VILLAGE SUPERSTITIONS AND THE CORONATION
LTo THE EDITOR OF TILE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—Whether it was so in the towns I do not know, but here in the West of England, where the news of the postponement of the Coronation arrived late, our villagers evolved some truly remarkable theories on the subject of the possible reason and result of the calamity. Of course the old and widely current rumour of malignant origin of the illness of the King was at once revived; but the most fully believed notion was that there was no actual illness, but that so great was the ebance of assassination of the Monarch in the Abbey "they dared not go on with the crowning." Some added that the King himself feared harm thus ; but that was at once negatived by those who knew of his personal courage, as evidenced in the Sipido affair and in the accident on board the ' Shamrock.' The theory, or rather belief, in this reason for the postponement died a natural death with the detailed accounts of the progress of the Royal patient, and there can be no doubt that the frankness of those bulletins was
of immense benefit, if for this reason alone. One heard no more of it after we had seen the men come into the church from the hayfields in their shirt-sleeves to take part in the quiet intercessory service that took the place of that we had locked forward to. Then there is strange specula- tion on a constitutional question. It is apparently fully believed that the son of an uncrowned King cannot suc- ceed to the throne. Had the worst fears, happily removed, been realised, it is a moot point in the village as to whether the Duke of Connaught would have succeeded to the throne, or Prince Edward, son of the Prince of Wales. The former theory is understandable, under the misconception. The latter claim is made as for "the next in the line of succession other than the Prince of Wales himself," which seems hardly reasonable. The question will die a natural death, of course, as in the other ease ; but that it should have arisen, and shOnld prove so interesting to the folk, is at least a proof that the old English feeling as to the necessity for the Coronation is still strongly existent, if only as a tradition handed down from forgotten days when the popular acclamation of the Monarch was to the people the marked point of the ceremony. As it was when we had a Coronation in our midst here, so it should be now, for in 973 A.D.—
" Her Eadgar waes Engla waldend Cordre micelre to eyninge gehalgod On daere ealdan byrig Acewannes eeastre."
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