Memoir of Queen Adelaide, Consort of King William IV.Doran, Dr. (John)
History
Memoir of Queen Adelaide, Consort of King William IV.
Doran, Dr. (John)
Adelaide, Queen, consort of William IV, King of Great Britain, 1792-1849
The end soon come, and it was met with dignity. On the 22nd of
November, 1849, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the Dowager
Queen, for the last time. On the last day of the month she calmly
passed away. The above document was then produced; and it rendered
kings-at-arms, heralds, gold sticks, and upholsterers powerless to
exercise their absurd dignity in connection with death,--when so
intelligible and sensible a protest as the above was in existence.
Accordingly, on a fine December morning of 1849, there issued from the
gates of Bentley Priory, an ordinary hearse with a pall emblazoned with
the Queen's arms, preceded by three mourning coaches. A scanty escort
of cavalry accompanied them, more for use than show, their office being
to see that no obstruction impeded the funeral march from Stanmore to
Windsor. On its way, the attitude of the spectators exhibited more of
sympathy than curiosity.
The Harrow boys turned out in testimony of respect, and the country
people at large looked like mourners, wearing more or less, but wearing
some outward manifestation of sorrow.
The Queen's body reached the Chapel at Windsor at one o'clock. In the
south aisle, close to the porch, there had been standing, grouped
together, silent and motionless, a group of seamen,--grave, bronzed,
athletic sailors. Their demeanour showed them worthy of the office
which the now dead Queen had asked at their hands. When all the royal,
and great, and noble personages were in their respective places,--while
some indispensable officials effected a little more of their foolish
calling, in the presence of death, than Queen Adelaide herself would
have sanctioned;--while princes, peers, and prelates,
ladies-in-waiting, clergy, and choristers, proceeded passively or
actively with their parts in the ceremony of the day,--then those ten
sailors advanced to accomplish the duty assigned them, and standing by
the platform on which the body was placed, gently propelled it to a
position over the subterranean passage into which it was lowered, after
one of the simplest services that was ever said or sung for departed
Queen, had been accomplished.--Most simple, save when Garter stepped
forward to announce what all men knew, that it "had pleased Almighty
God to take out of this life to His divine mercy" the departed Queen;
and to assert what that royal lady would assuredly have gainsaid, that
she was a "Most High, Most Mighty, and Most Excellent Princess." With
this, and one or two other formalities of that pomp and state from
which she had asked to be spared, Queen Adelaide passed to the tomb,--a
tomb capacious enough to contain whole generations of kings and queens,
princes and princesses yet unborn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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