Certain changes have also taken place in the coronation of the queen consort. From the time of Queen Adelaide there has only been one anointing, on the crown of the head. The prayer after the anointing, _Almighty and everlasting God, we beseech thee of thy abundant goodness_, has vanished from the time of Edward VII onwards, and the prayer at the delivery of the sceptre loses its first sentence and begins _O Lord, the giver of all perfection_. The final anthem has also disappeared in the rite of King Edward VII. In the order of George V the _Te Deum_ is ordered to be sung after the Blessing.
As we have seen, there was in all probability a Frankish coronation rite in existence in the time of the Merovingians, and certainly in the time of the Carolingian kings, but it seems to have been very variable and without much stability before the tenth century.
A group of orders of the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth century may be taken as representing the Frankish or French rite in its earliest and unfixed stage.
Charles the Bald was crowned as king of Lotharingia in 869. The rite[88] begins with an address from Adventius, Bp of Metz, after which the king takes the oath to preserve the rights of Church and people. Another address is then delivered by Hincmar of Rheims, which perhaps is additional and exceptional. Adventius says the prayer _Deus qui populis_, and then follows a series of nine benedictions said by different bishops, four of the benedictions being identical with forms occurring in the second English recension. The unction follows, Bp Hincmar anointing the king on his right ear, from his forehead to his left ear, and on the crown of his head, with a form beginning _Coronet te Deus_, which does not occur again and is not to be confounded with the coronation prayer beginning with the same words. Hincmar then recites two benedictions, identical with the last two of the second English rite, and the prayer _Clerum ac populum_, which here appears for the first time. The king is now crowned, all the bishops uniting, as in ‘Egbert’s’ order, to set the crown on his head, the form used being _Coronet te deus corona gloriae_, which is found in the second English order and in most subsequent rites. The bishops then give the Sceptre and the Palm, with a form commencing _Det tibi Dominus velle et posse_.