The ceremony was attended with many circumstances of rejoicing and exhibitions of munificence. While the nobles and citizens made the conduits flow with wine and the streets gleam with tapestry, scattering silver in handfuls, the princes showed a royal liberality. King Alexander of Scotland, “when the king was seated on his throne, came to do him worship, and with him an hundred knights, mounted and accoutered; and when they had lighted off their horses, they let the horses go, and they that could catch them, had them for their own behoof. And after these came Sir Edmund, the king’s brother, and with him the earl of Gloucester; and after them the earl of Pembroke and the earl Warenne, and each of these led an hundred knights, who, when they alighted, let their horses go, and they that could take them had them to their liking.”
The feast was a right royal one. We shall find, throughout Edward’s reign, that none ever practised a truer or a wiser economy. His habits were simple and plain, his household well regulated. A friend once expressed wonder at the plainness of his dress. His answer was, “And what good, think you, would fine clothes do me?” But he well understood his royal estate and office. When he had to come before the people as their king, his doings were always kingly. The coronation‐banquet was a noble one. New buildings were erected in the court‐yard of Westminster, to accommodate the guests; and the provision made shows how numerous these guests must have been. The details are still preserved, and we find that the principal items were—“380 oxen, 430 sheep, 450 pigs, 18 wild boars, 278 flitches, and nearly 20,000 fowls.” Such a prodigious supply was not provided for one day’s festival; the feast was prolonged through a whole fortnight. Edward’s friends and chief counsellors, such as Anthony Beck and Robert Burnel, were churchmen; and we find, in every part of his personal history, frequent reference to Old Testament precedents. In the present instance they seem to have followed a notable example—“At that time Solomon held a feast fourteen days.”—1 Kings viii. 65.
And now Edward was on his throne,—was dwelling in his palace, ruling over the people of England. The work before him was an arduous one; his chief advisers were men suited to the times; and his own strength of purpose, sagacity, and perseverance were precisely what the land needed at that peculiar juncture.