Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 1Tytler, Sarah
History
Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 1
Tytler, Sarah
Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1901
Parties of cavalry and infantry taking their places, with "orderlies
dashing to and fro," lent colour and livelier action to the panorama. At
the same time the military were not a very prominent feature in the
picture, and the State element was also to some extent wanting. Some state
was inevitable, but after all the marriage of the sovereign was not so much
a public ceremonial as a private event in her life. As early as eight
o'clock in the morning the comparatively limited number of invited guests
began to contribute to the satisfaction of the great uninvited by driving
up beneath the triumphal arch, and presenting their pink or white cards for
inspection. A body of Foot Guards marched forwards, followed by a
detachment of the Horse Guards Blue, with their band discoursing wedding
music appropriate to the occasion, cheering the hearts of the cold, soaked
crowd, and awaking an enthusiastic response from it. Then appeared various
members of the nobility, including the Duke of Norfolk, coming always to
the front as Grand Marshal, wearing his robe and carrying his staff of
office, when the rest of the world were in comparative undress, as more or
less private individuals. But this gentleman summed up in his own person
"all the blood of all the Howards," and recalled his ancestors great and
small--the poet Earl of Surrey, those Norfolks to whom Mary Tudor and Mary
Stuart were alike fatal, and that Dicky or Dickon of Norfolk who lent a
humorous strain to the tragic tendency of the race.
The Ministers and Foreign Ambassadors came singly or in groups. The
Ministers, with one or two exceptions, wore the Windsor uniform, blue
turned up with an oak-leaf edging in gold. Viscount Morpeth, Lord John
Russell, the Marquis of Normanby, Lord Palmerston, Lord Holland, Lord
Melbourne, were well-known figures. The good-natured Duke of Cambridge
arrived with his family and suite in three royal carriages. He wore the
Orders of the Garter, and the Bath, and carried his baton as Field-Marshal.
The Duke of Sussex was in the uniform of Captain-General of the Artillery
Company, and wore the Orders of the Garter, the Bath, and St. Andrew. He
had on his black skull-cap as usual, and drove up in a single carriage. He
had opposed the clause relating to Prince Albert's taking precedence of
all, save the Queen, in the Naturalisation Bill. He was to make further
objection to the husband's occupying his natural place by the side of his
wife when the Queen opened and prorogued Parliament, and to the Prince's
rights in the Regency Bill. All the same, by right of birth and years, the
Duke of Sussex was to give away his royal niece.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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