The coronation of Queen Elizabeth: on January 16th, 1559, England's twenty-five-year-old sovereign left Whitehall to be crowned Queen. This article, by A.L. Rowse, was first published in May 1953, exactly fifty years ago, in a special issue of History Today that marked the imminent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.(Reprint)

THE CORONATION OF THE FIRST Elizabeth is of considerable interest to us and of greater historical importance than most. Not only was it the last occasion on which the Latin service was used, as throughout Plantagenet times, and with the Roman mass, but what happened on the occasion was a portent of the policy the new Queen would pursue, a pointer to the Elizabethan religious settlement which has subsisted essentially unchanged ever since. It is precisely that that has given rise to some controversy among historians as to what precisely happened. Did the Queen remain present throughout the Mass or did she withdraw to her traverse--or private closet in St. Edward's chapel--at the crucial point of the consecration and elevation of the Host? Did the officiating bishop elevate the Host? Did the Queen communicate or not? We shall see--as well as we can see, from the curious confusion of the evidence.

The full proceedings of a coronation in medieval times, and up to Elizabeth I's and beyond, fell into four parts. The new monarch had first to take possession of the Tower: the significance of that move is obvious enough--it was to make sure of London. And, in the English way, the tradition continued to be adhered to for some time after the necessity for the action had gone. The second stage was the sovereign's progress through the city to Westminster on the eve of the coronation. The third was the coronation itself in Westminster Abbey, with the procession to it. The fourth was the banquet in Westminster Hall after the ceremonies in the Abbey.

In those days, it was desirable to invest the new sovereign as soon as possible with the full authority that anointing and crowning conferred. Mary had died on November 17th, 1558; Elizabeth was crowned in her place within two months after. She had had a rapturous reception from London--sick of the burnings and failures of Mary's reign--when she just rode in to the city as Queen. And Elizabeth set herself to capture the hearts of the people as she well knew how. (Not for nothing was she Anne Boleyn's daughter.) She had spent Christmas at Whitehall; on Thursday, January 13th, 1559, she made her move to the Tower, going by water in her state-barge down the Thames. An Italian envoy who saw the spectacle was reminded of the great ceremony of the Doges--the mystic marriage of Venice with the sea.

On Saturday, the whole Court having gathered at the Tower, the Queen set out in procession, in the clear snowy air, through the streets so familiar to us from the engravings and pictures of Wyngaerde, Hollar and others. Only twenty-five years ago--and Elizabeth had been carried through these self-same streets in the womb of her mother to her coronation.

The verses for the pageants had been written by the court-poets, John Leland and Nicholas Udall:

I, decens Regina, tuam ad coronam, Et diu omins vive doloris expers, Regis Henrici, superum favore, Optima coniux.

Many who watched the daughter's triumph today must have seen the spectacle of the mother--herself grand-daughter of a Lord Mayor; some few must have reflected on the chances and ironies of history.

Of them none was more aware of the treacherous sands of high politics than Elizabeth and from the first she set herself to conquer the heart of the city, already well-inclined, and to attach it to her chariot. The haughty Feria, Philip's representative in England, wrote contemptuously: `she is very much wedded to the people and thinks as they do, and therefore treats foreigners slightingly.' Gone were the days of deference to Philip's ambassador, who could transmit his master's orders to England. After all, Elizabeth owed her very life and safety to the unspoken support of the English people. Feria was soon obliged to change his tone, from contempt to apprehension: `she seems to me incomparably more feared than her sister and gives her orders and has her way as absolutely as her father did.'

Today Elizabeth completed her conquest of London. `Her Grace, by holding up her hands and merry countenance to such as stood far off, and most tender and gentle language to those that stood nigh to her Grace, did declare herself no less thankfully to receive her people's good will, than they lovingly opened it unto her.' In return, `the people again were wonderfully ravished with the …