There seems to be a problem, please try again. Previous royal funerals had been private candlelit affairs, taking place at night, but this queen had requested a full military state funeral. As the date of the funeral approached, the processional route was prepared. His relationship with Wilhelm II, Germany's emperor and Edward's nephew, were difficult and sour due to the rivalry between the two countries and the two men. I have not yet been able to trace what happened to the sofa. As the Westminster Gazette reported after the funeral, the queen had outlived all the members of her Privy Council who were alive in 1837; all the peers who had held their titles in 1837 (except Earl Nelson, who was 14 in that year) and all the members who had sat in the House of Commons at the time of her accession. The Prince of Wales was reluctant to cancel his weekend jaunts to the country; the Duke of Connaught [the seventh child of Victoria and Albert] was on his way to Berlin to celebrate 200 years of the Prussian monarchy; while other members of the royal family enjoyed a performance of Little Nell in London’s West End. letters from my poor father asking for dearest Mamma’s hand… And many others… from dear Grandmama; Albert has also found at Clarence House…’ (cit., Ibid, 558). Thanks! By the time of her mother’s death, the relationship between the Queen and the Duchess of Kent had considerably improved, so that a focus on this also helps to restore the balance of historical judgement, which can still tend to remember more the earlier years, fraught with tension. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. From Paddington the train conveyed the coffin to Windsor, where the body was placed in St. George's Chapel at the castle. According to information supplied to the present author, the Bedroom had continued to be, until recent years at least, used for storage space. Meanwhile, panic broke out in the royal household as they realised that all precedents were 64 years out of date, and nobody knew what to do. And men ran along bawling at the top of their voices “Queen dead”. Then, on January 17, the queen's health took a severe turn for the worse. At Windsor, the coffin was again placed on a gun carriage pulled by white horses. The Lord Chamberlain refused to cooperate with the Earl Marshal, and the kaiser turned on the Bishop of Winchester, who had been the queen’s favourite cleric, saying that if he were his cleric he would have him hauled out into the courtyard by the neck and shot. Then came the final train journey to Windsor, where the procession waited as the coffin was placed on the gun carriage. Movingly, the very last of these letters betray the very physical weakness of the Duchess and the reality of her rapid decline. Here at length I shall rest with thee, with thee in Christ I shall rise again. The Gallery is a beautiful upper space at first floor level, hand decorated by the artistically talented third daughter of George III and Queen Charlotte, Princess Elizabeth, later Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg. (Ibid, 16). Parliament voted her the additional title of Empress of India in 1876. — Lenchen came & read some papers. All of this could be seen and heard as the press rushed down to the harbour to break the news to the world. First, she disliked the preponderance of funereal black; … After the death of the Duchess, it was evidently easier for Queen Victoria to shift the blame for this onto her mother’s former Comptroller of the Household, Sir John Conroy and the devoted governess of her youth, Baroness Lehzen. Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. God! The evident love of the Duchess of Kent for her daughter was something which the Queen would have to accept as a painful and comforting posthumous proof, when she went through her mother’s papers. The Queen went on: ‘It was quite painless… I held her dear, dear hand in mine to the very last, which I am truly thankful for! Ten days later, we see from a letter written from Windsor Castle to the King of the Belgians, that Queen Victoria is visiting Frogmore every day: ‘But oh! Writing to her beloved uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, Queen Victoria poured out her feelings of grief, in a letter penned later that same day, headed Frogmore, 16 March 1861: ‘My dearly beloved Uncle, – on this, the most dreadful day of my life, does your poor broken-hearted child write one line of love and devotion. Please enter your number below. You can unsubscribe at any time. Writing to the King of the Belgians from Osborne, a month after her mother’s death, the Queen wrote: ‘It is touching to find how she treasured up every little flower, every bit of hair. The queen’s terminal decline had been rapid and had taken the family by surprise. The life of Queen Victoria and her family. Victoria broke convention by having a white draped coffin. Her death on January 22, 1901 ended the 63-year period that claimed her name and was a great shock to both the British Empire and many nations further afield. The rare sight of a state funeral cortège travelling by ship provided a striking spectacle: Victoria's body was carried on board HMY Alberta from Cowes to Gosport, with a suite of yachts following conveying the new king, Edward VII, and other mourners. History TV and radio in the UK: what’s on our screens in October 2020? The Duchess’ sarcophagus was placed on the lower level, whilst the upper level contained the aforementioned life-size statue of her, by Theed. The final days and death of Queen Victoria, Princes in the Tower | Exclusive history podcast series, History on film: Queen Victoria’s funeral. The royal yacht, HMY, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, The Hereditary Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, The Empress Frederick, Queen Mother of Prussia, Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse and by Rhine, Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein, The Hereditary Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince Leopold Clement of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, "The Funeral at Windsor of Queen Victoria. Her children squabbled, her doctors quarrelled, and the public were misled and kept in the dark. Quickly, alternate arrangements had to be made. It is this arm which encircles the young Princess Victoria in the famous image made by Sir William Beechey, which shows the Duchess in mourning still for the Duke of Kent, clasping her daughter, who rests against her mother’s shoulder. She had requested that family mementoes be placed inside too, such as Albert's dressing gown and a plaster cast of his hand. However, the Queen had been growing weaker for several years before her death. She also was the first monarch to be buried outside of Westminster Abbey and St George's Chapel since George I, 174 years before. The Earl Marshal [the royal officer in charge of organising royal ceremonies and processions] and Lord Chamberlain [in charge of the royal household] were at loggerheads as to who should take charge, while the new king’s household refused to take over responsibility until the queen was buried – yet the old queen’s household no longer had any authority. “In a funeral at sea the ship is slowed down when the body is committed to the deep but once that has taken place there can be no waiting — the order is ‘Full Steam Ahead’,” the Gazette reported. The front of the procession had already marched off and reached the end of Windsor Street before it could be stopped and turned around. I heard each hour strike. No embalming, no lying-in-state, no mourning black; she wanted a white funeral, purple and white, with white ponies and a gun carriage, and the first burial of a monarch outside the confines of Westminster Abbey and St George’s Chapel since George I. Victoria and Albert: a marriage of misery? Preserved at Windsor in six volumes, the Duchess of Kent’s letters are bound in black morocco, (A. N. Wilson, 246) the first two of which have the memorial words picked in gold: ‘LETTERS FROM DEAR MAMA’. Socialism, the suffragette movement, and trade unions were becoming dominant. SUPPORT OUR JOURNALISM: Please considering donating to keep our website running and free for all - thank you! She is an authority on Russia's last Tsarina, Alexandra Feodorovna and also researches and writes about Queen Victoria. In desperation, Reid secretly telegraphed the queen’s grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. The Duchess of Kent’s Bedroom is not among those rooms at Frogmore House which are accessible to the public. He summoned her children and grandchildren. The procession lasted two hours, with the queen’s coffin standing high on the gun carriage drawn by eight white and cream ponies through the crowded – yet eerily silent – streets. Bicycles careered down the hill. Her current projects include the portraiture of Queen Jane Seymour and Prince Henry Tudor (*1511). Queen Victoria timeline: 9 milestones in the monarch’s life, 8 fascinating facts about Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, A Triple Bond Broken: The Destruction of the House of York. (cit., Ibid). “Am I better?” she asked Sir James, “I should like to live a little longer, as I have still a few things to settle.” As if her trusted doctor could make her live, Sir James kindly reassured her: “Yes, Your Majesty has been very ill but you are now better.” Meanwhile the Prince of Wales and his sisters (known as ‘the petticoats’) tried to prevent the kaiser reaching Osborne. She would tire more easily and would often have bouts of confusion. All that could be heard were the clattering of the horses' hooves, the jangling of swords, and the distant boom of gun salutes. Now she is!’ (cit., Benson and Esher, 560). The Duchess lived at Frogmore for much of the next twenty years, until she died at Frogmore House, in 1861. Victoria's funeral began on 2 February 1901. They lay together at the Frogmore Royal Mausoleum, a monument which she had built for their final resting place. The naval guard of honor found a communication cord and turned it into an impromptu harness and the sailors themselves then pulled the queen's funeral carriage. Prince Albert had preceded Queen Victoria in death by almost 40 years. (cit., Ibid). Her eyesight had become clouded by cataracts, and she was a wheelchair user due to her rheumatism. She had lost her appetite and started looking frail and thin. She asked Dr. Reid if she was better, to which he assured her that she was. (A. N. Wilson, 44). At home, his military and naval reforms in Britain prepared the country well for World War I. Here at length, I shall rest with thee, with thee in Christ I shall rise again.".