492 



CORONATION GULF 



CORONER 



both by George III. and George IV. to prevent 

 them from granting Catholic Emancipation, and 

 was also by many regarded as an obstacle to the 

 disestablishment of the Irish Church (see Bishop 

 Phillpotts, The Coronation Oath, 1828). The 

 treaty of Union between England and Scotland 

 provides that the oath of the preservation of the 



government, wor- 

 ship, and discipliije 

 of the Church of 

 Scotland should be 

 taken not at coro- 

 nation but at the 

 accession of the 

 sovereign. For the 

 ceremonies con- 

 nected with corona- 

 tion, see CHAM- 

 PION ; Chapters on 

 Coronation (1838); 

 Planche, Corona- 

 tions of Queens of 

 England (1838); 

 Jones, Crowns and 

 Coronations ( 1 883 ) ; 

 and Lives of Queen 

 Victoria by Holmes 



Coronation Chair of the Kings of 



England. The . 



coronation stone, 



the Lia Fail or 



' Stone of Destiny,' was said by tradition to have 

 been the stone which Jacob used for a pillow, and 

 to have been brought to Ireland, and from Tara to 

 Scotland, where it found a resting-place at Scone, 

 till in 1296 Edward I. carried it to Westminster. 

 It now forms part of the coronation chair, occupying 

 the space beneath the seat. Skene, in his mono- 

 graph (1869), asserts it to have been originally 

 quarried from the rocks near Scone. 



Coronation Gulf, an inlet connected with 

 the Arctic Ocean, south of Victoria Land, in 68 30' 

 N. lat., and 110 W. long. 



Coroiiea, a small town of Bceotia, SW. of Lake 

 Copais, where in 447 B.C. the Boeotians defeated the 

 Athenians, and in 394 Agesilaus ( q. v. ) defeated the 

 allied Greeks. 



Coronella, a genus of non-venomous snakes in 

 the family Colubridse, to which the English Ringed 

 Snake (q.v. ), Tropidonotus natrix, also belongs. 

 The genus is well represented in dry regions in 

 Europe and North Africa. C. Icevis or austriaca 

 is a very common European species between two 

 and three feet in length. 



Coroner (Lat. coronator, corona, 'a crown'), a 

 very ancient officer, in England, at the common 

 law. The coronator is mentioned in a charter of 

 King Athelstan, 905 A.D. ; and the office is said to 

 be of Saxon origin. But Bishop Stubbs ( Constitu- 

 tional History, vol. i. chap. 17) finds the origin of 

 the office of the modern coroner in an ordinance of 

 1194 A.D. for the election in every shire of officers 

 to keep the pleas of the crown, whence the name. 

 In this light, the Lord Chief-justice of the Queen's 

 Bench is the principal coroner in the kingdom, and 

 may exercise jurisdiction in that capacity in any 

 part of England. There are, however, particular 

 coroners in every county in England, and in some 

 counties three or four, or even more. Every 

 borough having a separate court of Quarter Sessions 

 has a coroner ; but since 1888 boroughs have ceased 

 to have a separate coroner unless the population 

 amounts to 10,000. Coroners were formerly paid 

 by fees on each inquest, but now by salary out of 

 the county rate. The coroner is chosen for life, 

 and the election, which formerly lay with the free- 

 holders, rests, tmder the Local Government Act 



of 1888, with the county-council, or with the 

 town- council of a borough having the right to 

 appoint one. A coroner may, however, be dis- 

 missed by the Lord Chancellor for inability or mis- 

 behaviour in his office. By the statute of West- 

 minster the first (3 Edw. I. chap. 10), it was 

 enacted that none should be chosen but lawful and 

 discreet knights ; and in the time of Edward III. 

 there is an instance of a man being removed from 

 the office because he was merely a merchant. 

 Subsequently it was thought sufficient if a man 

 had lands enough to entitle him to be made a, 

 knight ; and Blackstone complains that in his time 

 it had come to be sought for the perquisites, and 

 not for the honour of serving the country. This 

 motive has now ceased. The coroner is now usually 

 a professional man, frequently a solicitor or a 

 medical man. 



The office of coroner is to some extent the only 

 one in England charged with the investigation of 

 crime. Wnen the coroner cannot act, there is no 

 authority to examine witnesses until a suspected 

 person has been actually charged or accused before 

 a magistrate. But even the coroner's duties are 

 very limited. They are defined by 50 and 51 Viet, 

 chap. 71, which consolidates most of the previous 

 statutes. The coroner can inquire only into the 

 causes of violent or sudden death, and into these 

 only when the body has been found. When such a 

 death happens, it is the duty of the constable to 

 give notice of it to the coroner, who then summons 

 a jury from the body of the county for the purpose 

 of making an inquisition into the matter. The 

 coroner presides over the inquisition, and the court, 

 thus constituted is a court of record. The jury 

 consists of twelve men at least, who are sworn and 

 charged by the coroner ; and the verdict must be 

 found by twelve. The inquest is to be held before 

 the coroner in whose district the body shall be 

 ' lying dead. ' If any be found guilty by such in- 

 quisition of murder or other homicide, the coroner 

 is to commit them to prison or take bail for their 

 appearance at the assizes, according to the gravity 

 or the offence, and he must certify the inquisition 

 under his own seal and the seals of the jurors, 

 together with the evidence thereon, to the court in. 

 which the trial is to take place. The accused may 

 thereupon be put on his trial without other indict- 

 ment. The coroner is empowered to summon 

 medical witnesses, who are liable to a penalty for 

 non-attendance. He has power to pay a medical 

 witness one guinea for a simple examination, and 

 two guineas if a post-mortem examination of the 

 body has been made. Coroners are empowered to 

 appoint deputies in case of absence from illness or 

 other reasonable cause. Another branch of the 

 coroner's office was to inquire concerning shipwrecks 

 and treasure-trove ; but this has been nearly super- 

 seded by the provisions of the Merchant Shipping 

 Act, 1854. He is a conservator of the king's peace, 

 in which capacity he is mentioned in the oldest 

 treatises on the common law. As such, he may 

 cause suspected felons to be apprehended, whether 

 an inquisition has found them guilty or not. The 

 coroner has likewise ministerial functions as the 

 sheriffs substitute, in making out the panel of 

 jurors, and in executing process in suits in which 

 the sheriff is related either to the plaintiff' or de- 

 fendant. Latterly, the office of coroner has been the 

 subject of consideration with a view to certain 

 reforms of administration. 



Coroners or crowners, as they were also called 

 in England, are mentioned in many old Scottish 

 statutes ; and there is no doubt that the office, 

 as well as that of alderman and mayor, existed in 

 those parts of the country that were peopled by 

 persons of Teutonic race. But it was abolished 

 or fell into desuetude, probably in consequence of 



