Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen (Vol. 1&2). Sarah Tytler
on the ground. I did not like to sink down in dust half a foot deep, to the spoiling of my dress and the loss of my self-respect, but it was really a terrible waiting till my brothers appeared at the end of the barrier."
But the day's business was not ended for the great world, high and low. The return of the procession, though the line was broken, had the special attraction that the Queen wore her crown, and the Peers and Peeresses their coronets. The Queen's crown was a mass of brilliants, relieved here and there by a large ruby or emerald, encircling a purple velvet cap. Among the stories told of the coronation, foremost and favourite of which was the misadventure of poor Lord Rolle, and the pretty gentle way in which the young Queen did her best to help the sufferer; an incident was reported which might have had its foundation in the difficulties described by Miss Martineau as besetting the fair Peeress in the Abbey. It was said that the Queen's crown was too cumbrous, and disturbed the arrangement of those soft braids of hair, the simple, modest fashion of which called forth Sir David Wilkie's praise, and that as her Majesty drove along in her State carriage, she was seen laughingly submitting to the good offices of her beautiful companion seeking with soft hands to loop up afresh the rebellious locks which had broken loose. Leslie, from whom we have already quoted, gives an anecdote of the Queen on her coronation-day, which serves at least to show how deeply the youthfulness of their sovereign was impressed on the public mind. He had been informed that she was very fond of dogs, and that she possessed a favourite little spaniel which was always on the look-out for her. She had been away from him longer than usual on this particular day. When the State coach drove up to the palace on her return, she heard his bark of joy in the hall. She cried, "There's Dash!" and seemed to forget crown and sceptre in her girlish eagerness to greet her small friend. [Footnote: In the list of Sir Edwin Landseer's pictures there is one, the property of the Queen, which was painted in 1838. It includes "Hector," "Nero," "Dash," and "Lorey" (dogs and parrot).]
In spite of the ordeal her Majesty had undergone, she entertained a party of a hundred to dinner, and witnessed from the roof of Buckingham Palace the grand display of fireworks in the Green Park and the general illumination of London. The Duke of Wellington gave a ball at Apsley House, followed next day by official dinners on the part of the Cabinet ministers. The festivities lasted for more than a week in the metropolis. Prominent among them was a fancy fair held for the space of four days in Hyde Park, and visited by the Queen in person. On the 9th of July, a fine, hot day there was a review in Hyde Park. The Queen appeared soon after eleven in an open barouche, with her aides-de-camp in full uniform. The Dukes of Cambridge and Wellington, the Duc de Nemours, Marshal Soult, Prince Esterhazy, Prince Schwartzenburg, Count Stragonoff, were present amidst a great crowd. The Queen was much cheered. The country's old gallant foe, Soult, was again hailed with enthusiasm, though there was just a shade of being exultingly equal to the situation, in the readiness with which, on his having the misfortune to break a stirrup, a worthy firm of saddlers came forward with a supply of the stirrups which Napoleon had used in one of his campaigns. And there might have been something significant to the visitor, in the rapturous greeting which was bestowed on the Iron Duke, round whose erect, impassive figure the multitude pressed, the nearest men and women defying his horse's hoofs and stretching up to shake hands with "the Conquering Hero" amidst a thunder of applause.
The rejoicings pervaded every part of the country from John o' Groat's to
Land's End, from the Scilly Isles to Sark. There was merry-making among the
English residents in every foreign place, as far as the great colonies in
the still remote continents.
To many simple people the Queen did not seem to reign, hardly to exist, till she had put on her crown and taken up her sceptre. It was to do the first honour to their youthful liege lady that June garlands were swung over every village street, bonfires gleamed like carbuncles on mountain cairns, frightening the hill foxes, or lit up the coast-line and were flung back in broken reflections from the tossing waves, scaring the very fish in the depths of the sea, where hardy islanders had kindled the token on some rock of the ocean.
Pen and pencil were soon busy with the great event of the season. Elizabeth
Barrett Browning wrote later:—
The Minster was alight that day, but not with fire, I ween,
And long-drawn glitterings swept adown that mighty aisled scene;
The priests stood stoled in their pomp, the sworded chiefs in theirs,
And so the collared knights—and so the civil ministers;
And so the waiting lords and dames—and little pages best
At holding trains—and legates so, from countries east and west;
So alien princes, native peers, and high-born ladies bright
Along whose brows the Queen's new crown'd, flashed coronets to light.
And so, the people at the gates, with priestly hands on high,
Which bring the first anointing to all legal majesty;
And so, the Dead—who lay in rows beneath the Minster floor,
There verily an awful state maintaining evermore—
The statesman, with no Burleigh nod, whate'er court tricks may be;
The courtier, who, for no fair Queen, will rise up to his knee;
The court-dame, who for no court tire will leave her shroud behind;
The laureate, who no courtlier rhymes than "dust to dust" can find;
The kings and queens who having ta'en that vow and worn that crown,
Descended unto lower thrones and darker, deeper adown;
"Dieu et mon Droit," what is't to them? what meaning can it have?
The king of kings, the dust of dust—God's judgment and the grave.
And when betwixt the quick and dead the young fair Queen had vowed,
The living shouted, "May she live! Victoria, live!" aloud,
And as these loyal shouts went up, true spirits prayed between,
The blessings happy monarchs have, be thine, O Crowned Queen!
In the autumn and winter of 1838 Leslie went down to Windsor to get sittings for his picture of the coronation. He had been presented to the Queen on her first visit to the Academy after her accession, as he mentions in one of his pleasant letters to his kindred in America. He was now to come into nearer contact with royalty. He slept at the Castle Inn, Windsor, and went up daily to the Castle. If he found her Majesty and any other sitter engaged, he improved the occasion by copying two of the Queen's fine Dutch pictures, a De Hooghe and a Nicholas Maas. He wrote his experience to his wife in London, and his sister in America. To the latter he said, "I came here on the 29th of last month by appointment to have a sitting of the Queen, and with little expectation of having more than one. … I have been here ever since, with the exception of a day or two in town (I perform the journey in an hour by the railroad), and the Queen has sat five times. She is now so far satisfied with the likeness, that she does not wish me to touch it again. She sat not only for the face, but for as much as is seen of the figure, and for the hands with the coronation-ring on her finger. Her hands, by-the-bye, are very pretty, the backs dimpled, and the fingers delicately shaped. She was particular also in having her hair dressed exactly as she wore it at the ceremony, every time she sat. She has suggested an alteration in the composition of the picture, and I suppose she thinks it like the scene, for she asked me where I sat, and said, 'I suppose you made a sketch on the spot.'
"The Duchess of Kent and Lord Melbourne are now sitting to me, and last week I had sittings of Lord Conyngham and Lady Fanny Cowper [Footnote: Daughter of a beautiful and popular mother, Lady Palmerston, by her first husband, Earl Cowper.] (a very beautiful girl, and one of the Queen's train-bearers), who was here for a few days on a visit to her Majesty. Every day lunch is sent to me, which, as it is always very plentiful and good, I generally make my dinner. The best of wine is sent in a beautiful little decanter, with a V.R. and the crown engraved on it, and the table-cloth and napkins have the royal arms and other insignia on them as a pattern.
"I