Card of the Day: The Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey

The Churchman Cigarette Company’s series of Silver Jubilee cards from 1935 continues with more images of important aspects of the coronation ceremony. Few objects are more important in the coronation that St. Edward’s chair. We’ve previously discussed the role that the Confessor’s chair plays in the coronation, but let’s take a closer look at this venerated objected.

The battered and defaced coronation chair that we see today upon its Sixteenth-Century gold lions is a ghost of its original grandeur. The chair was made on the order of King Edward I between 1296 and 1301. It’s important to note that while the chair is named for Edward the Confessor, St. Edward never really sat on the throne as it was made two centuries after his death for Edward I.

Edward I commissioned Master Walter, a court painter, to decorate the chair. Walter adorned the chair with ornate patterns of birds, foliage and animals on a gilt background while a figure of a king (some believe that it was Edward the Confessor while others contend that it was Edward I himself who was depicted) with his feet resting on a lion, was painted on the reverse.

Close examination of the chair reveals slight traces of the original paint, but few remain. Over the centuries, the chair has been varnished repeatedly, destroying any chance of restoring the original painting. Furthermore, as we’ve already noted, the chair was a favorite target for carved and drawn graffiti—mostly at the hands of Westminster schoolboys who delighted in carving their names into it. Still, this defacement is part of the history of the chair, and now remains just one chapter in its long story.