What a contrast between this splendid and joyful ceremony and the pathetic scene that was witnessed in the same Chamber, just a year earlier, when Parliament was opened by William IV for the last time! The aged King, wrapped in his ample purple robes, and his grey locks surmounted by the Imperial Crown, stood on the Throne struggling with dim eyes in the twilight of the Chamber to read the Speech prepared for him by Lord Melbourne. He stammered slowly, and almost inaudibly, through the first few sentences, pausing now and then over a difficult word, and querulously appealing to the Prime Minister “What is it, Melbourne?” loudly enough to be heard by the Assembly. At last, losing all patience, he angrily exclaimed, in the full-blooded language of the period, “Damn it, I can’t see!” Candles were instantly brought in and placed beside the King. “My Lords and Gentlemen,” said he, “I have hitherto not been able, for want of light, to read this Speech in a way its importance deserves; but as lights are now brought me, I will read it again from the commencement, and in a way which, I trust, will command your attention.” Then in a pitiful effort to prove to Peers and Commons that his mental and physical powers were by no means failing, he commenced the Speech again and read it through in a fairly clear voice and with some emphasis.

It was at the opening of the third session of the first Parliament of Queen Victoria, on January 16, 1840, Lord Melbourne being still Premier, that her Majesty read from her Speech the announcement of her approaching marriage to Prince Albert. Writing to the Prince a few days previously, she said the reading of the Speech was always a nervous proceeding, and it would be made an “awful affair” by the announcement of her engagement. “I have never failed yet,” she added, “and this is the sixth time that I have done it, and yet I am just as frightened as if I had never done it before. They say that feeling of nervousness is never got over, and that William Pitt himself never got up to make a speech without thinking he should fail. But then I only read my speech.” The passage in the Speech from the Throne in reference to her marriage is as follows:

My Lords and Gentlemen,—Since you were last assembled I have declared my intention of allying myself in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. I humbly implore that the Divine blessing may prosper this union, and render it conducive to the interests of my people, as well as to my own domestic happiness; and it will be to me a source of the most lively satisfaction to find the resolution I have taken approved by my Parliament. The constant proofs which I have received of your attachment to my person and family persuade me that you will enable me to provide for such an establishment as may appear suitable to the rank of the Prince and the dignity of the Crown.

Mrs. Simpson, in her Many Memories of Many People, writes that her first recollection of the opening of Parliament was on this auspicious occasion. “I sat up in a little gallery over the Woolsack between the beautiful Lady Dufferin and Miss Pitt,” she says. “I remember well the Queen’s sweet voice and that the paper shook in her hand. By her side stood Lord Melbourne, repeating inaudibly—we could see his lips move—every word she uttered.”

On the next occasion her Majesty opened Parliament, February 3, 1842, Sir Robert Peel being Prime Minister, she announced in the Speech another joyful event in her domestic life, the birth of the Prince of Wales, which took place on November 9, 1841. The Speech said:

My Lords and Gentlemen,—I cannot meet you in Parliament assembled without making a public acknowledgment of my gratitude to Almighty God on account of the birth of the Prince, my son—an event which has completed the measure of my domestic happiness, and has been hailed with every demonstration of affectionate attachment to my person and government by my faithful and loyal people.

The Prince Consort died on December 14, 1861, at the early age of forty-two years. At the opening by Commission of the next session of Parliament, Lord Palmerston being Prime Minister, the domestic affliction of the Sovereign was thus announced in “the Queen’s Speech”:

My Lords and Gentlemen,—We are commanded by her Majesty to assure you that her Majesty is persuaded that you will deeply participate in the affliction by which her Majesty has been overwhelmed by the calamitous, untimely and irreparable loss of her beloved Consort, who has been her comfort and support. It has been, however, soothing to her Majesty, while suffering most acutely under this awful dispensation of Providence, to receive from all classes of her subjects the most cordial assurances of their sympathy with her sorrow, as well as their appreciation of the noble character of him, the greatness of whose loss to her Majesty and to the nation is so justly and so universally felt and lamented.

4

Six years elapsed before Queen Victoria was seen again at Westminster. She opened the Conservative Parliament which assembled on February 10, 1866. The ceremony, by her command, was plain and simple. She declined to wear the purple robe of State, and had it placed over the Chair of the Throne. Her attire consisted of a black dress and a widow’s white cap, the only touch of bright colour being the blue sash of the Garter across her breast. For the first time also she did not read the Speech from the Throne. She reverted to an ancient practice by deputing the Lord Chancellor, Cranworth, to read it. The Speech announced the termination of the long and bloody Civil War in America. “The abolition of slavery,” it added, “is an event calling forth the cordial sympathies and congratulations of this country, which has always been foremost in showing its abhorrence for an institution repugnant to every feeling of justice and humanity.”