“The Queen feels assured that the Army will participate in the deep grief with which Her Majesty has received the intelligence of the irreparable loss sustained by herself, and by the country, in the sudden death of Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington. In him Her Majesty has to deplore a firm supporter of her Throne; a faithful, wise, and devoted councillor; and a valued and honoured friend. In him the Army will lament the loss of a Commander-in-Chief unequalled for the brilliancy, the magnitude, and the success of his military achievements; but hardly less distinguished for the indefatigable and earnest zeal with which, in time of peace, he laboured to maintain the efficiency and promote the interests of that Army, which he had often led to victory. The discipline which he exacted from others, as the main foundation of the military character, he sternly imposed upon himself; and the Queen desires to impress upon the Army, that the greatest Commander whom England ever saw, has left an example for the imitation of every soldier, in taking as his guiding principle, in every relation of life, an energetic and unhesitating obedience to the call of duty.”[179] ----- Footnote 179: _Annual Register_ , 1852, “Chronicle,” p. 144. ----- The remains of the illustrious dead having been removed from Walmer to London (November 10th), the lying-in-state lasted some days in Chelsea Hospital, when Guards of Honour were furnished daily by the Battalion finding the public duties; and thousands flocked to the scene to pay a last tribute to the memory of the greatest Englishman of the century. The funeral was fixed for the 18th, and the ceremony was on as imposing and magnificent a scale as a grateful country could devise upon so solemn an occasion of universal mourning and public sorrow. The procession started from the Horse Guards Parade, under an escort of six battalions, eight squadrons, and nineteen guns, together with representatives of every available regiment of the British Army,[180] the whole under the command of Major-General H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge. ----- Footnote 180: