The Coronation Chair has been illustrated and described since the 14th century, and is renowned the world over. For hundreds of years this piece of Medieval furniture has played a seminal role in the anointing and crowning of English monarchs, and was last used at the coronation of HM The Queen on 2 June 1953, the Diamond Jubilee of which was celebrated this year.
To mark the occasion, in 2010-2012 the Chair underwent a long-overdue programme of cleaning, conservation, and redisplay in Westminster Abbey. Concurrently, a detailed archaeological study was carried out and the Chair was comprehensively recorded for the first time. The project led to a radically new understanding of its construction and decoration, and of its relationship to the Stone of Scone, which was embodied in its seat.
Spoils of war
The origins of the Chair are well known. Indeed, the documentation accompanying its manufacture in the 1290s is still preserved. Following Edward I’s victory over the Scots in 1296, state documents and items of regalia were surrendered and taken to London as spoils of war. One of those items was a ceremonial block of sandstone upon which Scottish kings had hitherto been inaugurated at Scone Abbey in Perthshire, the last being John Balliol in 1292.
