Coronation of James II and VII and Mary
The coronation of James II and VII and his wife Mary as King and Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland was held on 23 April 1685 at Westminster Abbey. James and Mary were the last British monarchs to be Catholics, despite the Protestant Church of England being the established church. Accordingly, the service was reordered to omit the Anglican Communion Service, the only time that a British coronation has been conducted without one. The truncated text of the coronation liturgy which was prepared for the service provided the model for future coronations into the 20th century. James was also the first monarch since the Union of the Crowns not to have a coronation in Scotland, and the first English monarch since the 14th century not to plan a royal entry procession through London, these and other innovations set long-standing precedents for future British coronations.
Background
James's predecessor and elder brother, King Charles II, had come to the throne in the 1660 Stuart Restoration, which followed the English Civil Wars, the execution of Charles I and the five year republic known as The Protectorate. Charles II had a difficult relationship with the Parliament of England over religious policy. Charles supported the High Church wing of the Church of England which inclined towards Catholic traditions, while many in Parliament, calling themselves "the Country Party", were Protestant-minded and strongly anti-Catholic. In 1673, Parliament passed the Test Act 1673, which required anyone holding public office to take an oath afirning their adherence to Protestantism. James, then Duke of York, refused to take the oath, which publicly revealed the fact that James had secretly converted to Catholicism. This provoked the Exclusion Crisis, when Parliament attempted to pass bills that would exclude James from the throne, because they feared that a Catholic monarch, like Louis XIV of France, would rule as an autocrat and restrict Protestant freedom of worship. The perceived threat was amplified by a fictitious conspiracy theory called the Popish Plot. However, the King's supporters in the House of Lords, known as the Tories, were able to block the exclusion bills and in 1681, Charles prorogued Parliament and never called another one. By 1684, Charles's parliamentary opponents were either exiled in the Netherlands or had been deprived of their posts. A large royal army was camped just outside London on Putney Heath as a safeguard.On 2 February 1685, King Charles II became seriously ill. Fearing a move by the exiles in the Netherlands, the government immediately closed the ports, arrested political opponents and put troops on standby. Charles died on 6 February. James immediately summoned the Privy Council and gave an impassioned speech promising to "preserve this Government both in Church and State as it is now by Law Establish'd". The relieved council had a transcript published in the London Gazette, from where it was read by the clergy from the pulpit to their congregations. The date of the coronation was set for 23 April, Saint George's Day, leaving only a few weeks for preparation; the French ambassador noted that James believed the coronation would put his accession beyond dispute. For the first time for the Stuart dynasty, there was to be no Scottish coronation, on the grounds that the Scottish Succession Act 1681 appeared to remove the need for one. The late King Charles, who had converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, was given a discrete private funeral after dark on 14 February.
Preparation
As was the usual procedure, a Coronation Committee was convened shortly after the accession. In attendance were the King, representatives of the College of Heralds, and officers of state such as the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Lord High Treasurer, the Master of the Great Wardrobe, and most importantly, the Earl Marshal, who had overall charge of the planning. At the first meeting, James ordered that a lavish and detailed record of the coronation be made, a work undertaken by Francis Sandford, the Lancaster Herald, assisted by Gregory King, the Rouge Dragon Pursuivant. The book that they produced, The History of the Coronation of the most High, most Mighty, and most Excellent Monarch, James II, was the first complete record of the ceremony to survive and includes not only a meticulous description but is lavishly illustrated by engravings, plans and diagrams. A function of the committee is to establish a Court of Claims to confirm those who claimed the right to perform ceremonial functions at the coronation, which conferred status and sometimes valuable rewards on the successful applicants; the court first met at the Palace of Westminster on 24 March and closed on 9 April, only a fortnight before the event itself.For the first time since 1377, there was no consideration given to holding a royal entry procession through the City of London. The exact reason why the tradition was abandoned was not recorded, but later suggestions include that James preferred to spend the money on jewels for his consort, that there was insufficient time for preparation, or that the ostentation of these processions had gone out of fashion. However, a more probable reason was that the Protestant-minded City had been a leading force in the Exclusion Crisis, resulting in the loss of their royal charter and the purging of opponents in the City elite, thus making the reception of such a grand event within London's walls problematic. The alternative adopted was to be a spectacular public firework display on the Thames opposite Whitehall Palace on the night of the coronation.
Liturgy
The task of compiling the coronation liturgy fell to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft. James required Sancroft to "review the Forms of Divine Service used at former Coronations, and to abridge, as much as might be, the extream length thereof". The subtext of this order was the omission of the Holy Communion or Eucharist from the service, which had been a fundamental part of English coronations since records began, so as not to compromise James's Catholic beliefs. An added complication was the need to include the coronation of a queen consort; James had married Mary, the daughter of Alfonso IV, Duke of Modena, in a proxy marriage in 1673.Sancroft was aided in the project by six other bishops, who consulted not only the last major revision to the coronation liturgy, the 14th century Liber Regalis, but also the records of the post-Reformation coronations beginning with that of James I and Anne in 1603. Besides deleting much material, Sancroft also amended some of the blessings of objects to become blessings of the King and Queen, so as to conform with Anglican theology. The resulting abridgement was described by the church historian Jocelyn Perkins as "revolutionary vandalism", but Sancroft's text became the model for future British coronations into the 20th century.
Infrastructure
The Coronation Committee also oversaw the required infrastructure for the event, which was carried out by the Office of Works. Fortunately, the Surveyor of the King's Works was Sir Christopher Wren, who had also fulfilled that function at the previous coronation in 1661. Sanford's detailed account provides for the first time the exact layout prepared for the coronation, both in the abbey and in Westminster Hall where the event would start and conclude. In the abbey, the area where the coronation ceremonies would take place was located at the crossing where the four arms of the cruciform church meet and was known as the "theatre". Here, a raised wooden platform long, wide and tall was surmounted by a further stepped platform or pulpitum for the king's and queen's thrones. Tiered seating supported on wooden scaffolding filled the north and south transepts; further galleries filled the chancel arcades to accommodate foreign dignatories, the musicians and choir, and for the first time, the Scottish and Irish peers, while the less distinguished were seated high in the triforium. The nave was also filled with galleries, although those who had paid for a seat there would have only seen the entry and recessional processions, and be able to hear little except the music. Westminster Hall had to be cleared for the traditional coronation banquet, it being normally partitioned into separate courtrooms. Galleries were constructed along each side for spectators. At the southern end, a canopied dais hung about with rich tapestries was built for the king and queen, while at the opposite end, a painted wood and board triumphal arch was installed.James had established a Catholic chapel at Whitehall Palace and it was there that James and Mary are believed to have been privately anointed and crowned by his chaplain on the night before the official Anglican coronation.