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Victoria: A Girl Queen Of England
by
That year, Victoria’s first as a Queen, she celebrated Christmas at Windsor Castle, and it would have been a very unnatural thing indeed if the girl had not exulted with joy over the wonderful presents which poured in on her from every side, and yet she kept through this, as in all the honours paid to her, her simple-hearted manner and was entirely unspoiled by what might easily have turned the head of an older and wiser monarch.
And now comes the greatest of all the great events in which the young Queen is the central figure–her Coronation. It is true that she had already been Queen for a whole year, but such was royal etiquette that the time had just arrived for the wonderful ceremonies which would mark her official taking of the Crown.
June the twenty-eighth was the day, and the year 1838, and Victoria was nineteen years old. They came beforehand, the old courtiers, and explained to her the coming pageant, and how after kneeling to her they were all required to rise and kiss her on the left cheek. Gravely she listened and thought this over, thought not only of the salutes of the grave Archbishops, but of the kisses of those other younger peers, of whom there were six hundred, and then she issued a proclamation excusing them from this duty, so all but the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, who could kiss her rosy cheek by special privilege of kinship, would have to be content with pressing a salute on her hand!
As for the Coronation, it was one of the most wonderful in history, for all England wished to look with proud eyes on the crowning of this young girl who even in one year had proved herself to be capable of understanding the intricate doings of statescraft, and days before the ceremonies were to begin, people poured in from all parts of the United Kingdom to see the glittering spectacle and to prove their loyalty to her who was their sovereign.
The great procession started from Buckingham Palace about ten o’clock in the morning, and the first state carriages held the Duchess of Kent and her attendants, then came the grand state coach, imposing in its gorgeous array of gilding and glass, drawn by eight cream-coloured horses from the royal stables, with white flowing manes and tails. In the coach of state sat Her Majesty, and there was tremendous applause all along the line as soon as the bright girlish face beaming its welcome to her people, was seen. On reaching Westminster Abbey, the gorgeous scene might have startled or confused her, if she had not rehearsed beforehand as thoroughly as though it were a play in which she were to take part.
On each side of the nave were galleries erected for the spectators, which had been covered with crimson cloth fringed with gold, and under them were lines of very martial looking footguards. The stone floor was covered with crimson and purple cloth, while immediately under the central tower of the Abbey, inside the choir, five steps from the floor, was a platform covered with cloth of gold on which stood the golden “Chair of Homage.” In the chancel, near the altar, stood the quaint old chair in which all the sovereigns since Edward the Confessor had been crowned. The tiers of galleries upholstered in crimson cloth and old tapestries, were occupied by Members of Parliament and foreign Ambassadors, while in the organ loft sat a large choir dressed in white, and players on instruments dressed in scarlet, while high above them were a score of trumpeters; all of which produced a brilliant effect that was heightened by the music pealing through the vast Abbey over the heads of the throng.
Long before the arrival of the royal party the Abbey was crowded to its doors with foreign Ambassadors and Princes in their gorgeous costumes, and most gorgeous of all were the Lord Mayor and Prince Esterhazy, who was costumed like a glittering shower of jewels from head to toe, while hundreds of pretty women were there in every kind of elaborate evening dress, although it was only eleven o’clock in the morning. It took both time and thought to place all the royal personages so that none would be offended, and every peer and peeress would be seated so as to have a good view of that part of the minster in which the Coronation was to take place.