“Yesterday I went at 3 P.M. to Hyde Park. A dense mass of people walled in the vast enclosed space, but all in the utmost good-humour, though many came forward with—‘Oh, do give me your ticket: oh, do now, just for once.’ Inside the outer barrier was a second, within which people walked, and whence they saw. I was indignant at first at not being admitted farther, but when I saw the Archbishop of Canterbury refused, was quite contented to share the fate of the first subject in the realm. However, eventually we were both passed into the immense space where the children were playing, not apparently the least over-done by the hot sun, or tired from having been on the move since 10 A.M., and having been provided, on arriving, with nothing but a bag containing a meat-pie, a bun (they say the buns would have reached from London to Brentford in a direct line), and an orange, with instructions to put the bag in their pockets when done with! Each of the 30,000 children also had a ‘Jubilee mug’ of Doulton ware. Every now and then volleys of tiny coloured balloons were sent up, like flights of bright birds floating away into the soft blue, and, as the royalties arrived, a great yellow balloon, with several people in its car, bore a huge ‘Victoria’ skywards.
“I found my cousin Lady Normanton lost, and stayed with her and a very pleasant ex-governess of Princess May, most indignant at her adored pupil having received no Order out of the numbers distributed. Between half-past four and five life-guards heralded a long procession of carriages, with the Indian princes, the foreign queens and kings, and our own royal family in force. A number of Eastern chieftains were riding six abreast, and very like Bluebeard one or two of them looked. Finally came the Queen, smiling, good and gracious beyond words, and with a wonderful reception everywhere. ‘I have made Socialist speeches for years,’ said one man, ‘and the last two days have shown me how useless they have been, and always must be in this country.’
“As the Queen passed up the green drive by which we were standing, all the 30,000 children sang ‘God save the Queen,’ and a thanksgiving hymn, which I think must have been, not for their tea (for they never had any), but for hers, which I hope she enjoyed out of the great fourgons we saw arriving, and must much have needed. All the royal ladies’-maids and other servants also passed by in carriages on their way to the station, by the Queen’s wish, that they should share in the sight.
“Having escorted Lady Normanton to the safe solitudes of Wilton Place, I rushed off to Windsor, arriving at nine. Certainly the grandeur of the London illuminations paled before the intense picturesqueness of those in the old royal city. I had no time to go to Eton, where the Queen had entered—like Queen Elizabeth—under an arch on the battlements of which Eton boys were lustily trumpeting. But the bridge, brilliant in electric light, also ended in an arch, kept dark itself, beyond which every house in the steep, sharply-winding street was seen adorned with its own varied devices of coloured light, from basement to attics, whilst the walls were hung with scarlet draperies, and brilliant banners of scarlet and gold waved across the roadway.
“I stayed on the bridge to see the thousand Eton boys cross, marching in detachments, with white and blue uniforms alternately, carrying their (then unlighted) torches, and then went after them to the castle, where I was one of the few admitted, and pushed on at once to the inner court under the Queen’s apartments.
“Most unspeakably weird, picturesque, inspiring, beautiful, and glorious was the sight, when, with a burst of drums and trumpets, the wonderful procession emerged under the old gate of Edward III., headed by a detachment of the Blues, then the boys, six abreast, carrying lighted torches, till hundreds upon hundreds had filed in, singing splendidly ‘God save the Queen.’ All the bigger boys formed into figures of blazing light in the great court, weaving designs of light in their march—‘Welcome,’ ‘Victoria,’ &c., in radiant blaze of moving living illumination; whilst the little boys, each carrying a coloured Chinese lantern on a wand, ascended in winding chains of light the staircases on the steep hill of the Round Tower opposite the Queen’s window, till the slope was covered with brilliancy and colour. The little boys sang very sweetly in the still night their song of welcome, and then all the mass of the boys below, raising their flaming torches high into the air, shouted with their whole hearts and lungs, ‘Rule Britannia!’
“It was an unspeakably transporting scene, and I am sure that the beloved figure in the white cap seated in the wide-open central window felt it so, and was most deeply moved by the sight and sound of so much loyal and youthful chivalry.
“Then, in a great hush, she almost astonished them by leaving her place and suddenly reappearing in the open air in the courtyard amongst them, and making them a queenly and tender little speech in her clear beautiful voice—‘I do thank you so very very much,’ &c.
“You may imagine the hurrahs which followed, the frantic emotion and applause whilst she called up and spoke to Lord Ampthill and one or two other boys whose parents had been especial friends.
“And then, in figures of light from their torches, as she reappeared at the window, the vast assembly formed the word ‘Good-night.’ Nothing could possibly have been more picturesquely pretty.