Crown Him with Many Crowns

This page includes a lyric video, history, sheet music, and other resources for the classic hymn “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” Enjoy!

Enjoy this YouTube video, performed by Enfield, with lyrics for “Crown Him with Many Crowns”:

History of “Crown Him with Many Crowns”:

Words by Matthew Bridges (1800-1894), Published in 1852
Additional verses by Godfrey Thring (1823-1903), Published in 1874

Matthew Bridges was raised in the Church of England but later converted to Roman Catholicism as part of the Oxford Movement (a movement to reincorporate “high church” liturgical practices believing that the church had become too plain).  The latter years of his life were spent in Quebec, Canada, but he returned to England before his death. Matthew wrote the original verses to “Crown Him with Many Crowns” and published them in his collection titled The Passion of Jesus, 1852. In addition to writing hymns, Matthew was a prolific writer in both history and politics. His hymns were introduced to America by Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Collection, 1855, and “Crown Him with Many Crowns” proved to be the most enduring.1

Godfrey Thring added verses of his own to this beautiful hymn in 1874. Godfrey was educated at Oxford and was ordained in the Church of England in 1846. During his life, Godfrey published six different volumes of hymns. One in particular, Hymns and Poems for the Holy Days and the Festivals of the Church, became quite well known. Godfrey’s brother Edward, a teacher, wrote to Godfrey:

“Be sure that no painting, no art work you could have done, could have been so powerful for good…As long as the English language lasts, sundry of your hymns will be read and sung…and many a soul of God’s creatures will thrill at your words. What more can a man want? Very likely if you had had all that old heathendom rammed into you, as I had, and all the literary slicing and pruning, and been scissored like me, you would just have lost the freshness and simple touch which makes you what you are. No, my boy, I make a tidy schoolmaster and pass into the lives of many a pupil, and you live on the lips of the Church. So be satisfied. And what does it matter, if we do the Master’s will?”2

Music “Diademata” (1868) by George Job Elvey (1816-1893):

George was born in England to a musical family. As a boy, he was trained as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral. He went on to receive formal instruction at the Royal Academy of Music, and by the age of seventeen, George had become an organist of unusual talent.3 At the age of nineteen, George was hired as the organist at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, the home church of the royal family. He served there for forty-seven years and had the opportunity to play for many special services involving the royal family. He was knighted in 1871 after writing the Festival March for the wedding of Princess Louise.4 George also composed large musical productions and many hymn tunes – one of his most famous being the music for “Crown Him with Many Crowns.”

The tune name “Diademata” is taken from the Greek word for “crowns” in Revelation 19:12. George composed the music specifically for this hymn, and it first appeared in Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1868.5

Lyrics for “Crown Him with Many Crowns”:

Crown Him with many crowns,
The Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heav’nly anthem drowns
All music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing
Of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless king
Through all eternity.

Crown Him the Lord of love,
Behold His hands and side,
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his wondering eye
At mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of life,
Who triumphed o’er the grave,
And rose victorious through the strife
For those He came to save.
His glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of Heav’n,
Enthroned in worlds above,
Crown Him the king to whom is giv’n
The wondrous name of Love.

Crown Him with many crowns,
As thrones before Him fall;
Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns,
For He is king of all.

For all nine stanzas, see Hymn Time.

Additional Resources for “Crown Him with Many Crowns”:

Sheet Music (PDF Compliments of Hymnary.org)

Guitar Chords (Links to Ultimate Guitar)

Visit Hymnary.org or Hymn Time.com for more on this hymn.

See our Hymn of the Week page for a list of the hymns that are included on this site.

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Sources:

1 Hustad, Donald P. Dictionary Handbook to Hymns for the Living Church. Hope Publishing Company, 1978, p. 211.
2 “Godfrey Thring,” Hymn Time.
3 Reynolds, William Jensen. Hymns of Our Faith: A Handbook for the Baptist Hymnal. Broadman Press, 1964, p. 287.
4 Ibid.
5 Reynolds, p. 39.

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