J. Stephanoff, Baron of the Cinque Port, 1821. Purchased with the assistance of the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund

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Barons of the Cinque Ports

A canopy was first carried by the Barons of the Cinque Ports over the head of the monarch at the coronation of Richard the Lionheart in 1189.

The Customal of Rye states that,

"... of all the [Cinque] ports there must come thirty two barons all in one clothing, and they shall bear the cloth over the king and over the queen, with four spears, of the colour silver, and four little bells gilt, having about the cloth, which is called the fall, and shall come from the King's Treasury".

This tradition continued until the coronation of George IV when the canopy was carried behind instead of over George. Henry Rivington Hill wrote,

"His Majesty's Reason for walking before the canopy appears to have been that the people at the top of the houses might be able to see him, as he frequently looked up almost perpendicularly".

However this approach may not have been the wisest, as an anonymous account reports,

"At first all seems to have gone well, but on returning to Westminster Hall, the elderly bearers began to tire at their task, causing the canopy to sway from side to side. The King feeling nervous that it would descend on his head, thought it safer to walk slightly in front of it. This however, did not suit the stout hearts, though weak bodies, of the Barons, whose privilege and duty it was to bear the canopy exactly over the king, so they hastened their steps, the canopy swaying more and more with the increased pace. The King now became genuinely alarmed, and though of portly habits quickened his pace, and, as the canopy surged after him, as last broke into a somewhat unseemly jog trot, and in this manner they all arrived at Westminster Hall"

The Barons were dressed in Jacobean-style blue and red silk satin doublets (jackets), breeches and sur-coats, worn with red stockings, white kid shoes and a black hat trimmed with red and white ostrich feathers. The outfit worn by Thomas Lamb, Lord Mayor of Rye in 1808 survives in the collection at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

Although the Barons were not present at the coronations of William IV and Queen Victoria, both of which had much less extravagent coronations than George IV, they participated in coronations since Edward VII, but have ceased to carry a canopy.