Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen (Vol. 1&2). Sarah Tytler
the windows were lifted out of their frames, and the asylum of private life, that sanctuary which our countrymen guard with such traditional jealousy, was on this occasion made accessible to the gaze of the entire world."
At ten o'clock the Queen left Buckingham Palace in the State coach, to the music of the National Anthem and a salute of guns, and passed beneath the Royal Standard hoisted on the marble arch. A marked feature of the procession was the magnificent carriages and escorts of the foreign ambassadors: the splendid uniform of the German Jagers delighted the populace. A deeper and subtler feeling was produced by the sight of one of Napoleon's marshals, Soult, Wellington's great adversary, rearing his white head in a coach the framework of which had belonged to the State carriage of the Prince de Conde, and figured in the beaux jours of Louis XVI. The consciousness that this worthy foe had come to do honour to the young Queen awoke a generous response from the crowd. Soult was cheered lustily along the whole route, and in the Abbey itself, so that he returned to France not only full of personal gratification at the welcome he had received, but strongly convinced of the goodwill of John Bull to Frenchmen in general. How the balls of destiny roll! Soult feted in London, Ney dead by a traitor's death, filling his nameless grave in Pere la Chaise. The procession, beginning with trumpeters and Life Guards, wound its way in relays of foreign ambassadors, members of the royal family and their suites—the Duchess of Kent first—the band of the Household Brigade, the Queen's bargemaster and her forty-eight watermen—honorary servants for many a day—twelve carriages with her Majesty's suite, a squadron of Life Guards, equerries, gentlemen riders and military officials, the royal huntsmen, yeomen-prickers, and foresters, six of her Majesty's horses, with rich trappings, each horse led by two grooms; the Knight-Marshal, marshalmen, Yeomen of the Guard, the State coach—drawn by eight cream-coloured horses, attended by a Yeoman of the Guard at each wheel, and two footmen at each door—the Gold Stick, Viscount Combermere, and the Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, the Earl of Ilchester, riding on either side. In the coach sat the Queen, the Mistress of the Robes (the Duchess of Sutherland), the Master of the Horse (the Earl of Albemarle), and the Captain-General of the Royal Archers (the Duke of Buccleugh). The whole was wound up by a squadron of Life Guards. In this order of stately march, under the June sky, emerging from the green avenues of the park, the procession turned up Constitution Hill, traversed Piccadilly, St. James's Street, Pall Mall, Cockspur Street, and by Charing Cross, Whitehall, and Parliament Street, reached the west door of Westminster Abbey—
Where royal heads receive the sacred gold.
At the Abbey door, at half-past eleven, the Queen was received by the great officers of State, the noblemen bearing the regalia, the bishops carrying the patina, the chalice, and the Bible. Her Majesty proceeded to the robing-room, and there was a hush of expectation in the thronged interior, where the great persons who were to play a part in the ceremony and the privileged ticket-holders had been waiting patiently for long hours.
Underneath the galleries and below the platform were ranged lines of Foot Guards. The platform (under the central tower) was the most conspicuous object. It was covered with cloth of gold, and bore the chair of homage, or throne, facing the altar. Farther on, within the altar-rails, was "St. Edward's Chair," or the chair decorated by "William the Painter" for Edward. Enclosed within it is the "Stone of Destiny," or Fatal Stone of Scone—a sandy stone, supposed to have formed the pillow on which Jacob slept at Bethel, and long used in the coronation of the Scotch kings. In this chair all the kings of England, since the time of Edward I., have been crowned. The altar was covered with massive gold plate.
The galleries of the Abbey were arranged for the members of the House of Commons, the foreign ambassadors, the judges, Knights of the Bath, members of the Corporation, &c. &c. The floor of the transepts was occupied by benches for the peers and peeresses, who may be said to be in their glory at a coronation; the space behind them was for the ticket-holders.
Harriet Martineau has preserved some of the splendours and "humours" of the coronation with her usual clever power of observation and occasional caustic commentary. "The maids called me at half-past two that June morning, mistaking the clock. I slept no more, and rose at half-past three. As I began to dress the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have awakened all the sleepers in London. When the maid came to dress me she said numbers of ladies were already hurrying to the Abbey. I saw the grey old Abbey from the window as I dressed, and thought what would have gone forward within it before the sun set upon it. My mother had laid out her pearl ornaments for me. The feeling was very strange of dressing in crape, blonde, and pearls at five in the morning. … The sight of the rapidly filling Abbey was enough to go for. The stone architecture contrasted finely with the gay colours of the multitude. From my high seat I commanded the whole north transept, the area with the throne, and many portions of galleries, and the balconies which were called the vaultings. Except a mere sprinkling of oddities, everybody was in full dress. In the whole assemblage I counted six bonnets. The scarlet of the military officers mixed in well, and the groups of the clergy were dignified; but to an unaccustomed eye the prevalence of Court dresses had a curious effect. I was perpetually taking whole groups of gentlemen for Quakers till I recollected myself. The Earl-Marshal's assistants, called Gold Sticks, looked well from above, lightly fluttering about in white breeches, silk stockings, blue laced frocks, and white sashes. The throne—an arm-chair with a round back, covered, as was its footstool, with cloth of gold—stood on an elevation of four steps in the centre of the area. The first peeress took her seat in the north transept opposite, at a quarter before seven, and three of the bishops came next. From that time the peers and their ladies arrived faster and faster. Each peeress was conducted by two Gold Sticks, one of whom handed her to her seat, and the other bore and arranged her train on her lap, and saw that her coronet, footstool, and book were comfortably placed. I never saw anywhere so remarkable a contrast between youth and age as in these noble ladies." Miss Martineau proceeds to remark in the strongest and plainest terms on the unbecoming effect of full dress, with "hair drawn to the top of the head, to allow the putting on of the coronet" on these venerable matrons. She goes on to express her admiration of a later generation of peeresses. "The younger were as lovely as the aged were haggard. … About nine the first gleams of the sun slanted into the Abbey and presently travelled down to the peeresses. I had never before seen the full effect of diamonds. As the light travelled each peeress shone like a rainbow. The brightness, vastness, and dreamy magnificence of the scene produced a strange effect of exhaustion and sleepiness. … The great guns told when the Queen had set forth, and there was renewed animation. The Gold Sticks flitted about, there was tuning in the orchestra, and the foreign ambassadors and their suites arrived in quick succession. Prince Esterhazy crossing a bar of sunshine was the most prodigious rainbow of all. He was covered with diamonds and pearls, and as he dangled his hat it cast a dancing radiance all round.
"At half-past eleven the guns told that the Queen had arrived, but as there was much to be done in the robing-room, there was a long pause before she appeared."
A little after twelve the grand procession of the day entered the choir. The Prebendaries and Dean of Westminster and Officers-at-Arms, the Comptroller, Treasurer, Vice-Chamberlain, and Lord Steward of her Majesty's Household, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord President, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, came first. When these gentlemen were peers their coronets were carried by pages. The Treasurer bore the crimson bag with the medals; the Vice-Chancellor was attended by an officer from the Jewel Office, conveying, on a cushion, the ruby ring and the sword for the offering. Then followed the Archbishops of Canterbury, York, and Armagh, with the Lord Chancellor, each archbishop in his rochet, with his cap in his hand; the princesses of the blood royal, all in "robes of estate" of purple velvet and wearing circlets of gold; the Duchess of Cambridge, her train borne by Lady Caroline Campbell and a gentleman of her household, her coronet by Viscount Villiers; the Duchess of Kent, her train borne by Lady Flora Hastings, and her coronet by Viscount Morpeth; the Duchess of Gloucester, her train borne by Lady Caroline Legge, and her coronet by Viscount Evelyn. (The royal generation next that of George III. was fast dwindling away when these three ladies represented the six daughters and the wives of six of the sons of the old King and Queen. But there were other survivors, though they were not present to-day. The Queen-dowager; Princess Augusta, an aged woman of seventy; Princess Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg, nearly as old, and absent in Germany; the Queen as well as the King of Hanover, who had figured formerly as Duke and