(From a Photograph by Reichard and Lindner, Berlin.)
after which the people’s prayer—Exaudiat te Dominus—was intoned. The lesson (1 Pet. ii. 6-18) was next read by the Dean, and Dr. Bridge’s Jubilee anthem, “Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee to set thee on the throne to be king for the Lord thy God,” a piece in which the theme of the National Anthem is suggested, was sung. Two simple prayers were then offered up, and the ceremony, impressive from the grandeur of the surroundings, and yet thrilling and pathetic by reason of its devotional earnestness and simplicity, ended with the Benediction. Here the Queen, who was several times overcome with emotion, is seen by the spectators to make a movement as if she would rise from her seat on the sacred Coronation Stone of Scone and kneel on the prie-dieu in front of her. But she cannot reach so far, and she sinks back into her place, veiling her bowed face with her hands. She then glances round, and her eyes fill with tears when they rest on her sons and her daughters, and her sons-in-law and their children. The pent-up feeling of that dazzling group of Princes and Princesses can no longer be restrained, and the solemn pageant of State suddenly assumes the aspect of a family festival. The Prince of Wales bends forward and kisses the Queen’s hand, but her Majesty raises his face and salutes him affectionately on the cheek. The German Crown Prince pays his homage with chivalrous grace and stately courtesy, and the Grand Duke of Hesse follows him. But the emotion of the moment is too strong for Court ceremonial. The Queen with an impulsive gesture discards the Lord Chamberlain’s etiquette, and embraces the Princes and Princesses of her house with honest and unreserved motherly affection. Then she turns to the German Crown Prince with a loving smile, and as he comes forward she kisses him warmly on the cheek. The Grand Duke of Hesse is also saluted, and her Majesty, making a profound bow to her Foreign guests, which they return, quits the scene as the “March of the Priests” in Athalie peals forth from the organ. The procession was now formed again, and as the Sovereign returned to Buckingham Palace, it was noticed that the reception which was given to her was even more enthusiastic than that which greeted her on her way to the Abbey. It is, perhaps, only once in a generation that it falls to the lot of a monarch to be hailed in the streets of her capital with such passionate demonstrations of loyalty, and the Queen seemed to be filled with the emotion of the hour.
The rest of the day was kept as a public holiday by the people, and when the shades of night fell on the metropolis its streets were ablaze with light. The art of the illuminator was indeed exhausted in providing novel and varied designs, and gas jets and electric lamps, arranged so as to display every conceivable device expressive of loyalty, turned night into day. Nor were gas and electricity the only agents employed to give splendour to the festivity of the evening. In many places festoons of Chinese lanterns shed their soft and mellow radiance over a scene not unworthy of fairyland. The Queen, who had borne the fatigue and excitement of the Thanksgiving pageant wonderfully well, rested a little while after her return to Buckingham Palace, and there, as a special compliment to the “Senior Service,” she came out and held a review of the 500 seamen of the Fleet who had formed her guard of honour at the Palace doors. In the evening she gave a grand banquet, at which sixty-four royal personages were present.
All over England and in the North of Ireland the Jubilee was also celebrated as enthusiastically as in London. The illumination of the city of Edinburgh was said to be even more effective as a brilliant spectacle than that presented by the metropolis. It was only in Cork and Dublin that riotous demonstrations of disloyalty took place. Eight peerages, thirteen baronetcies, and thirty-three knighthoods were conferred in honour of the event. A Royal amnesty to deserters from the army was also proclaimed. In the Colonies the day was celebrated even more joyously than in England. In foreign lands the British residents also held Jubilee festivals. But in the United States the citizens of the Republic freely joined the British residents, honouring the occasion as if it were one of as much interest to them as to their kith and kin in the old home of their race. The most glowing of all the Jubilee orations was in fact spoken by Mr. Hewitt, Mayor of New York, at the grand Thanksgiving Festival in the Opera House of that city, in the course of which he elicited the passionate enthusiasm of his countrymen by recalling the events of the Civil War. “In the hour of our trial,” he exclaimed, “when the flag under whose broad folds I was born was trailing in the dust, it was my fortune to journey to another land on matters of great moment. There I learnt—and I know whereof I speak—that we owed to the Queen of England the non-intervention policy which characterised the Great Powers of the world during our struggle for life and death. I had no purpose to open my lips here, but when you call on me for a testimony to her who was our friend, as she is your Queen, my lips ought to be palsied if I were such a coward as not to give it.” A speech so simple and unexpected, received as it was by a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm from the American citizens in the audience, it need hardly be said produced a profound sensation.
But of all the Jubilee celebrations perhaps the most charming and novel was one which was held in Hyde Park. A few weeks before Jubilee Day it occurred to a kindly and generous gentleman, Mr. Edward Lawson, well known in society as the editor of the Daily Telegraph, that there was a fatal omission in the Jubilee programme. Elaborate arrangements had been made to interest all classes in the festival save one—the school-children of London—the boys and girls who must form the men and women of the next generation. Mr. Lawson contended that this defect should be remedied, and the whole town was immediately taken with his idea. Everybody wondered that nobody had put forward the suggestion before, and Mr. Lawson soon found himself honorary treasurer of the Children’s Jubilee Fund, to which he himself was one of the most prominent subscribers. Foolish efforts were made to check the movement, and people were warned that it was impossible to entertain 30,000 children in Hyde Park, as Mr. Lawson proposed, without accidents to life and limb. It was, however, in vain that he was denounced as the organiser of a juvenile Juggernaut. The fund was raised with ease, and Mr. Lawson, by skilful organisation, not only got 27,000 children into Hyde Park from all parts of London on the 22nd of June, but sent them back unhurt and happy to their homes. Great ladies of fashion helped him to carry out his arrangements. The little ones were entertained with the sports and shows dear to boys and girls of their age, and the Queen not only came out and greeted them in person, but she was received with a delight that touched her profoundly. The Princes and Princesses and many of the foreign visitors also witnessed this strange but interesting incident in the Jubilee celebrations.[238]
On the 24th of June, an evening party was given at Buckingham Palace, which was attended by nearly all the members of the Queen’s family, by the foreign sovereigns and Princes then in London, and by a gay throng of distinguished persons. On the 25th of June, a singularly beautiful and touching letter, evidently straight from the Queen’s own pen, to the Home Secretary, thanking the nation for their display of loyalty and love, appeared in the London Gazette. In this communication it almost seems as if the Queen laid her heart open to the people with a frank and simple confidence rare in the relations that subsist between sovereigns and their subjects. On the 27th her Majesty received at Windsor Castle congratulatory deputations from municipalities, friendly societies, professional associations, and public bodies, representing almost every phase of English life, and thought, and enterprise. Her Garden Party at Buckingham Palace on the following Wednesday was a brilliant reunion at which were present several thousands of guests. On the 2nd of July the Queen from Buckingham Palace reviewed 28,000 Metropolitan Volunteers, and military men were amazed at the skill with which the troops were handled by their officers in the narrow and confined space. It was, however, unfortunate that at this review a slight was cast on the Royal Navy. As is natural in a seafaring nation, the naval forces of the Crown always take precedence of the land forces. Hence, the phrase “Senior Service” used to distinguish the Navy from the Army. But at this review the claim of the Royal Naval Volunteers for precedence over the grotesque and motley body known as the Honourable Artillery Company of London, a force which belongs neither to the Army, the Militia, nor the Volunteers, and which has been permitted even to repudiate the authority of the War Office, was disallowed.
On the 4th of July the crowning event of the Jubilee Festival occurred. On that day the Queen laid the foundation stone of the Imperial Institute in the Albert Hall. Noting the growing Imperialism which the Jubilee evoked, the Prince of Wales determined to fix it by embodying it in some permanent institution. In spite of distracted counsels, inter-Colonial jealousy, and much anti-monarchical opposition, the necessary funds for the purpose were raised, but it was universally admitted that had not the Prince toiled without ceasing the scheme must have collapsed. The Institute was and is meant to stand as an outward and visible sign of the essential unity of the British
THE JUBILEE GARDEN PARTY AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE: THE ROYAL TENT.