Note 14 — THE MINORITY OF HENRY III CHAPTER I THE WAR WITH LOUIS 1216–1217

The Hist. des Ducs, p. 181, and the Annals of Margan, Tewkesbury, Winchester, and Waverley, a. 1216, say that Henry was crowned by Gualo; the Hist. G. le Mar., ll. 15329–31, says “Wales la messe li chanta, Li legaz, e sil corona, O li evesques qui la furent”; and the official letter written in Henry’s name to the Justiciar of Ireland says he was crowned “by the hands of Gualo the Cardinal legate and the bishops then present” (Foedera, I. i. p. 145). Probably, however, they all mean merely what is expressly, though awkwardly, stated by the Merton chronicler—“Coronatus ... a domino Syvalone legato ... assistentibus sibi domino Petro Wintoniensi episcopo qui eum inunxit et coronam imposuit capiti, ut dicunt” &c. (Petit-Dutaillis, Vie de Louis VIII., p. 514), and more clearly by the Barnwell annalist: “Imposuit autem ei manus ex jussu legati episcopus Wintoniensis” (W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 233). Roger of Wendover (vol. iv. p. 2) says Henry was crowned and anointed by Bishop Peter; Matthew Paris (Chron. Maj., vol. iii. p. 2) that Peter of Winchester and Jocelyn of Bath crowned him; the Dunstable annalist (Ann. Monast., vol. iii. p. 48) that he was crowned by Gualo’s authority, but by the hands of the Bishops of Winchester, Worcester, and Exeter. Wykes’s account of the coronation is obviously fantastic, except in one detail, that of the “sertum quoddam,” which is no doubt correct, as certainly no real crown could be available.