The 1689 Coronation of William and Mary


Coronation of William III and Mary II in Westminster Abbey, 11 April 1689 etched and engraved by Romeyn de Hooghe, published by Carel Allard, Amsterdam, 1689.   From The Age of William and Mary, eds Maccubbin and Hamilton-Phillips.

This was the only double coronation in English history, and the only time two monarchs were jointly consecrated.   In addition, it was the first time the monarch took an oath to uphold the law according to "the Statutes in Parliament agreed on and the Laws and Customs of the Same."

The overlap of domestic and political patriarchalism can be glimpsed in the relationship of Mary to her father, the king James II whom her husband, William, deposed.   In April, 1689, just hours prior to the coronation of William and Mary, an express letter arrived for the princess from her father warning her not to go through with the ceremony.   Though it was destroyed, a court attendant made the following paraphrase.   As her father, this letter reportedly said, he "had hitherto been willing to make excuses for what had been done, and thought her obedience to her husband, and compliance with the nation, might have prevailed, but that her being crowned was in her own power; and if she did it, while he and the prince of Wales [his newly born son, the future "Pretender"] were living, the curses of an angry father would fall on her, as well as of a God who commanded obedience to parents."   See Sir John Dalrymple, "Memorandum," in Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, from the dissolution of the last Parliament of Charles II until the sea-battle off La Hogue,(Edinburgh, 1771), vol. 2, app., pt. 2, p. 15.


Detail from the above Coronation of William III and Mary II in Westminster Abbey.   Detail from the lowest left enclosure, located above double line and band at the bottom showing the file of people.

This shows the distribution of medals among the spectators at the coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey.   The official medal [the ones being flung out in the upper left of the detail] was designed by Jan Roettier and showed James II as a ruler necessarily displaced so that the whole nation would not be destroyed--timely justification propaganda.   From The Age of William and Mary, eds Maccubbin and Hamilton-Phillips.


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