The barons then entered, Lords Stowell and Maryborough (late Sir W. Scott and W. W. Pole), being among the first. There were but forty-nine (if we rightly counted them) present. Next came the bishops—fifteen attended; the viscounts, nineteen in number. The earls were more numerous—we should think seventy or eighty; but the Hall now became so crowded that there was a difficulty in counting them accurately. The marquesses and dukes, and lastly the great officers of state, archbishops, and members of the royal family, entered. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg was in the full robes of the order of the Garter. The princes of the blood and some of the dukes placed themselves on the right of the platform about the throne. The marquesses and some of the earls on the left side, formed a line with those who had descended to the floor of the Hall. The show of ermine and velvet on the descent of the platform was of the most magnificent description.
A herald then went through the line of peers, marshalling each according to the order of their creation—the junior first. They were a second time called over, and ranged in a double file on each side of the middle space of the Hall by Mr. Mash.
Before the King entered, the peers were all ranged on each side of the Hall, none being left on the platform but the great officers of state and the royal family.
Precisely at ten o'clock the King entered the Hall from the door behind the throne, habited in robes of enormous size and richness, wearing a black hat with a monstrous plume of ostrich feathers, out of the midst of which rose a black heron's plume. His Majesty seemed very much oppressed with the weight of his robes. The train was of enormous length and breadth. It was of crimson velvet adorned with large golden stars, and a broad golden border. His Majesty frequently wiped his face while he remained seated. He went through the ceremonies, which we have described, with much spirit and apparent good humour. In descending the steps of the platform his Majesty seemed very feeble, and requested the aid and support of an officer who was near him. Instead of standing under the canopy, his Majesty, perhaps afraid of the awkwardness of the barons, preceded it. The canopy was therefore always borne after him. When his Majesty had got a little way down the Hall, he turned to his train-bearers, and requested them to bear his train farther from him, apparently with a view to relieve himself from the weight. As he went down the Hall he conversed with much apparent cheerfulness with the bishop of Lincoln, who was on his right hand.
It will behove the historian to record the unsuccessful attempts of her Majesty to obtain the usual honour of Queen-Consort on the preceding occasion, i.e. that of a joint coronation with her husband; and too much public attention was excited to the subject at the period of the coronation to render our sketch of that august ceremony complete without adverting to it.
Her Majesty first presented a memorial, desiring to know in what way she was to attend the coronation; to which it was replied, that it rested with the King to nominate who should be present, and his Majesty was advised that he could not allow her to be present.
The Queen rejoined, that she should be present if not absolutely prohibited; and it was farther replied, that his Majesty's ministers advised that she could not be received.
She now prayed the King in council (July 1) to be heard by her legal advisers against this decision—a request which was granted "as matter of favour," according to the language of the minister, "but not of right;" and, on Thursday, July 5, at ten o'clock in the morning, the Privy Council met at Whitehall to hear her Majesty's claim argued. For many years so large a Privy Council had not met, there being forty-nine members present, besides a considerable number of members of parliament not of the council.
Mr. Brougham, after stating the refusal of the dean and chapter of Westminster to grant him the use of the "Liber Regalis" (a formula of the coronation ceremony in their custody), and having induced the president to send for that volume, commenced by observing: