‘What is the finest sight in the world? A Coronation. What do people talk most about? A Coronation. What is delightful to have passed? A Coronation.’
Horace Warpole, 1761
Media Monarchs Queen Elizabeth II vs Queen Victoria
The not so funny part, when Victoria ascended to the throne as a teenager in the late 1830s, no one could have anticipated that she would rule Britain throughout the rest of the 19th century.
During her decades on the throne, the British Empire abolished slavery, survived assassination attempts, fought wars in Crimea, Afghanistan, and Africa, and acquired the Suez Canal.
Indeed, Victoria was far more complex than the foreboding image found in vintage photographs.
Background of Ascension
Victoria’s grandfather was the last monarch of the American Colonies, King George III, from the German Hapsburg family.
Her grandmother was Queen Charlotte, who was directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese Royal House.
They had 15 children, but his three eldest sons produced no heir to the throne.
George III was a monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors, he was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.
However, Queen Charlotte’s strained relationship with her mother-in-law, Princess Augusta, caused her difficulty in adapting to the life of the British court.
The princess dowager interfered with Charlotte’s efforts to establish social contacts by insisting on rigid court etiquette.
Furthermore, Augusta appointed many of Charlotte’s staff, among whom several were expected to report to Augusta about Charlotte’s behaviour.
Charlotte turned to her German companions for friends.
When George III died in 1820, his son became King George IV. He was known for a scandalous lifestyle, and his heavy drinking contributed to him becoming obese.
When he died in 1830, his younger brother became King William IV. William IV had a daughter named after his mother, Princess Charlotte, who died five hours following childbirth, in November 1817.
The baby also died. The obstetrician, Sir Richard Croft, committed suicide.
Charlotte’s death changed history and led to the conception, birth, and reign of Queen Victoria. Princess Charlotte’s death has been widely reported as being due to postpartum hemorrhage, but a more recent analysis suggests that she died of pulmonary embolism (Friedman et al. Br J Obstet Gynaecol 1988;95:683–8).
So his brother, the Duke of Kent, Edward Augustus, married a German noblewoman expressly to produce an heir to the British throne.
A baby girl, Alexandrina Victoria, was born at 4:15 am on May 24, 1819. When she was only eight months old, her father died, and she was raised by her mother.
A week later her grandfather died and he was succeeded by William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive.
Victoria’s uncle, then King William IV, absolutely despised her mother.
When Parliament decided the Duchess could be Victoria’s regent, William’s response was unforgettably petty.
At a banquet, the elderly William stood up and publicly proclaimed that he would live until Victoria was 18, just to ensure her mother would never come to power.
Now that’s a commitment.
Victoria called her childhood “melancholy”—but it was even darker than that.
When Victoria was a child, all the royal heirs passed away one by one, most of them from heartbreaking ends. In just four short years, three of Victoria’s cousins perished. The household staff included a German governess and a variety of tutors, and Victoria’s first language as a child was German.
Her only friends were her elder sister Princess Feodora of Leiningen who moved away when Victoria was to marry Ernst I, Prince Of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Louise Lehzen her Governess.
Her mother, Duchess Victoria of Kent, was notoriously controlling and developed the “Kensington System” to raise her daughter.
This system forced Victoria to isolate herself from playmates and family alike, though she always had to have her mother or governess present and was not allowed to be alone at all – even when sleeping.
Victoria first learned of her future role as a young princess during a history lesson when she was 10 years old.
Almost four decades later Victoria’s governess recalled that the future queen reacted to the discovery by declaring,
“I will be good.”
This combination of earnestness and egotism marked Victoria as a child of the age that bears her name.
Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a Regency was avoided, less than a month later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom.
In Her Diary She Wrote, “
I was awoke at 6 o’clock by Mamma, who told me that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here, and wished to see me.
I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing-gown), and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham (the Lord Chamberlain) then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen….
Coronation
The coronation (ceremony at which a king or queen is crowned and officially proclaimed monarch) of Queen Victoria took place on Thursday, 28 June 1838, just over a year after she succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom .
Planning for the coronation, led by the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, began at the Cabinet-level in March 1838.
In the face of various objections from numerous parties, the Cabinet announced on Saturday, 7 April, that the coronation would be at the end of the parliamentary session in June.
It was budgeted at £70,000, which was more than double the cost of the “cut-price” 1831 coronation, but considerably less than the £240,000 spent when George IV was crowned in July 1821.
A key element of the plan was the presentation of the event to a wider public.
Out in the streets, however, there was pageantry and entertainment for the hundreds of thousands in the crowd, shown by the processional list of dignitaries and foreign ambassadors illustrated here.
The road route for the coaches and entourage – used for all subsequent coronations – went from the newly-completed Buckingham Palace to the Abbey via Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly, St James’s Street, Pall Mall, Charing Cross, and Whitehall.
Though she was treated with respect and had formidable advisers, including the Duke of Wellington, the hero of Waterloo, there were many who did not expect much of the young queen.
Most observers of the British monarchy expected her to be a weak ruler or even an interim figure soon to be forgotten by history.
It was even conceivable that she would put the monarch on a trajectory toward irrelevance, or perhaps that she could be the last British monarch.
However, Queen Victoria was Britain’s monarch for 63 years, from 1837 until her death in 1901.
Because her reign spanned so much of the 19th century and her nation dominated world affairs during that time, her name came to be associated with the period.
She was the first monarch to reign over conditions approaching mass urbanization and industrialization.
In fact, London was the largest city in the world from 1831-1925.
Two technological factors made her coronation very different.
The first, newly built railways which were able to deliver huge numbers of people into London for her coronation, with an estimated amount of 400,000 -500,000 visitors arriving to swell the crowds.
Extra coaches were put on all the roads, and the railways shot lengthened trains with overladen carriages as fast as the engines could run.
Country cousins came flocking by the thousands!
Every hotel and lodging house was filled from garret to basement, and there was not a private home without “staying guests.”
Secondly, her reign saw a partially enfranchised public and their demands for an increase in mass media.
The Stamp Act of 1819 had a strong impact on news circulation and impeded access to cheap and timely news throughout the 1820’s-30’s.
However, just prior to her coronation, there was a significant reduction in the stamp tax allowing a much more immersion of the press in 1835.
There was a revival in wood carvings and engravings for an illustrated press and 1820s-30s also saw the emergence of lithography whose color emphasized the spectacle and sumptuousness of Queen Victoria’s coronation.
Queen Victoria’s image now had a wealth of more personal representation and her coronation was ‘disseminated as never before by prints, periodicals and newspapers’, similar to how inter-war monarchs used radio to speak directly to their subjects.
However, not all images were without incident.
The New York Herald, more than any other of the penny newspapers, published topical pictures. Most of the time, the pictures were simple maps or crude portraits of people in the news.
Occasionally, special events received greater pictorial coverage.
But when the Herald published five detailed pictures on its cover showing New York’s 1845 funeral procession honoring Andrew Jackson—the first full-page cover devoted to pictures ever to appear in a U.S. daily newspaper—rival newspapers charged that the same engravings had been used to illustrate Queen Victoria’s coronation, William Henry Harrison’s funeral, and the celebration of the opening of the Croton reservoir.
The Herald discontinued illustrating the news after 1850, leaving that task to the weekly illustrated press.
One tragedy of the press, however, happened when The Sun (no relation to today’s tabloid of the same name) partnered with Thomas de la Rue (an entrepreneur who experimented with inks) and came up with a compound that gave enough of an appearance of gilding for a special coronation edition newspaper, which would also be a keepsake.
Medal-engraving and letterpress
The so-called “Golden Sun” was an astonishing hit. It went through 20 editions and sold an estimated 250,000 copies—an astonishing number at that time.
The reverse of the new queen’s portrait was left unprinted, so it could be cut out and mounted. Unfortunately, his printers started getting violently ill due to the ink which turned out to be poisonous.
The Coronation Day Ceremony is a national ovation to a new Sovereign, an occasion for pageantry, a celebration, and a solemn religious ceremony.
The weather was fine and the occasion good humoured, reported The Globe, and for the ambassadors of the various countries attending, ‘a running comment on the policies of their respective governments was freely indulged in’ by the crowd.
The tiny girl-queen was just 19 when she was crowned on June 28, 1838, in Westminster Abbey during scenes in which astonishingly little went as planned and as the glittering crown was placed on Queen Victoria’s at her coronation in 1838, the under-rehearsed ceremony was marred by mistakes and accidents.
According to Queen Victoria’s diaries, she only visited Westminster Abbey the night before the event, and only on the insistence of then-Prime Minister Lord Melbourne.
Afterward, she insisted she knew where to move to during the coronation service.
Historian Roy Strong doubts whether she did know, and quotes Greville’s comment that “the different actors in the ceremonial were very imperfect in their parts and had neglected to rehearse them”.
In the words of Benjamin Disraeli, then a young MP, those involved “were always in doubt as to what came next, and you saw the want of rehearsal”.
At the break of dawn on Thursday, the 28th, at seventeen minutes past three., a discharge of 21 guns in St. James Park heralded to the people that the venerable Westminster Abbey would hold the Coronation of Queen Victoria which was one of the greatest events of the 18th Century.
From every tower and steeple rang a joyous peal. The hundreds of thousands who passed the night in the streets roused in anticipation.
James Gordon Bennet, Sr. had recently started the New York Herald Tribune, the largest distributed newspaper in New York at the time when he attended the coronation of Queen Victoria.
He obtained engravings from someone he “described as a drunken vagabond, though a genius “to include with his first dispatch.
This description came as he complained the engraving showed a coronation of a king and not a queen. The engraver replied he was a democrat and opposed to “she kings”, however was able to change the image into a queen and vestitures.
Mr. Bennet had a blue ticket to the Coronation, from a friend. This allowed him into the Nightingale Gallery, which contained the foreign ministers on the right of the Abbey.
His first dispatch as a foreign correspondent begins,
” I have seen the Coronation of Victoria from beginning to end -in Westminster Abbey and outside of the abbey.
It was the most splendid sight I have ever yet seen – full of poetry, beauty, nonsense, sublimity, superstition, sense, and grandeur, – a perfect potpourri of Christianity, Catholicity, feudalism, and the classic ages.
In all the London papers will be found correct and verbose descriptions of the ceremonies and observances of yesterday, but this account which I shall give will be entirely different from these.
It will be a narrative of what befell myself – of the impressions made upon me – of the thoughts the strange scenes called forth – and the reflections they produced.
Be that as it may, having got my ticket, I now began to deliberate about the costume in which I was to make my appearance at the Abbey.
On inquiry, I found there was no necessity for full court dress, although that is the verbal order of the program.
Next morning , I had to get up early, for as soon as daylight begins to dawn, the avenues are besieged by any rank and fashion.
The Abbey doors are opened as early as five o’clock although the Queen does not enter ’til near twelve o’clock.
I got up at five o’clock and had breakfast ordered but the difficulty was in procuring a carriage. The one I had ordered the night previous did not come- accordingly, I had to take the pot luck, and the considerate hackman demanded 25 shillings in advance before he would budge an inch.
I forked out the money, and was glad to get one at any price, for by this time it was wearing towards seven o’clock and at eight o’clock the barriers wear all to be closed.
Even the ever-critical Harriet Martineau, the abolitionist, journalist, writer, and social theorist who received an invitation to the coronation by the Queen herself record a skeptical view of the day.
[ At this point, writes, The maid called me at half-past three. As I began to dress, the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have awoken all the sleepers in London.
When the maid came to dress me, she said numbers of ladies were already hurrying towards the Abbey.
I saw the old grey Abbey from my window as I dressed, and thought what I would have gone forward within, it before the sun set on me.
Mamma laid out her pearl ornaments for me. Owing to the delay I have referred to, the Poets corner was half full when I took my place there.
I was glad to see the Sommervilles just before me, though we presently parted at the foot of the staircase. On reaching the gallery, I found that a back seat was so far better than the middle one, that I should have a pillar to lean against, a nicer corner for my shawl, and bag of sandwiches.
Two lady-like girls, prettily dressed sat beside me and were glad to use my copy of service and program]
[MrBennet now writing…] But another important affair was arranged before I started. A young friend provided me with a small sherry and a couple of crackers.
” If you do not take these”, said he, “you will get faint when you get into the Abbey, the crowd is so great that there will be no getting out again.”..
In my hand I carried the “Book of the Coronation”, as a guide to the ceremonies when inside the Abbey.
We entered the line of carriages at Charring Cross , and proceeded bit by bi, up Whitehall, along Parliament Street, til we reached the Abbey.
Along the whole line it was thronged with carriages – the sidewalks with pedestrians.
The fronts of the houses on each side were dressed up like a theatre, tier by tier, to the roof, and nearly each tier full of spectators, although five or six hours had to elapse before the procession would pass.
[By 8.00 the streets were thick with people and platforms had been erected on which, for a fee of 2s 6d one could stand to see the procession. Some, like author Charles Dickens, rented rooms in houses overlooking the route in order to get a good view of the momentous event.]
On reaching the entrance of the Abbey, I was set down and passed in. “Have you any ticket sir?” “Yes”, I replied – pulling it out.
“You are not required to deliver it up”, said he, ” Keep it and pass along.” I did so and passed a number of policemen and officers, in a very zig zag direction, under the galleries and cloisters.
Coming from the light, it seemed so dark when I passed the great entrance, that I could not find my way.
One of the attendants gave me his arm, led me through the dark passage, which led me to the ascending staircase, leading to the Nightingale Gallery.
On changing from darkness to light, I was for a moment dazzled by the splendid coup d’oeil, which the interior of the magnificent structure presented.
Harriet Martineau writing.. The sight of the rapid filling Abbey was enough to go for.
From my high seat I commanded the whole north transept, the area with the throne, many portions of the galleries, the balconies, which were called the vaultings, except the sprinkling of oddities, everybody was in full dress.
I saw the whole assemblage, I counted six bonnets. The scarlet of the military officers mixed in well; and the groups of the clergy were dignified, but to the unaccustomed eye, the prevalence of court dresses had a curious effect. I was perpetually taking whole groups of men for Quakers till I recollected myself.
The Earl Marshalls assistants, called Gold Sticks looked well from above, lightely flitting about in white breeches, silk stockings. blue laced frocks and white sashes.
The throne and armchair with a round back, covered as it were a footstool, with cloth] of gold, stood on an elevation of four steps, in the center of the area .]
It was a few minutes after seven o’clock in the morning, yet every seat except those belonging to the peeresses and the foreign ministers, was crowded with the beauty and splendor of this mighty kingdom.
It was impossible to conceive of a scene more truly gorgeous. It took me a whole hour to look around and mark out the most remarkable sights in the interior of the Abbey. The venerable grey columns of this Gothic structure contrasted beautifully with the gold and silver decorations of the gallery.
[Harriet Martineau writing … The first peeress took her seat north of the transept in the the seat opposite at a quarter before seven ; and three bishops came next.]
In a short time, that is to say at eight o’clock, the peers and peeresses began to enter. I got a seat very contiguous to that portion of the northern transept, which was devoted to the accommodation of the female nobility.
As they began to muster, the sun through the eastern window shot a brilliant beam. It was reflected and refracted in a dozen beautiful colors by the profuse brilliants, diamonds, and precious stones that ornamented their hair.
I observed one peeress, not the most beautiful of the parterre, but the fattest by all odds. Her head was an incrustation of diamonds and other jewelry, and every moment she looked this way or that, my eyes were dazzled with all the beautiful colors of the rainbow.
I shall never forget the fair peeresses of England.
Their jewelry, their ornaments and decorations were profuse and rich, but their fine forms exquisite complexions, particularly full, classic busts heaving with loyalty and love.
They all appeared in similar costume -in a white dress, with a crimson robe ornamented with ermine.
They sailed up the main aisle, or nave of the Abbey until they came to the center, where the ceremony was to be performed.
There the officers of the Earl Marshall took hold of their crimson trains, three or four feet long, and conducted each to her seat, which was marked out with a label for her.
[Harriet Martineau writing … from that time, they came faster and faster. Each peeress was conducted by two Gold Sticks, one of whom handed her the seat, and the other bore her train and arranged it her lap, and saw that her footstool and coronet were comfortably placed.]
Each one of them rolled up her train around her, just as a pretty little kitten, tired of playing in the sun. curls up her tail in front, and licks her lips as a preparation for the next impulse of human life.
Each peeress carried her coronet in her hand, and when she took her seat, she placed it in her lap or placed it before her.
What struck me most on the approach of the peeresses, was the singular degree of personal beauty, which as a body of women they generally possess.
I do not think they reached so many as three or four hundred, as there were so many seats vacant, but of such that were present, I can safely say, I have never seen in one single collection so many beautiful, graceful dignified women as they presented.
The forms are full, rounded well, and present finely developed busts of remarkable classic beauty. Few are thin, lean or meager in appearance – many on the contrary rather inclining to en bon point.
The gentlemen in waiting. each with his baton, announced these ladies as they appeared. The Duchess of Richmond created a stir, so did the Lady King ( the daughter of Byron.)
The Countess of Essex, the late actress, Mrs. Stephens, was beautiful and dignified – but none seemed so splendid as the Marchioness of Londonberry and the equally lovely Countess of Shrewsberry, I think it was.
On the opposite side was the place for the peers.
Around the galleries, in every direction, the crowd of beauty was immense. These were no peeresses although the great majority belonged to the highest and most refined order of society.
The Abbey contained 18,000 people about 7,000 were females generally beautiful and gorgeously dressed.
[The Saturday Evening Post devotes several articles to it–Americans become infatuated with the young queen.
The most complete account of the coronation, published July 28, 1838, describing the pageantry of the event, going as far as listing the quantity, type and estimated value of jewels and pearls in the royal crown.
In fact, what is mentioned most often is the diamonds, one American reporter says it looks as though it had rained diamonds and now the procession is dripping in them.
The festival was a highly barbaric one, to my eyes. The theological part especially was worthy only of the old Pharaonic times in Egypt, and those of the Kings in Palestine.
Really, it was only by old musical and devotional association that the services could go down with people of any reverence at all.
[But goes on to mentions the diamonds as well.]
About nine, the first gleams of the sun slanted into the Abbey and presently travelled down to the peeresses. I had never before seen the full effect of diamonds.
As the light traveled, each peeress shone like a rainbow. The brightness, vastness, and dreamy magnificence of the scene produced a strange effect of exhaustion and sleepiness.
About nine o’clock, I felt this so disagreeably that I determined to withdraw my senses from the scene, in order to reserve my strength (which was not great at that time) for the ceremonial to come. I had carried a book; and I read and ate a sandwich, leaning against my friendly pillar, till I felt refreshed.
[Apparently, she puts down the book long enough to notice.]
Prince Esterhazy, crossing a bar of sunshine, as the most prodigious rainbow of all. He was covered with diamonds and pearls; and as he dangled his hat, it cast a dancing radiance all round.
While he was thus glittering and gleaming, people were saying,” I know not how truly, that he had to redeem those jewels from pawn, as usual, for the occasion”.
[ Prince Esterhazy is often mentioned in reports, he came in full Hussar uniform, emblazoned with brilliants.]
The entrance of the foreign ministers was another object of great interest and splendor.
[One guest noted that a rail around his gallery shook from a myriad of trembling hands.
Apparently, only Lords Wilton and Mulgrave knew how to don their robes correctly, having participated in theatricals.]
Their costumes were as various as they were splendid. The Turkish Ambassador looked well. [The Turkish Ambassador is most commented on, he was unsure where to sit and didn’t move for a while, and seemed very lost.]
But the veteran “ould Soult”, as he is familiarly called, brought forth the most attention. He created a sensation on his entrance.
There was very peculiar propriety in this sentiment.
Marshal Soult had thrashed the English and had been thrashed by them, during the last war. Two brave men, two brave nations, always esteem each other. Soult won the populace.
[Marshall Soult and suite entered at 11 am in full uniform, as ambassador extraordinary to London for the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 – where his former enemy, the Duke of Wellington, reputedly caught him by the arm and exclaimed “I have you at last!” ]
The entrance of the Duke of Nemours, the second son of Louis Phillipe, also made a rustling.
It is said a number of second sons of the Kings of Europe have been present, besides several lots of German princes, all looking at a chance for the hand of Victoria.
On her arrival at the Abbey Victoria clasped her hands together and caught her breath at the scene.
[For the journey to Westminster Abbey, Victoria wore a crimson velvet robe over a stiff white satin dress with gold embroidery.
The train of her robe was extremely long and was later described by her maid of honor, Wilhelmina Stanhope, as “a very ponderous appendage”.]
The Mistress of the Robes was Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland.
[Harriet Martineau writes… The guns told the Queen arrived, but there as was much to be done in the robing room there was a long pause before she appeared. ]
Queen Victoria writes.. “After putting on my mantles and the young ladies having properly got hold of it and Lord Conyngham holding the end of it, I left the robing room and the Procession began… The sight was splendid, the bank of Peeresses quite beautiful all in their robes, and the Peers on the other side. My young trainbearers were always near me, and helped me whenever I wanted anything.
The Bishop of Durham stood on the side near me, but he was, as Lord Melbourne told me, remarkably maladroit and never could tell me what was to take place.”
“At the beginning of the Anthem I retired to St. Edward’s Chapel, a small dark place immediately behind the Altar, with my ladies and trainbearers took off my crimson robe and kirtle, and put on the supertunica of cloth of gold, also in the shape of a kirtle, which was put over a singular sort of little gown of linen trimmed with lace; I also took off my circlet of diamonds and then proceeded bareheaded into the Abbey; I was then seated upon St. Edward’s chair where the Dalmatic robe was clasped round me by the Lord Great Chamberlain.”]
[Harriet Martineau writes…A burst from the orchestra marked her appearance at the doors and the anthem, “I was glad” rang through the abbey.
Everybody rose, and the holder of the first and second rows of our gallery stood up so high that I saw nothing of the Entrance or the Recognition, except the Archbishop of Canterberry, reading at one of the angels of the platform. The “God save the Queen” swelled gloriously after the recognition.]
Having been proclaimed queen by the assembly in the Abbey, Victoria retired to a special robing room where she replaced the crimson cloak with a lighter white linen gown trimmed with lace.
Wearing this, she returned to the Abbey for the presentation to her of the Crown Jewels.]
But of all the signs of the Abbey, the entrance of the young Queen was the most beautiful and splendid.
Here she was walking up the steps of the royal platform, where she stood by the holy St Edwards chair, the throne etc.
She looked quite short in stature, but nevertheless she bore herself with much dignity. On her fair brow she wore a dazzling circlet of gold and precious stones.
Her crimson train, ten or twelve yards in length, was born by eight young ladies of the highest rank. The eight trainbearers were tall and majestic.
Their headdresses were adorned with white lofty white plumes.
It was really quite interesting to see the little girl bear herself so well.
In the part of the building where I stood, the ladies expressed a deep interest in her appearance. “Poor thing, they will smother her “- ” sweet little girl, they will kill her with grandeur.”
Unlike many other parties involved, she’d been to Westminster the day before the ritual. So she knew how to act, at least at some points, but when she didn’t, there was almost no one to guide her!
Witnesses recalled that only a few men seemed to know what they were doing, while others carried out their tasks with “a continual difficulty and embarrassment.”
Since the ceremony was so long, the queen changed her outfit twice.
After the Queen was made leave her chair too early, confused , Victoria implored sub-Dean Lord John Thynne,
‘Pray tell me what I am to do as the bishops do not know’, the Archbishop of Canterbury seemed ‘confused and puzzled’ while the Bishop of Durham, she wrote later, was ‘remarkably maladroit and could not tell me what was to take place’.
When not required before the main altar, Victoria and others would retreat into St Edward’s chapel.
She noted in her journal afterward just how appalled she was to find it in such a state:
“I then again descended from the Throne, and then repaired with all the Peers bearing the Regalia, my Ladies and Train-bearers, to St Edward’s Chapel, as it is called; but which, as Lord Melbourne said, was more unlike a Chapel than anything he had ever seen; for, what was called an Altar was covered with sandwiches, bottles of wine etc.”
But, as her friend and prime minister, Lord Melbourne, put it, “whenever the clergy had anything to do with anything, there’s sure to be plenty to eat”.
Problems arose when the Archbishop of Canterbury to put the Coronation Ring on the queen’s finger.
The Coronation ring, known as ‘The Wedding Ring of England’ made for King William IV in 1831, the ring has been worn at every coronation since then, except Queen Victoria, whose fingers were so small that the ring could not be reduced far enough in size and an alternative was created.
Against her protestations, the Archbishop forced the Coronation Ring on to Victoria’s wrong finger causing her to nearly cry out .
Victoria really struggled to get the ring off after the ceremony and was forced to soak her hand in ice-water to try and reduce the swelling.
The Archbishop would make the same error with Victoria’s wedding ring three years later.
The Bishop of Durham apparently didn’t do much better since he gave her the ceremonial orb at the wrong moment.
While they waited, the Archbishop of Canterbury came in to give Victoria the Orb, which she had already received and he left “confused and puzzled.
The orb was so heavy that it became wearisome for her to hold with her now swollen finger.
But the clergyman to make the gravest mistake had to be the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who accidentally turned over two pages of the Order of Service.
Unfortunately, it was quite a crucial bit in which Victoria is declared queen, meaning the coronation was invalid, forcing him to call Victoria back so that he could do it again properly.
She had already left Westminster Abbey before they spotted the error.
Luckily, the other incidents were far less critical but equally absurd.
Since the coronation of Charles II, St Edward’s Crown had been used at the climax of the ceremony, but it was anticipated that its size and weight (5 lb) would be too great for Victoria to bear, and so a smaller Imperial State Crown was made for her by the Crown Jewellers Rundell, Bridge & Co., using a total of 3,093 gems.
These included the Black Prince’s Ruby , set on the front cross pattée; the cross at the top was set with a stone known as St Edward’s Sapphire, a jewel taken from the ring (or possibly the coronet) of Edward the Confessor.
The supreme moment of the occasion was when this crown was placed on the Queen’s head.
[ Harriet Martineau writes… The acclimation when the crown was placed on the head was very animating; and in the midst of it, in an instant of time, the peeresses were all coroneted.
In order to see the enthroning, I stood on the rail behind our seats, holding by another rail. I was in nobody’s way and could not resist the temptation, though at every moment expecting the rail to break.
Her small dark crown looked pretty and her mantle of gold very regal. She herself looked so small as if to appear puny. ]
At the same moment the peers and peeresses put on their coronets, the bishops put on their mitres, and the hearalds their caps while the trumpets sound , the drums beat, and cannon fires.
The Tower guns answer and the people within and outside the Abbey, shout,
God Save the Queen !
God Save Queen Victoria!
May the Queen live forever!
Then the peers did homage, they were obliged to touch the crown, the Queen said it was fortunate that she made it as tight as possible, for many of them knocked it, and one actually clutched it.
As part of the ceremony, peers of the realm were expected to come before the queen and pay their respects.
Lord John Rolle was the largest landowner in Devon at the time and well in his 80s.
As he started to ascend the steps toward the new queen, he not only fell over but rolled down the steps.
Luckily, despite his infirmity, he was unhurt. He got himself up and started up the stairs again, determined to do his duty.
Charles Greville, a diarist of the time, wrote of Victoria’s astonishing act of kindness upon seeing Rolle fall down:
“[The Queen’s] first impulse was to rise, and when afterwards he came again to do homage she said, “May I not get up and meet him?” and then rose from the throne and advanced down one or two of the steps to prevent his coming up, an act of graciousness and kindness which made a great sensation.
It is, in fact, the remarkable union of naiveite, kindness, nature, good-nature, with propriety and dignity, which makes her so admirable and so endearing to those around her.
Harriet Martineau writes .. He was not hurt and his self-quizzing on his misadventure was as brave as his behavior at the time. A foreigner in London gravely reported to his own countrymen, what he entirely believed on the word of wag, that the Lords Rolle held their title on performing the feat at every coronation.
The music at the ceremony was an oversight too.
The composer who was hired to write a new anthem for the service passed away three months before the coronation, and his work was never finished.
In the end, just a single piece was created for the event.
The accompaniment lacked integrity and could’ve been much better.
The conductor, Sir George Smart, didn’t help either. For some reason, he chose to play the organ himself and supervise the other musicians at the same time.
I think you get the picture: the orchestra was really poorly coordinated.
As if that wasn’t enough, near the end of the whole spectacle.
Medals of gold and silver were thrown to the crowd leading to an undignified scramble for the momentos.
The Treasurer of the household tried to cheer up the noble guests of the church by throwing some coronation medals into the crowd. Just imagine the mess it caused.
The Aldermen, judges, and maids of honor fighting each other for a piece of metal
.A son of the Duke of Richmond was particularly successful, since he managed to grab no less than 12 souvenirs!
Well, at least they got something out of it.
The ceremony lasted five excruciating hours, and eventually, there was hardly anyone in Westminster who wasn’t relieved it was over.
Surprisingly, Victoria loved the service with all its faults and flaws and called that day“the proudest of her life”.
[Harriet Martineau writing …I never saw anywhere with so contrast between youth and age as in these noble ladies. None of the decent differences in dress which, according to middle-class custom, pertain to contrasting periods of life seem to be admissible on court occasions.
Old hags with their dyed or false hair drawn up to the top of their head to allow the putting of the coronet, had their necks and arms bare and glittering with diamonds. : and those necks and arms were so brown and wrinkled as to make one sick, or dusted over with white powder which was worse than what it disguised.
I saw something of this when I was in the transept gallery, but much more when the ceremonial was over, and the peeresses were passing to their carriages waiting for them. The younger were as lovely as the aged were haggard. One beautiful creature with transcendent complexion and form, with coils and coils of light hair, was terribly embarrassed about her coronet. She and her neighbor tugged vehemently at her braids, and at last, the thing was done after a manner, but as so to spoil the simultaneous effect of all the peeresses self coronetting.]
Queen Victoria wrote..
“At about half-past four I re-entered my carriage, the Crown on my head and the Sceptre and Orb in my hands, and we proceeded the same way as we came-the crowds if possible having increased. The enthusiasm, affection, and loyalty were really touching, and I shall ever remember this day as the PROUDEST of my life! I came home a little after six, really not feeling tired.
After the ceremony, she returned to the palace and gave her beloved Dash.
Queen victoria continued, “At eight we dined…”
“Stayed in the dining-room till twenty minutes past eleven, but remained on Mamma’s balcony looking at the fireworks in Green Park which were quite beautiful…”
On the eve of the Coronation, there were fireworks in Hyde and Green Parks, and in the four days following, a great fair with theatres, balloon ascents, food stalls, and dance floors up to 500 feet in length was held in Hyde Park.
On the second day of the festivities, the Queen visited the park.
The Coronation festivities were finally brought to an end on July 9th when the Queen reviewed 5,000 troops in Hyde Park.
The festivities were not limited to London.
At Leamington there was a procession, a dinner for the poor, a public dinner and displays of fireworks.
At Coventry churches and chapels held services and an ox and sheep were roasted to be distributed to the poor. There was music and fireworks as well.
At Stratford-upon-Avon, there were entertainments for the poor and a ball at the Town-hall in the evening.
Children from the Sunday schools were fed in many places and at Redditch were presented with coronation medals.
Balls and dinners were held around the country as well as special meals for the poor.
Even in the gaols (jails) and the poor-houses, there were celebrations.
The prisoners in Horsham Gaol were treated to a roast or boiled beef dinner with plum pudding and a pot of ale or porter and the Board of Guardians of the Strand Union ordered that inmates of the two workhouses of the Union should be provided with a meal of baked beef, plum pudding and a pint of porter.
Views of the Coronation were mixed. Most people would seem to have concurred with Harriet Martineau for whom “it was a wonderful day; and one which I am glad to have witnessed.”
But there were those who felt differently. Charles Greville, the political diarist, was among those who took a dimmer view of the proceedings, noting that “it is very curious but uncommonly tiresome, and the sooner it is over the better.”
Yet, Historian Roy Strong asserts, ” Victoria’s coronation was the last in a long line of botched ceremonies since the Victorians subsequently put together a program that has been used ever since.”