Meanwhile, let us tarry for a moment at the Hall and the Abbey. It is not likely that England will ever again behold such a scene of coronation splendour as that of George IV., and it is quite certain that England would not care to do so. The national taste does not merely regulate itself by the national purse, but by general principle; and it is an incontrovertible fact, that the outlay of millions for the crowning of one man involves the violation of a principle which the nation desires to see respected.
Never did sovereign labour as George IV. laboured to give éclat to the entire ceremony. He passed days and nights with his familiar friends in discussing questions of dress, colours, fashions, and effects. His own costume was to him a subject of intense anxiety, and when his costly habits were completed, so desirous was he to witness their effect that, according to the gossip of the day, a court-gossip which was not groundless, his Majesty had one of his own servants attired in the royal garments, and the King contemplated with considerable satisfaction the sight of a menial pacing up and down the room in the monarch’s garb. The man did his office with as much mock gravity as the dramatic King, Mr. Elliston, when he showered tipsy benedictions upon the public as he crossed the platform over the pit of Drury Lane.
But it is true in real things as it is in tragedies, that ‘the King’ is not necessarily the principal character. Even in a ballet the sovereign is less cared for than the chief dancer who cuts entrechats in his presence. So at the coronation festival of George IV., although he was first in rank and as princely as any in bearing, he was very far from being the first in consequence or the foremost man in the people’s love. This matter is admirably put by Mr. Rush, the American ambassador to our court, who witnessed the ceremony, and made a very nice distinction as to the true position of the principal actors in it. In his account of the scene the amiable and accomplished diplomatist remarks that the chief splendour of the day, where all wore an air of joy and animation, was in the Hall. ‘The table for the King’s banquet,’ he remarks, ‘was spread on the royal platform; the foreign ambassadors and ministers had theirs in the painted chamber of the house of lords, a communicating apartment under the same roof—but we ran from it soon to come into the hall, the centre of all attraction. The peeresses, peers, and others associated with them had theirs in the body of the hall. Here six long tables were laid, three on each side, leaving a vista, or aisle, open in the middle, which directly fronted the royal platform. The platform and all the seats were covered with crimson, which, with the peeresses richly dressed, and the plate on the banqueting-tables, and the company all seated, with the King at the head of his sumptuous table, shaped as a crescent, so that he and a few seated on his right and left faced the whole company, made the spectacle extremely magnificent. The comptroller and clerk of the kitchen, and purveyor of wines, had not, as may be imagined, overlooked their duties. But when the Champion appeared at the opposite extremity of the hall, directly in front of the King, nothing seen at first but tufts of plumes waving from his horse’s head and his own helmet, startling emotions arose in every bosom. Curiosity was breathless to see what was coming. He was attended by Howard of Effingham, and by Anglesea, and by another greater than all—the Duke of Wellington; and as these, all on horseback, entered abreast, the Champion heralding his challenge, and the horses seeming almost in contact with the outward line of peeresses at the table, yet obedient to the bit which they kept champing—as this equestrian train slowly advanced in martial grace and strength up the aisle towards the King, all eyes were seen turned upon one man in it. In vain did the declining sun through the vast old Gothic edifice throw beams upon the bright and heavy armour of the Champion; in vain was it, when the horses reaching by slow, impatient steps the top of the aisle, and proudly halting at the steps of the royal platform, that the stout-clad Champion again put forth his challenge, threw down his glove, received the cup from his sovereign, and drank to his sovereign—in vain all this; the beauty and chivalry at the banqueting-tables still looked at the Duke of Wellington; still kept their eyes on the man whose person and horse recalled, not war in romance, but its stern and recent realities. All were at gaze—fixed, silent. He was habited only as a peer, had only his staff as Lord High Constable, yet was he the observed of all. Nowhere was he more intently eyed than from the box where sat the assembled ambassadors of the potentates of Europe. Judging from opinion in that box, there was nothing in the elaborate grandeur of the day to rival the scene. It was the inherent pre-eminence of a great man exalting moral admiration above the show of the whole kingdom.’ This was the imperative fact. The King was the great figure of the hour, but the Duke was the great hero of the age; and the truth was not lost sight of in the gorgeous splendour of the spectacle.
To do the King justice, it must be confessed that he was among the first to acknowledge the pre-eminence of the Duke as regarded his services and merits. At the dinner given by the Duke of Wellington, a few days after the coronation, in honour of the new sovereign, and with that monarch as chief guest, this acknowledgment was very gracefully made. At this splendid banquet, after the noble host had proposed the health of his royal guest—a toast that was drunk all standing and all silent, the King himself merely rising to bow his thanks to the company—George IV. in turn proposed, in a brief speech, the health of the Duke. ‘The purport of his remarks,’ says Mr. Rush, who was present at this interesting festival, was, ‘that, had it not been for the exertions of his friend upon the left (it was so that he spoke of the Duke), he, the King, might not have had the happiness of meeting those whom he now saw around him at that table; it was, therefore, with particular pleasure that he proposed his health. The King spoke his words with emphasis and great apparent pleasure. The Duke made no reply, but took in respectful silence what was said. The King continued sitting while he spoke, as did the company, in profound silence under his words.’
The silence of the host was true courtesy. It has not escaped Mr. Rush’s discernment. ‘I thought,’ he says, ‘of Johnson, when George III. complimented him: the innate dignity of great minds is the same. In Johnson it was that of the rough, virtuous recluse—whose greatness was that of the author. In Wellington it was externally moulded into the will which armies and courts, and long association with the élite of mankind, may be supposed to give. Johnson did not bandy civilities with his Sovereign, whom he had never seen before; nor did Wellington, who saw him every day!’ It is ever the same with true gentlemen.
It would seem, however, that all the nobles who shone at the coronation festivities of George IV. were not so perfect in politeness as the warrior-duke. King George IV. gave a banquet to the ambassadors specially sent to grace the high solemnity of the coronation. To this banquet the foreign ministers generally and the members of the cabinet were invited and were present. The American Ambassador sat next to Lord Londonderry, and the two discussed between themselves the power, pretensions, and infamy of Russia, Lord Londonderry affecting to trust to the moderation of the Muscovite—a moderation which has been more truly described by Lord John Russell as more menacing than the ambition of other powers. The conversation then fell upon English society; and while on this theme Lord Londonderry remarked, ‘that the higher the rank and education, the better bred, as a general rule, their people in England—so he believed it was considered.’ Setting aside the fact that this is only partially true, it was at the same time a most uncourteous remark to be made by one who was high in rank and education to a commoner. But the Stewart-Castlereaghs have ever been unlucky in their civilities, and with their precious balsams they have too often bruised the heads they would only have anointed. Witness the fact of the banquet given by the late Marquis of Londonderry to the ambassador of Louis Napoleon. Everything was well done but one, and that one thing, ill done, marred all besides that was well. The room in which the English host welcomed his French guest was decorated with pierced and battered French cuirasses, which had covered the breasts of gallant French enemies at Waterloo. The man who is fortunate enough to kill an adversary in a duel may, possibly, in after years, be reconciled with that adversary’s brother, and perhaps entertain him at dinner; but he would hardly think of hanging up the dead man’s clothes (purchased as a trophy from his valet) in his dining-room.
The grand banquet at Carlton House was given on the 26th July. The special and ordinary ambassadors and the ministers were present. The monarch’s brothers were also among the guests—always excepting the Duke of Sussex, whose sympathies for Queen Caroline had been too markedly and publicly expressed.
‘We were invited,’ says Mr. Rush, ‘at seven o’clock. As my carriage turned into Pall Mall from the foot of St. James’s Street, the old clock at St. James’s struck seven, and before I reached Carlton Palace all the carriages appeared to be entering or coming out through the double gates of the Ionic screen in front of the palace. Mine was among the last that drove up to the portico, and by a very few minutes past seven all the guests, save one, were assembled in the reception rooms. I had never before witnessed such punctuality at any dinner in England.
‘The King entered a minute or two afterwards, and saluted his guests generally, then went the rounds, speaking to each individually. With the special ambassadors he paused longest. Time had now run on to more than a quarter past seven, still one of the guests had not yet arrived, and that one was the Duke of Wellington. The man not apt to be behind time when his Majesty’s enemies were to be met was, it seems, in meeting his friends. Five minutes more went by, and still no Duke of Wellington; critical moments when each one seemed to count two. At length, in one of the rooms at a distance, the Duke was seen; he was dressed in the uniform of an Austrian field-marshal, a plain round-about jacket of white cloth and white under-dress to suit, relieved by scarcely anything but his sword. The dress, being tight and simple, gave to his person a thinner look than usual; and as he kept advancing with easy step, quite alone, and a general silence prevailing, the King separated himself from the group of ambassadors where he was standing, and when he got near enough stepped forward to meet him. With both hands he shook the Duke by both with great cordiality, saying something which the company could not hear, but which, from the manner, we took to be a good-natured rally upon his late arrival. The Duke received it with placid composure, made no reply, but bowed. When liberated from the friendly grasp of the King, he approached a circle of which I happened to be one. One of the ministers composing it said to him, “We hope you will forgive our little treason, my Lord Duke, but we have just been determining that, as some one of the company was to be too late, it was best to have fallen to your Grace’s lot, who can so well bear it.” With a half whisper and an arch smile, the Duke replied, “The King knows I could have been here sooner but for attending to some of his Majesty’s business.” This, considering the Duke as a cabinet minister and privy councillor, had doubtless been sufficient to excuse his delinquency, and secure for him the very cordial reception all had witnessed.... The entire dinner-service was of gold. Each of the salt-cellars, as well as I could catch the design, represented a small rock in dead gold, on which reclined a sea-nymph holding in her hand a shell, which held the salt. One of these was before every two guests; so it was, as to number, with the gold coolers down the sides, containing wine. The whole table, sideboard, and room had an air of chaste and solid grandeur, not, however, interfering with the restrained enjoyments of a good dinner, of which the King seemed desirous that his foreign guests should in no wise be abridged, for we sat till past ten o’clock.’ Contrasting this banquet with the one given by the Duke of Wellington, the same writer and guest remarks that the Duke’s table-service was not only brilliant, but that it lighted-up better than the King’s; for being entirely of silver, and very profuse, the whole aspect was of pure, glittering white, unlike the slightly-shaded tinges which candles seem to cast from gold plate. The dessert-service at the Duke’s was of china, a present from the King of Prussia, and made emblematical of the life of the Duke, commencing with a view of Dangan Castle, the (supposed) birth-place of Arthur Wellesley, and going through a course of views of all the places rendered interesting by his presence or remarkable by his deeds, down to the porcelained pictorial representation of the crowning glory at Waterloo.
While all these matters were in progress, people who nursed superstition were prophesying some calamity to come; and certainly, among the incidents of the coronation of George IV., was one which would have been counted ominous in earlier days. The gallant Marquis of Anglesea was Lord High Steward on that occasion, and it was part of his office to carry the crown up to the altar before the Archbishop placed it on the King’s head. It was heavier than the gallant Lord High Steward had reckoned upon, and the glittering crown, ponderous with gold, diamonds, and other precious stones, slipped from his hands. He dexterously recovered it, however, before it reached the ground. Among the medallic records of the time one was the work of an enemy of Caroline of Brunswick. A bronze medal of the time is extant which has the Queen’s head, on the obverse, with the inscription: ‘Caroline, D. G. Britt. Regina.’ On the reverse is the head of Bergami, with the inscription: ‘Count B. Bergami.’