes, that even at the Conquest it was thought expedient to respect this fundamental compact between the prince and people. In the reign of Edward II. it first assumed the interrogatory form in which it is now administered, and remained in substance the same until the accession of Charles I. In this reign Archbishop Laud was accused of making both a serious interpolation, and an important omission in the coronation oath--a circumstance which, on his trial, brought its introductory clauses into warm discussion. Our forefathers had ever been jealous of all encroachments on what some copies of the old oath call "the lawes and customes of the people," by "old, rightfull, and devoute kings graunted;" and others "the laws, customs, and franchises granted to the clergy, and to the people by the glorious king St. Edward, according and conformable to the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel established in this kingdom," &c. They had even compelled the Conqueror to engage repeatedly that these ancient statutes of the kingdom should not be violated; a stipulation renewed expressly in the great charter of his son Henry I. Laud was charged with adding, after the clause last quoted, the words "agreeable to the king's prerogative;" and of omitting these words, "which the people have chosen or shall choose." Of the latter charge he soon disposed by proving there were no such words in the oath of James I.; and on the former he remarks, "First, I humbly conceive this clause takes off none of the people's assurance. Secondly, that alteration, whatever it be, was not made by me--'tis not altogether improbable [it] was added in Edward VI. or Queen Elizabeth's time; and hath no relation at all to the laws of this kingdom _absolutely_ mentioned before in the beginning of this oath; but only to the words, 'the profession of the Gospel established in this kingdom:' and then immediately follows 'and agreeing to the prerogative of the kings thereof,'--If this be the meaning, he that made the alteration, whoever it were, for I did it not, deserves thanks for it, and not the reward of a traitor[40]."