On June 18th 1633 Charles Stuart was crowned King of Scots.
Charles had ascended to the throne in 1625 after his father James VI’s death, and was crowned in England on February 2nd 1626. However, the Scots insisted that he should also be crowned in his northern kingdom. The ceremony took place in Edinburgh, at the Palace of Holyroodhouse followed by an elaborate pageant and an Anglican service at St Giles on the Royal Mile.
The second pic is of gold ampulla used in the coronation. The ampulla held the oil with which the king was anointed. It was used along with the Honours of Scotland. This crown, sword and sceptre date from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and were first brought together for the coronation service of the nine-month-old Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1543. However, while the Honours were hidden when civil war broke out, the ampulla seems to have remained in the possession of the Edinburgh Town Clerk who ordered it.
The Latin inscription on the ampulla translates as ‘Golden Ampulla of Sacred oil the vessel with which Charles the first of that name King of Scotland, England, France and Ireland was anointed in the Church of the Holy Rood. Though unmarked, this ampulla was possibly made by James Denneistoun, a deacon of the Edinburgh Incorporation of Goldsmiths.If visiting Edinburgh you can see this in The National Museum as part of The Kingdom of the Scots exhibition.
Charles I was determined to bring the Scottish church under the rule of bishops appointed by the crown, as in England. This Episcopalian system went against the set-up of the Scottish Presbyterian church, which was governed by elders and ministers, the latter were chosen by their own congregations.
The controversial Anglican coronation ceremony imposed by Charles was regarded as a propaganda exercise for his ‘high’ view of kingship and raised the hackles of the more Presbyterian of the king’s subjects. As I mentioned in the post earlier, Charles, like his father before him, believed that the king had a divine right to rule, and that, as king, he was the spiritual Head of the Church. The Presbyterians, however, could not accept this: for them, Jesus Christ was the Head of the Church.
Five years later, in 1638, Scots across the country banded together in opposition to Charles I’s religious and political policies by signing the National Covenant, a pledge between the Scottish people and God to uphold Presbyterian values. Those who supported the National Covenant were known as Covenanters.
Pics are of Charles and a Coronation ampulla which would have held the oil with which the king was anointed, it is on display in The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
