Mr. Speaker Gully, arrayed in his handsome Robes of State, went in his great old gilded State coach to the Palace with a similar message from the Commons.
The same day the Queen left town for Windsor. A touching ceremony marked the occasion. At Her Majesty’s special request, the stands on Constitution Hill were filled with 10,000 children from the Board Schools and Voluntary Schools of all denominations. By four o’clock in the afternoon the children were in their places, and were regaled with buns, milk, and sweets. |Gathering of School Children.| At about a quarter to five Her Majesty—with whom were the Empress Frederick, Princess Henry of Battenberg, and the Duke of Connaught—drove up from Buckingham Palace. The children rose in their places and cheered their Queen to the echo, and immediately afterwards they sang the National Anthem, the band of the Grenadier Guards leading. “While the voices filled the air with the grand old melody, Her Majesty turned upon the singers a face radiant with love and happiness. Those who think of Her Majesty as ‘the Queen-mother’ should have looked upon her then to have found a realisation of the ideal.”
From a Photograph] [by Eyre & Spottiswoode.
HER MAJESTY AND THE SCHOOL CHILDREN: THE ROYAL PROCESSION PASSING UP CONSTITUTION HILL.
The carriage nearest the spectator contains the Duke and Duchess of York, Prince Edward of York, and Prince Henry of Prussia.
A State Performance at the Opera was, however, the principal feature in the Jubilee programme of June 23. With the exception of the Queen herself, almost every Royal personage who had taken part in the Jubilee Procession of the day before was present, and a special box on the right of the Royal Box was reserved for the Colonial Prime Ministers and their wives. The house was decorated from floor to ceiling with roses of every shade—some 60,000 blossoms being used for this purpose. Boxes on the grand tier, which had been sold by the management for £50 for the evening, were sold again at prices ranging up to £150, while the stalls realised £10 at least in every case. Famous as Covent Garden is for splendid “houses,” the brilliant assemblage on this evening quite eclipsed all previous gatherings.
It is not too much to say that the whole social world of the country was there. The handsome uniforms of the men, the beauty, diamonds, and dresses of the ladies, set in a frame of so much floral magnificence, made up a scene the splendour of which was never likely to fade from the memory of anyone who witnessed it. In all that gorgeous company none attracted as much admiration as the Princess of Wales. Simply dressed in white satin, with the red sash of some Order across her shoulders, and wearing a crown of diamonds, Her Royal Highness was, by universal consent, the queen of beauty in a house full of the most beautiful women in the three kingdoms.
It was only to have been expected, perhaps, that the most generally-approved Jubilee celebration should have been inaugurated by the same most charming Princess. This was nothing less than the entertaining at dinner of 300,000 of the London poor. The feast took place in different large buildings all over the poorer parts of the Metropolis. The Princess, accompanied by His Royal Highness and the Princesses Victoria of Wales and Charles of Denmark, drove round and was personally present at as many as possible of the dining halls. At the People’s Palace, in the Mile End Road, where 1,600 crippled children feasted, Her Royal Highness went in and out among the children, bestowing here and there a smile, and here and there a few words of kindly encouragement.
