DISTRIBUTION OF MEDALS BY THE QUEEN.
Among the home incidents which attracted the attention of the people of England was the distribution of medals to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates who had returned from the Crimea invalided or wounded. Her majesty had resolved to distribute the medals in person, and this greatly increased the interest of the occasion. It was deemed by the public a most graceful and befitting act on the part of her majesty, to give, with her own hands, the decorations won by those whose valour so nobly shielded lier throne. The feelings of the brave men who were to receive these decorations were raised to enthusiasm, when they learned that they were to receive such a reward of their courage and constancy from their beloved queen herself. The place appointed for this grand ceremony was most appropriate—the square of the Horse-Guards, in St. James’s Park. The writer of this History, as he looked upon the extensive and magnificent preparations for this event, felt strongly the sequel it presented to the scene which he witnessed little more than a year before, near the same spot, when the people’s representatives passed along to Buckingham Palace to assure her majesty of their support in the war she had declared. Galleries were erected for the accommodation of the lords and commons, for the members of the government, and for the families of those who were to be publicly honoured—a most graceful tribute on the part of the country to the feelings of these gallant men. How proud that day must many a wife’s, and parent’s, and brother’s, and sister’s heart have been, as the objects of their affectionate solicitude bowed before his sovereign to receive upon his breast the glorious badge his noble conduct won! The royal family occupied a capacious balcony projecting from the lower central windows of the Horse-Guards, which was festooned with scarlet cloth, and otherwise decorated.
At ten o’clock on the morning of the 18th of May, the scene presented from the windows of the Horse-Guards, and the windows and roofs of the neighbouring houses,’ was most striking and effective: a vast mass of people filled the whole area within view, yet all preserving the greatest order. Her majesty dispensed the medals with her own hand to men of all ranks, and of all branches of the service.