THE QUEEN RECEIVING THE SACRAMENT AT HER CORONATION.
(After the Painting by C. R. Leslie, R.A.)
nobody knew what was to be done except the Archbishop and himself (who had rehearsed), Lord Willoughby (who is experienced in these matters), and the Duke of Wellington; and consequently there was a continual difficulty and embarrassment, and the Queen never knew what she was to do next. They made her leave her chair, and enter into St. Edward’s Chapel, before the prayers were concluded, much to the discomfiture of the Archbishop. She said to [Lord] John Thynne,
THE DUCHESS OF KENT.
‘Pray tell me what I am to do, for they don’t know;’ and at the end, when the orb was put into her hand, she said to him, ‘What am I to do with it?’ ‘Your Majesty is to carry it, if you please, in your hand.’ ‘Am I?’ she said; ‘it is very heavy.’ The ruby ring was made for her little finger instead of the fourth, on which the rubric prescribes that it should be put. When the Archbishop was to put it on, she extended the former, but he said it must be on the latter. She said it was too small, and she could not get it on. He said it was right to put it there, and, as he insisted, she yielded, but had first to take off her other rings, and then this was forced on; but it hurt her very much, and as soon as the ceremony was over she was obliged to bathe her finger in iced water in order to get it off. The noise and confusion were very great when the medals were thrown about by Lord Surrey, everybody scrambling with all their might and main to get them, and none more vigorously than the Maids of Honour.”
There can be no doubt that on all these occasions mistakes and omissions are numerous. What accidents may have attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth it is impossible to say, for there were no Memoir-writers in those days; but, in several of his letters, Horace Walpole gives some amusing anecdotes of the unpreparedness of the Court officials at the coronation of George III. In a communication to Sir Horace Mann, dated September 28th, 1761, he says:—“The heralds were so ignorant of their business, that, though pensioned for nothing but to register lords and ladies, and what belongs to them, they advertised in the newspaper for the Christian names and places of abode of the peeresses. The King complained of such omissions, and of the want of precedents: Lord Effingham, the Earl Marshal, told him it was true there had been great neglect in that office, but he had now taken such care of registering directions that next coronation would be conducted with the greatest order imaginable. The King was so diverted with this flattering speech that he made the Earl repeat it several times.”
On the 4th of September, 1838, the King and Queen of the Belgians paid a visit to England. They landed at Ramsgate, and were escorted by Lord Torrington to the Queen at Windsor Castle, where they remained the guests of her Majesty. A fortnight later, a military review took place in Windsor Little Park, when the Queen appeared on horseback in the Windsor uniform, with the badge and ribbon of the Order of the Garter. She had King Leopold, in a Field Marshal’s uniform, on her right, and Lord Hill, Commander of the Forces, on her left, followed by the Duke of Wellington and Lord Palmerston. The King and Queen of the Belgians left the Castle on the 20th, and embarked the following day for Ostend. It was a great delight to the English sovereign to have King Leopold as a visitor, for his advice on affairs of State was highly valuable.