The rain last Saturday on Coronation Day led immediately to comparisons with that in 1953 and in 1937. Indeed it was pointed out that rain seems to have fallen at some time on every Coronation Day for 120 years.
This is no new phenomenon and the weather on April 9th 1413 when King Henry V was anointed and crowned was noticeably bad. Indeed medieval chroniclers had the knack when covering such events which they share with modern tabloid journalists and many on the Internet of concentrating on the trivial, rather than the substance of the event. As a result the most memorable things about the coronation of King Henry V are that it snowed ( or rained ) heavily, that at the offertory the King dropped his coin on the floor - doubtless the Cosmati pavement - resulting in people scrabbling around to find it, and that, because it was in Lent, all the dishes at the feast afterwards were fish.
The Coronation of King Henry V as depicted on his chantry chapel in Westminster Abbey
Image: Project Gutenburg text of E.H. Pearce William de Colchester Abbot of Westminster SPCK 1915
Hannes Kleineke had written a piece on the History of Parliament blog about the weather on that day. In particular he looks at whether Thomas Walsingham’s account of unseasonably late snow is accurate or if, in fact, it actually rained heavily - or indeed, possibly, both.
His post can be read at Beast from the East or Song of Solomon? The Coronation of King Henry V, 9 April 1413
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