Table of Contents

Foreword by The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster x
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Historiography of the Chair and the Stone
2 St Edward’s Chair and the Stone of Scone in medieval history
3 From Scone to Westminster: starting with a stone
4 King Edward I commissions a chair, 1297
5 Design and construction of St Edward’s Chair: a detailed study
6 The polychromy of the Coronation Chair: a detailed study by Marie Louise Sauerberg
7 The Stone seat
8 The Coronation Chair from the later Middle Ages to the seventeenth century
9 A companion Chair for Queen Mary II, 1689
10 Vicissitudes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
11 Ceremonies and incidents of the twentieth century involving the Coronation Chair
12 History ignored: the events of 1996
13 Popular influence of the Chair in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
14 Conservation and the Chair: a physical history by Marie Louise Sauerberg
15 One of the glories of Westminster Abbey: the Coronation Chair redisplayed, 2013 by Ptolemy Dean
Appendix 1: Timeline of events connected with the Coronation Chair and Stone of Scone
Appendix 2: ‘Damaged by wanton mischief’: graffiti on the Coronation Chairs by Eddie Smith
Notes and references 275
Bibliography 293
Index

About the Author

Professor Warwick Rodwell, OBE, is Consultant Archaeologist to Westminster Abbey. He is the author of Canterbury Cathedral, Trinity Chapel: The Archaeology of the Mosaic Pavement and Setting of the Shrine of St Thomas Becket (with David Neal, 2022), The Cosmatesque Mosaics of Westminster Abbey: The Pavements and Royal Tombs: History, Archaeology, Architecture and Conservation (with David Neal, 2019), and St Peter's, Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire: Volume 1, History, Archaeology and Architecture (2011), all published by Oxbow Books.

Reviews

"Perhaps the defining image from the television age's dawn is Princess Elizabeth's crowning in Westminster Abbey on June 2 1953. By then the Coronation Chair was decidedly tatty, but in the middle ages it had glowed with gilding, painting and coloured glass... Now, newly conserved - and thanks to this magisterial book understood - a new history for the chair opens up. Scholarly and fascinating." -- British Archaeology British Archaeology It is authoritative, and magnificently illustrated. It is, moreover, like any good detective story, a damned good read, as the authors steer us ably through the archaeological investigations of the Chair and the Stone, interpret the medieval and modern documentation, and dispose of 'mountains of myth'. There can be few national symbols that have been so well served by a publication. -- The Ricardian The Ricardian "Warwick Rodwell's book is a worthy - and enjoyable - record of its creation and vicissitudes. Perhaps the time will come when the futile and ignorant political gesture which split Chair from Stone can be reversed. In the meantime this authoritative account is unlikely to be superseded." -- Furniture History Furniture History 'The oldest dated piece of English furniture (1297-1300) made by a known artist (Walter of Durham) to survive has been given the comprehensive study it deserves by Warwick Rodwell, with supplementary chapters on its most recent conservation by Marie Louise Sauerberg and its current display by Ptolemy Dean.' -- The Spectator The Spectator "A warning: this book is very difficult to put down. Skulduggery at dead of night, political contortions, a suffragette attack, scratched initials, the ghost of a plundered loveliness rightly termed "Decorated" - a deeply scholarly and beautifully illustrated whodunnit." -- Church TImes Church TImes