Curtain Down at Her Majesty's

The Death of Queen Victoria in the Words of Those Who Were There

Stewart Richards

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780750990622
• eBook ISBN: 9780750991018
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

She was the most powerful woman in the world. Victoria had ruled through more than six decades, watching her kingdom spread to become the world's biggest empire and witnessing massive change in society and leaps forward in technology. Many of her people had known no other monarch. It is little surprise, then, that her death resulted in chaos, shock and mass outpourings of grief across the world. Here author and researcher Stewart Richards has delved through the archives to put together the definitive view of Victoria in her drawn-out final days of illness, through the immediate reaction to and aftermath of her death, to the state funeral on 2 February 1901. Based entirely on fascinating first-hand accounts, Curtain Down at Her Majesty's offers a remarkable insight into the events of those tumultuous few days, and a truly unique perspective on the life and impact of one of history's great monarchs.

1–4 FEBRUARY 1901

FRIDAY, 1 FEBRUARY

OSBORNE HOUSE

Randall Davidson, Bishop of Winchester

I was early at Osborne, after seeing E.M.D. off from Kent House for Windsor, with Parratt and the boys and Lady Edwards. After breakfast I had a long walk with the Bishop of Ripon and much talk. He then left. Then a further interview with the King about matters on which he wished details to be arranged.

The Funeral Procession was to start at 1.30.

Sir Frederick Ponsonby

I had to get up very early and put on full-dress uniform. Arthur Davidson¹ had been put in charge of all the funeral arrangements at Osborne, and I must say it was beautifully arranged. Everyone knew what to do and where to go. We Equerries were to march on either side of the gun-carriage and to assemble at the front entrance of Osborne House.

Randall Davidson, Bishop of Winchester

Soon after 12.30 Clement Smith and I went to the Chapel and superintended the final arrangements as to the cushions, etc, for the coffin, bearing the crown, sceptre, and orbs. Then we were left alone in the Chapel for half an hour before the men came to remove the coffin. I felt this to be as solemn a time as any we had had.

At 1.30 the coffin was removed into the Hall at the foot of the Queen’s Staircase opposite the large entrance. After a time the Royal Family all gathered there, and we had again a short Service – ‘Nunc Dimittis’, ‘Prevent us’, a Lesson from St. John, and a few special Prayers. Then the body was carried out.

Sir Frederick Ponsonby

Punctually the bluejackets from the Royal yacht, under Lieutenant Pelly, carried the coffin and placed it on the gun-carriage.

Duke of Argyll

The winter’s sun shone brightly as the mourners formed up behind the gun-carriage which had been driven by the artillerymen under the portico where she had so lately gone forth for her drives about the island. The princes in uniform, the princesses walking behind them, and all on foot, passed from the door out to the long avenue of ilex the boughs of which now all but meet above the broad roadway to the entrance gates.

Sir Frederick Ponsonby

The Queen’s Company marched in single file on either side of the procession and the whole cortege moved in slow time.

Duke of Argyll

Thence down the hill to the red-roofed town and to the banks of the Medina, and so on board her little yacht, the Alberta, which she had used so often in crossing from and to the mainland.

Randall Davidson, Bishop of Winchester

Clement Smith and I (not in robes, but with ribbons, medals, etc.) walked with the late Queen’s Household, immediately behind the ladies, to Trinity Pier. Then he returned home, wishing to conduct the Saturday Service in his own Church, and I embarked with the Household on the ‘Victoria and Albert’.

Sir Frederick Ponsonby

It was a lovely still afternoon and the immense crowd was most impressive.

Duke of Argyll

At the mouth of the river was the guard-ship, the Australia, which was to give the signal for the fleet’s salute. There, stretched away to the eastward from that guardship, the magnificent array of battle-ships and cruisers lay upon the waters to the distant horizon off Portsmouth. For leagues along the gray wintry waters the line of the British fleet was visible, and far off, near Ryde, could be seen other warships, apart from the regular rank of the floating forts that lay so low and so darkly on the silver tide. These others were the ships of the Germans, and yet another powerful vessel under the command of a gallant French admiral.

Cecilia, Countess of Denbigh

Cecilia Clifford. Married Viscount Feilding, later 9th Earl of Denbigh in 1884.

I went on the Scot, where both Houses were embarked. We steamed out and took up our position between the last British ship and the first foreign ships of war, on the south side of the double line down which the procession was to pass. The day was one of glorious sunshine, with the smoothest and bluest of seas.

Cosmo Lang, Vicar of Portsea

Portsmouth Harbour

I went to the Fort at the entrance of the harbour. The two long shores converging on the harbour bar were crowded by masses of people, all in black. There was the strangest silence I have ever known. It could literally be felt. It was so deep and tense that when two children talked at a distance of some 300 yards it seemed an intolerable intrusion. It was a beautiful day, a day of summer rather than of January, the sky clear and the sea blue.

Cecilia, Countess of Denbigh

After a while a black torpedo destroyer came dashing down the line signalling that the Alberta was leaving Osborne.

Cosmo Lang, Vicar of Portsea

Portsmouth Harbour

Suddenly the silence was broken. A sound smote upon the heart. It was the sound of the guns from Osborne across the water telling that the Queen’s body was being saluted by the Fleet.

Duke of Argyll

As the salute proceeded, came the flash and report from one ship after another along that line of eleven miles, the minute-guns answering from ironside to ironside, and then flashing and rolling forth again their thunder from the west to the east in continuous shocks of sound.

Cosmo Lang, Vicar of Portsea

Portsmouth Harbour

Then, through the long lines of battleships, stretching in a curve from Cowes to Portsmouth, came the little yacht Alberta bearing the body. The yacht was preceded by six torpedo-destroyers moving black and silent like dark messengers of Death sent to summon the Queen. The Alberta – small, slight, but dignified, passing through the huge ironclads, seemed strangely like the Queen herself.

I shall never forget the booming of the great guns as the little ship with its precious freight moved slowly down the lines. The sound was varied only by the strains of Chopin’s Funeral March, played by each ship’s band as the body passed.

Cecilia, Countess of Denbigh

We could see the motionless figures standing round the white pall which, with the crown and orb and sceptre, lay upon the coffin. Solemnly and slowly, it glided over the calm blue water giving one a strange choke, and a catch in one’s heart as memory flew back to her triumphal passage down her fleet in the last Jubilee review. As slowly and as silently as it came the cortege passed away into the haze.

Duke of Argyll

The silver and gray of the sea was clouded with the smoke, which, drifting in a haze that became golden as the sun declined, was brightened by stronger light near Portsmouth, whose people, in dense, black, silent masses, fringed all the shore. They then made out the little yacht with its bright standard, ahead of the two larger vessels, the Osborne and the Victoria and Albert, which in turn were ahead of the great gray Hohenzollern, the floating palace of the German Emperor. All glided slowly into harbor, passing Nelson’s old flag-ship.

Cosmo Lang, Vicar of Portsea

Portsmouth Harbour

Then – the most moving thing of all – just as the Alberta entered the harbour, the sun set in a rich glow of tranquil glory. I heard an old General behind me cough, clear his throat, and say as it were to himself, ‘H’m; nothing will persuade me that Providence didn’t arrange that!’ So the sun set over the haven where the Queen would be.

Randall Davidson, Bishop of Winchester

The scene crossing the Solent was beyond question the most solemn and moving of which I have ever had experience. The ‘Alberta’ gliding silently out of sight into Clarence Yard just as the sun set and the gloom of evening fell. I do not envy the man who could pass through such a scene dry-eyed.

Lady Edith Lytton

Travelling with the Queen’s coffin on HMY Alberta.

No words can express the beauty of the day. The colour of the Crown, the Royal Standard (and) Union Jack put in perfect folds – the white & gold satin pall over the coffin all looked so splendid & then all the uniforms. Only the Princesses & ladies were in the dreary black & very bad it looked.

Mary, Duchess of Cornwall and York

One of the saddest finest things I have ever seen, a mixture of great splendour and great simplicity, a never to be forgotten sight on the most perfect of sunny days.

LONDON

Mary Monkswell

3.30 p.m. I have just been up St. James’s St. & Piccadilly. Most of the houses are hung with purple, & on all the lamp posts hang great round wreaths of evergreens. This decoration is quite a new idea, & was carried out by a Miss Close, who lives in Eaton Square. She writes to the ‘Times’ that hundreds of these wreaths arrived directly she asked for them ‘from the highest of the land to the very lowest, some of whom carried theirs many miles’. I think that is lovely.

The Times

The first objects that attract the eye are the dark green wreaths suspended from the lamp posts. This happy idea originated with Miss Etta Close, of 101, Eaton-square. Miss Close formed a committee of ladies, and issued an app...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Prologue
• Act I: Another Year Begun
• Act II: The Angel of Death
• Act III: A Country in Mourning
• Act IV: Chaos & Confusion
• Act V: Rest in Peace
• Epilogue
• The Family of Queen Victoria in January 1901
• Sources & Permissions
• Acknowledgements