THE IRON DUKE'S FUNERAL.
On the 11th of November the Parliament met and voted the Duke a public
funeral in the City cathedral of St. Paul's, by the side of Nelson,
the great soldier and the great sailor bearing each other company in
their resting-place, in the middle of the people whom they had saved
from foreign dominion.
The hearse with the body had left Walmer at seven o'clock on the
morning of the 10th, minute guns being fired in succession from the
castles of Walmer, Deal, and Sandown, startling the sea-mews hovering
over the Goodwin Sands, causing the sailors in the foreign vessels in
the Downs to ask if England had gone to war. From the railway station
in London, the coffin was escorted by Life Guards to Chelsea, where it
was received by the Lord Chamberlain and conducted to the great hall
for the lying-in-state, which occupied four days.
The fine old hospital, where so many of the Duke's soldiers had found
refuge, which Wilkie had painted for him at the moment when the
pensioners were listening to the reading of the Gazette that announced
the victory of Waterloo, was carefully prepared for the last scene but
one of a hero's life. Corridors, vestibule, and hall were hung with
black cloth and velvet, and lit with tall candles in silver
candelabra. Trophies of tattered banners, the spoils of the many
victories of him who had just yielded to the last conqueror, were
surmounted by the royal standard; Grenadiers lined hall and vestibule,
their heads bent over their reversed arms. A plumed canopy of black
velvet and silver was raised over a dais, with a carpet of cloth of
gold, on which rested the gilt and crimson coffin. At the foot of the
bier hung the mace and insignia of the late Duke's numerous orders of
knighthood; and on ten pedestals, with golden lions in front, were the
eight field-marshals' batons of eight different kingdoms, which had
been bestowed on him. On the ninth and tenth pedestals were placed the
Great Banner and the banner of Wellesley.
The Queen and Prince Albert came privately with their children, early
on the first day, a windy, rainy Saturday in November, to view the
lying-in-state.
On the night before the funeral the coffin was removed to the Horse
Guards, over which Wellington had so long presided, where it is said
that in the early days of his career he met Nelson. Early next morning
the coffin was conveyed to a pavilion on the parade, whence it was
lifted to the car which was to convey it to St. Paul's.
Not later than six o'clock on the morning of the 18th, the troops in
large numbers began to muster in Hyde Park, under the direction of the
Duke of Cambridge. The streets and windows were lined with seats
covered with black cloth. Barriers were raised at the mouths of the
side streets in the line of route, to prevent the danger of any side
rush. In the dread of missing the sight, hundreds of people took up
their position the night before, and kept it during the dark hours, in
spite of wind and rain. All the richer classes were in mourning;
indeed, whoever could bring out a scrap of black did so. There was a
peculiar hush and touch of solemnity, which had its effect on the
roughest in the million and a half of spectators.
At a quarter before eight, nineteen minute guns were fired in the
park, the walls of the pavilion were suddenly drawn up, revealing the
funeral car and its sacred burden. Instantly the troops presented arms
for the last time to their late commander, and the drums beat "a long
and heavy roll, increasing like the roll of thunder." The words "to
reverse arms" were then given, and the funeral procession began to
move. First came battalion after battalion of infantry, commencing
with the rifles, the bands playing "The Dead March in Saul," the
trumpets of the cavalry taking up "the wailing notes." "As the dark
mass of the rifles appeared, and the solemn dead march was heard, the
people were deeply affected, very many of both sexes to tears....
Great interest was felt as the Duke's regiment, the 33rd, passed."
Squadrons of cavalry were succeeded by seventeen guns; the Chelsea
Pensioners, old men, like him whose remains they followed, to the
number of eighty three--his years on earth; one soldier from every
regiment in her Majesty's service, to say that none had been left out,
when their leader was borne to his grave; standards and pennons;
deputations from public bodies--Merchant Taylors' Company, East India
Company, and the deputation from the Common Council of London, joining
the procession at Temple Bar; more standards, high officials,
Sheriffs, and Knights of the Bath; the Judges, members of the
Ministry, and Houses of Parliament; the Archbishop of Canterbury; the
Lord Mayor of London carrying the City Sword; His Royal Highness
Prince Albert, attended by the Marquesses of Exeter and Abercorn--
Lord Chamberlain and Groom of the Stole; the Great Banner, borne by an
officer, and supported by two officers on horseback; the Field-
marshals' batons--each carried by a foreign officer of high rank--
which every country in Europe, except France and Austria, had
entrusted to the care of the Great Duke. To the imposing scene to-day
France, like an honorable enemy, sent a representative; but Austria,
still smarting under the affront to Haynau, was conspicuous by
absence. The English Field-marshal's baton was borne on its cushion by
the Duke's old comrade in arms, the Marquis of Anglesey. The Duke's
coronet followed. Then the pall-bearers--eight generals in mourning
coaches. At length the huge funeral car, heavily wrought and
emblazoned and inscribed with the names of the Duke's battles, drawn
by twelve horses, with five officers on horseback, bearing the
banneroles of the lineage of the deceased, riding on either side. On
the car was placed the coffin, and on the coffin rested the hat and
sword of the dead commander.... Every emotion, save that of solemn
awe, was hushed. The massive structure moved on its course with a
steady pressure, and produced a heavy dull sound, as it ground its
path over the road.... But the car, apart from its vast size, passed
unnoticed, for on its highest stage rested a red velvet coffin, which
contained all that was mortal of England's greatest son. It seemed
that a thousand memories of his great and long career were awakened at
the sight of that narrow tenement of so great a man.... The voice
which had cried "Up, Guards, and at them!" at the critical moment on
the afternoon of that rainy Sunday at Waterloo, thirty-seven years
before, was silent for ever. The sagacious and skilled brain which had
planned so well the defence of London from the threatened outbreak of
the Chartists, would plan no more for Queen and country. No longer
would the shouting crowd press round him on every gala, and strangers
watch patiently near the Horse Guards for one of the sights of London--
the eagle face of the conqueror of him who conquered Europe.
"No more in soldier fashion would he greet,
With lifted hand, the gazer in the street."
Wellington was making his way from the Horse Guards for the last time,
attended by such a mighty multitude as seldom waits on the steps of
Kings, hardly ever with such mute reverence as they gave him that day.
The "good grey head" of "the last Great Englishman" was about to be
laid in the dust, and his best epitaph was Tennyson's line--
"One that sought but duty's iron crown."
Behind the car came the chief mourner, accompanied by his younger
brother, with cousins and relatives to the last degree of kindred, and
friends filling a long train of mourning coaches. Then followed what
moved the people more than all the splendour, because it came like a
touch of homely nature appealing to all, in a familiar part of the
life that was gone, the late Duke's horse, led by John Mears, his aged
groom. The horse might have been "Copenhagen," which had borne the
Duke in the thick of his greatest battle, and died long since at
Strathfieldsaye, so eagerly did the crowds gaze on it. More carriages
and troops closed the march.
And she was not absent who had held the dead man in such high esteem,
whom he had so loved and honoured. From two different points--as if
she were reluctant to see the last of her old friend--from the balcony
of Buckingham Palace, where the Royal Standard floated half-mast high,
as the funeral passed up Constitution Hill, and again from the windows
of St. James's Palace, as the melancholy train went down St. James's
Street, the Queen, surrounded by her children and her young cousins
from Belgium, looked down on the solemn pageant.
Nearly twenty thousand privileged persons--many of them of high rank,
filled St. Paul's, black-draped and gas-lit on the dark November day.
After the funeral company were seated, the body, which had been
received at the west entrance by the Bishop of London and the other
clergy of the Cathedral, was carried up the nave to the chanting of "I
am the Resurrection and the Life." The spurs were borne by one herald,
the helmet and crest by another, the sword and target by a third, the
surcoat by a fourth, the foreign batons by their foreign bearers, the
English baton by Lord Anglesey.
Among the psalms and anthems, a dirge accompanied by trumpets was
sung, "And the King said to all the people that were with him, rend
your clothes and gird you with sackcloth and mourn. And the King
himself followed the bier. And they buried him; and the King lifted up
his voice and wept at the grave, and all the people wept. And the King
said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a prince and a great
man fallen this day in Israel."
An affecting incident occurred, when, at the conclusion of this dirge,
the body was lowered into the crypt to the "intensely mournful" sound
of "The Dead March in Saul." As the coffin with the coronet and baton
slowly descended, and thus the great warrior departed from the sight
of men, a sense of heavy depression came on the whole assembly. Prince
Albert was deeply moved, and the aged Marquess of Anglesey, the
octogenarian companion in arms of the deceased, by an irresistible
impulse stepped forward, placed his hand on the sinking coffin that
contained the remains of his chief in many battles, and burst into
tears.
"In the vast Cathedral leave him;
God accept him, Christ receive him."