Crown him with many crowns

‘His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns’ (Revelation 19:12). The figure thus described is also called Faithful and True, and the Word of God. John’s language is, as often, stretched as far as it can go to portray in words the glory of Christ as Saviour and Judge, as his book, and our whole Bible, approaches its end. And Matthew Bridges in 1851, while also incorporating other biblical material, has ensured that this foundation Scripture should be associated with his hymn (and the stirring tune which
soon accompanied it) if not eternally then at least for a century and a half of English-speaking congregations. It appeared in his Hymns of the Heart 2nd edn c1851, with the Scripture text above it in Lat. Other books soon followed, but at some stage the hymn was enriched, or diverted, by using parts of Godfrey Thring’s Crown him with crowns of gold, written in 1874. Thring’s original intention was to improve or correct Bridges, and keep the 2 hymns (in his own words) ‘entirely distinct’. But his 1880 compilation A Church of England Hymn Book adapted to the Daily Services of the Church Throughout the Year began the habit (soon widely adopted by editors) of amalgamating the hymns, with one or more of his own stzs inserted after Bridges’ opening. So most hymnals have credited the text to both men equally. As a ‘coronation hymn’ it is a twin to 281.

To unravel the full textual history would be very complex. The present book follows Matthew Bridges in stzs 1, 4 and 6, though this last conflates his original 5a and 6b. It bypasses his 2nd stz (‘Crown him the virgin’s Son,/ the God incarnate born … Fruit of the mystic rose,/ as of that rose the stem …’) and adapts his 4th as 5 here, lines 1–4 taken from Jubilate and 5–8 new, replacing ‘His reign shall know no end/ and round his piercèd feet/ fair flowers of Paradise extend/ their fragrance ever sweet’. Stzs 2 and 3 are based on Thring, the exact phrasing of the latter also being adopted from HTC. Among other lines from Bridges which most books have now dropped are his 4.5–8: ‘Glassed in a sea of light/ where everlasting waves/ reflect his throne—the Infinite—/ who lives—and loves—and saves’. The hymn as we now have it is a worthily triumphant companion to Bonar’s 151 or Kelly’s 493 and 498.

George J Elvey composed DIADEMATA for the (composite) hymn, and following its appearance in the 1868 A&M ‘Appendix’ it rapidly established itself as a natural first choice. The rhythm and movement of its first line (repeated in Sullivan’s CORONAE composed for the same hymn; cf 552, note) are clearly vital components of the music. Linda Mawson’s arrangement was made for the present book. ‘Diademata’ is the Gk for the ‘crowns’ of Revelation 19:12.

b Maldon, Essex 1800, d Sidmouth, Devon 1894. Brought up in the CofE, brother of the evangelical pastor/expositor (and friend of the Moule family) Charles B, he was influenced by the Oxford movement and in 1848 he became an RC. He published Jerusalem Regained, a Poem in 1825; historical and political works; and 2 small hymn collections, Hymns of the Heart for the Use of Catholics (1848) and The Passion of Jesus (1852). Henry Ward Beecher, the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, introduced his work to N America by including some of it in his 1855 Plymouth Collection. He lived latterly in Quebec, Canada, but died, aged 94, while visiting a religious community in Devon. No.480*.

b Alford, Som 1823, d Shamley Green, nr Godalming, Surrey 1903. Shrewsbury Sch; Balliol Coll Oxford. Ordained (CofE) 1846. After curacies at Stratfield-Turgis and Stratfield Saye (both nr Basingstoke, Hants) and others until 1858, he succeeded his father as Rector of Alford with Hornblotton, nr Shepton Mallet, Som; he was made a Prebendary of Wells in 1876. He published 2 collections of hymns; Hymns and Verses (1866) had 40 hymns and 27 ‘verses’, including autobiographical and romantic items. In editing A Church of England Hymn Book (1880; revised in 1882 as The CofE Hymn Bk), he said that its contents and grand title represented a protest ‘against the system of party hymn books’—high ch, broad, evangelical etc. His aim and achievement were warmly praised by the hymnologist Louis F Benson, but remained more a curiosity than a success. In brotherly correspondence with Jn Ellerton (qv) in 1879, Thring admitted many of its flaws (‘I hardly know how I came to omit this’); he did not always agree (‘You are rather hard upon this’) and regretted that some of JE’s most pertinent comments came too late to affect the contents (‘I had perhaps better have omitted the hymn altogether, but again, too late’). Ironically, the Anglo-catholic English Hymnal of 1906 included 7 of GT’s hymns, a total well above average. But so did the Baptist Hymn Book of 1962, whose ‘Companion’ describes them as more literary and less didactic than was usual for his time; in an extended treatment, Julian lists 53 hymns and uses words such as ‘objective, strong, decided, hopefulness, excellence’. (GT’s elder brother Edward, headmaster of Uppingham Sch, became a noted educationalist and a pioneer of sending public schoolboys to share in inner London church work.) No.480*.