After that the trophy procession marched across to the Horse Guards archway, and through to Whitehall and the Chapel Royal; between Life Guards on one side and more Foot Guards on the other, drawn up to keep a lane open through the immense crowd of people who had gathered there, and thronged the wide roadway. “The procession,” says our reporter, “moved off the Parade amid the acclamations of many thousand spectators and entered the Chapel as the clock was striking eleven, which [sic] was crowded by all the beauty and fashion in Town.” Another reporter speaks of the Chapel Royal as being “exceedingly crowded in all parts with nobility and gentlemen and ladies of distinction.”
“The religious part of the ceremony,” we are told, “was solemn and impressive.” It comprised Morning Prayer and a sermon by the Sub-Dean. “Previous to the commencement of the Te Deum, a pause was made, when three grenadier sergeants entered at each door by the sides of the Altar with the Eagles on black poles about 8 feet high. They took their stations in front of the Altar. Each party was guarded by a file of grenadiers, commanded by two officers; the whole of them with laurel-leaves in their caps as emblems of Victory. At the same instant the five French flags and Bonaparte’s honourable standard entered the upper gallery at the back of the Altar, all carried by grenadier sergeants.
“The whole remained presented for some time for the gratification of the beholders, after which the Eagles were placed in brass sockets on each side of the Altar, suspended by brass chains. The five flags were suspended from the front of the second gallery, and Bonaparte’s honourable standard placed over the door of the second gallery, behind the others.”
The trophies, with others won at Salamanca and Waterloo, and subsequently laid up in the Chapel Royal, were removed later to Chelsea Royal Hospital, where all, except “the Eagle with the Golden Wreath,” are now kept treasured amid befitting surroundings.
STOLEN FROM CHELSEA AT MIDDAY
“The Eagle with the Golden Wreath” disappeared from Chelsea Hospital in broad daylight. It was displayed in the Chapel, affixed in front of the organ-loft over the doorway, until it suddenly vanished from there a little after midday on Friday, April 16, 1852, in the absence of the pensioner-custodian of the Chapel during the Hospital dinner-hour. How it was stolen was apparent; but the thief was never traced. The thief, attracted undoubtedly by the widely told story that the wreath was of gold, made his way into the Chapel by the roof, which was undergoing repairs at the time, to which he got access by a workman’s ladder. He got inside by the trap-door on the leads above the organ-loft. There, with a saw, he cut through the Eagle-pole near where it was fastened to the organ-loft, and, secreting it under his coat, made his escape by the way he had come, unseen by anybody. The Eagle-pole was found outside, in front of the building, with the Eagle and wreath wrenched off. For some reason the Royal Hospital authorities of the day offered a reward of only a sovereign, and though the London police did their best, the malefactor was never discovered.[24]
At Barrosa Napoleon’s 8th of the Line was in the French column that made its attack on the right. It was one of the regiments that charged forward across the plain at the foot of Barrosa ridge, to break through General Graham’s second brigade and drive it back to the edge of the cliffs by the seashore, while the French left attack seized the ridge itself, and beat back the British first brigade in the act of hastening to regain that unwisely abandoned position. The Eagle went down in the fierce counter-attack with which Graham’s men on the plain, the 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers in the front line, met the French onset.
“IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP THEM”
What befell the 8th of the Line is told by one of their own officers in his Journal de Guerre—Lieutenant-Colonel Vigo-Roussillon, in command of the First Battalion, with which was the Eagle.
Just before the critical moment, says Colonel Roussillon, the 8th, who were on the flank of the French second line, lost touch with the regiment next them, and had in consequence to meet the 87th by themselves. They fired their hardest as the British troops came on, “but could not stop them, ever advancing to a bayonet attack.”