Millions of people around the world tuned in to virtually attend the crowning of King Charles on Saturday morning. The event was filled with the typical pomp expected from a British monarch being officially crowned. But did you know there is a neat and old connection between the royal Coronation Chair used during Saturday’s ceremony — and the Six Nations of the Grand River?
It starts back in the year 1860. The Six Nations at Grand River are still walking proud as allies to the British and Prince of Wales, Edward Albert, is making his first official royal tour in North America — including a stopover at Six Nations.
A young Mohawk, Peter Martin Oronhyatekha, is chosen to make a speech during the Prince of Wales visit and the two find some commonalities. Prince Albert, known to his family as “Bertie”, is completely impressed with his time with the Six Nations and Oronhyatekha is invited to come to Oxford University to study. He accepts the offer and becomes the first indigenous person to attend the prestigious school, and becomes a doctor.
Throughout the rest of his life, Dr. O grows in stature among the white settlers in Canada — earning positions of authority among several of the fraternities and institutions that supported development in Canada.
He became the CEO of the International Order of Foresters and for 26 years held that title – bringing the fraternity over $11 million dollars and 250,000 members.
Oronhyatekha’s personal passion was collecting cultural relics and he amassed a huge collection of artifacts throughout his life.
One of the artifacts he acquired was an exact replica of the Coronation Chair. Some people claim the chair was gifted to Dr. O by Prince Albert himself — who would later be crowned King Edward VII. Others say that the Doctor was granted permission to make an exact replica for his collection and that was how it came to be in his possession.
The chair is incomparable in its exactness — even the graffiti carvings into the chair and deteriorating top spindles are perfectly recreated. Another replica sits beneath the chair. A large stone which is called — and I kid you not — the Stone of Scone! Some people call it the Stone of Destiny.
History says that every monarch of Scotland after the 13th century is crowned sitting upon that Stone and the stone remains under the Coronation Chair to this day.
The stone itself is said to have been brought from Egypt to Spain and then onward to Ireland and Scotland and was the exact stone the biblical patriarch Jacob laid his head upon when he had visions of Heaven.
Oronhyatekha’s Scone Stone sits beneath his replica chair. Currently that chair is housed at Casa Loma in the Great Room as part of the castle’s permanent exhibit.
Notes about Oronhyatekha’s collection of artifacts were published in 1904 by the International Order of Foresters, who took possession of the entire collection after his death.
“It is not the original chair but a remarkably well executed and exact facsimile of the celebrated Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey. No previous copy had ever been made, but as a special concession to this Canadian collection, permission to make a copy was granted, and those who look upon it to see the details of the original chair exactly in every particular, in shape, disfigurements and colouring, as it now is in Henry VII’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey.”
