ODGers teaching contract law courses may be interested in the following as a footnote to the coronation cases such Krell v Henry. 

In relation to Edward VII’s postponed coronation and banquet, Susanna Groom, At the King's Table, Royal Dining Through the Ages, Merrell Publishers, London, 2013, pp 164-70,  writes as follows:

 

The coronation of Edward VII (1901-10) was due to take place on Thursday 26 June 1902. Crowned heads and statesmen of Europe and the world were gathering in London, and a superb banquet for 250 carefully selected guests was being prepared at Buckingham Palace …

 

On Wednesday 15 June Sir Frederick Treves, the king’s doctor, send for the Master of the Household, Lord Farquhar, who sends for Monsieur Menager, the Royal Chef, who tells the kitchen staff that the king is seriously ill and will undergo an emergency operation that very evening. The coronation is postponed …

 

[The late Queen] Victoria’s eldest son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, was fifty-nine when he finally came to the throne, and he had a reputation as a bon viveur. In the summer of 1902, amid the building pressure as coronation day approached, it was observed that the king was eating too much. He had developed pains in his lower abdomen, but ignored them, feeling impelled to carry on with the preparations for the great event. When his doctors told him the coronation must be postponed, he ordered them to leave the room. He declared that he would go to his coronation even if her were to drop dead during the service, but in the event he developed peritonitis. His doctors warned that without an operation he would certainly drop dead before he even got to Westminster Abbey, and an operating theatre was prepared in Buckingham Palace. In 1902 a surgical procedure of this kind was not without risk for a heavily smoking 16-stone man in his sixtieth year. Sir Frederick Treves, was, however, a most capable surgeon; one of his other patients was Joseph Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man. The operation was successfully completed in less than an hour, and by the following morning – which should have been that of his coronation -he was sitting up in bed, puffing on one of his favourite cigars.

 

Meanwhile, down in the palace kitchens, panic mingled with growing despair as the cooks stared at row upon row of ingredients … [T]he sheer volume of food meant that the kitchens were literally out of action … It was decided … to offer the food to the Little Sisters of the Poor to distribute to the hungry and homeless in the East End of London. It was to be a discreet handover, and the cooks would never know what was thought of their two weeks of dedicated work. The East Enders must have been puzzled at food the like of which they had never tasted, and one wonders whether they enjoyed it …

 

‘The King’s Dinner to the Poor’ – a celebratory coronation dinner and festivities for ‘the submerged tenth,’ London’s poor – took place on Saturday 5 July 1902 … Dinners were offered cross the capital, in Paddington, Fulham, Poplar, Hackney, Stepney, Marylebone, St Pancras, Holborn, Finsbury and Shoreditch. The dinners in Shoreditch, which catered for 15,000 people, took place in a variety of halls; some were even delivered to the guests’ own homes. The fare served in that part of the city was typical: roast beef, pork, ham, potatoes, hot plum pudding, preserved fruit, jam roll, bread and cheese, pickles, aerated water, lime juice and cider. Some 18,000 packets of tobacco and cigarettes were donated by Imperial Tobacco, boxes of chocolates were supplied courtesy of Messrs Rowntree of York, and there were also gifts of portraits of the king and queen. During the day the Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the royal family, in place of the king and queen, made a tour in open carriages to the diners in all these deprived areas of London, bringing the king’s good wishes and reporting on his improving health. They were greeted with loud cheers and the singing of the national anthem.

Meanwhile the king convalesced on his yacht, on a diet of chicken mousse and boiled fish, building up his health and strength for his actual coronation, which finally took place on 9 August.