The power and splendor of great rulers and ruling families has long fascinated the common people. Royal figures seemed to be in league with the gods, or even gods themselves. Although history has not dealt kindly with royalty, Americans have long had a love/hate relationship with the concept. Mindful of our nation's origins -- its painful break from royal rule -- we remain fascinated by the lingering mystique of royalty. Grace Cathedral reflects that ambivalence in a panoply of royal, and a few anti-royal, images and heraldic display.

Old Testament kings appear in the cathedral windows -- the troubled King Saul soothed by young David's lyre (Children of the Old Testament window), and a splendid green-shoed King David the Psalmist (Old Testament window), standing as a prophet of the future messiah. The last panel of the cathedral's Doors of Paradise (replicas of Ghiberti's Renaissance masterpiece) shows the reception of the exotic Queen of Sheba by the wise King Solomon. The grand, almost operatic, scene is full of exotic figures and animals, and Ghiberti himself as a spectator.

Royalty is less prominent in the New Testament, but the medieval mind filled the gap. An example is the wise men visiting the new-born Christ Child.

They became three kings in the Christian imagination, and appear as such in the cathedral nativity creche and nearby Adoration mural (Chapel of the Nativity). The "kings" were even given names and descriptions -- the young dark-skinned beardless Gaspar, the middle-aged Balthasar and the elderly Melchior. Of course, Christ turned the concept of kingship on its head as he hung on the cross beneath Pilate's ironic multilingual inscription, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."

Early Christian and Byzantine royals are shown or alluded to in several cathedral windows. Flaming thrones in the St. Martin of Tours window refer to the Roman Emperor Valentian, who refused to rise in the saint's presence. St. Martin caused the throne to ignite, creating a royal hot seat! Another window features Saint Helena, dowager Byzantine Empress and mother of the Emperor Constantine, the first pro-Christian emperor. Saint Helena was the first important Christian pilgrim and "archeologist." She found and had excavated what she believed to be the True Cross, and built basilicas on numerous sacred sites in the Holy Land. In a north aisle window stands the later St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, whose outspoken criticism of the lavish and immoral lifestyle of the Byzantine court caused his exile and eventual death.

Among medieval European monarchs, one of the most admired was Saint Louis -- King Louis IX of France. A just and deeply compassionate king, his cathedral window shows him opening the prisons of Paris at his accession. St. Louis built the exquisite Sainte Chapelle in Paris. It still stands today, and was the model for the cathedral's Chapel of Grace and its stained glass. A nearby carved vestry door shows the fleur-de-lys (lily flower) arms of the French monarch, and the dolphins of the royal son and heir -- the dauphin. In the adjacent choir aisle is the 16th century Brussels tapestry of the Risen Christ, perhaps made for Queen Margaret of Austria, regent of the Lowlands. On the south transept wall hangs the medieval royal flag of Spain, with the castles and lions of Castille and Leon. It was given to Grace Cathedral by King Juan Carlos of Spain at the 1976 American Bicentennial.

English royalty is of course prominent in this Anglican cathedral, and it was an English king, Henry VIII, who founded the Church of England. A south aisle mural shows the conversion of the 6th century Anglo-Saxon King Ethelbert, at the urging of his Christian wife, Queen Bertha. The king met St. Augustine's mission outdoors to prevent any Christian "magic." In the cathedral choir is the Saint Edward the Confessor window. The pious 11th century king, whose emblem is three legless swallows (martlets) in flight, is entombed in the principal shrine of Westminster Abbey. The adjacent window shows his grandniece, Queen Margaret of Scotland, whose husband King Malcolm defeated the infamous Macbeth. On the wall of the south tower are banners with the coats of arms of Queen Elizabeth I and of Sir Francis Drake, a visitor to northern California in 1579. The queen's arms bear the motto "semper eatem," "always the same" -- expressing her single-minded temperament and steady reign. Her successor, Scottish-born King James I, gave his name to a landmark edition of the Bible, the single most influential book in the formation of the English language. Pages are on dislplay in the north choir aisle.

In the cathedral's south aisle is a mural showing the consecration of the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Samuel Seabury. The date was 1784 and the Revolutionary War was barely over. In order to avoid having to swear allegiance to King George III as part of his ordination, Seabury went to the bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church, a "non-juring" branch of the Anglican Church. Later Georges-Kings George V and VI were memorialized in large services held at Grace Cathedral in 1936 and 1952. The Churchill frontal, a gold and blue embroidery piece used at times on the High Altar, is made from material that decorated Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

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