When Queen Victoria died on the Isle of Wight inside Osborne House on the 22nd January 1901,
there was great panic and worry inside of royal circles.
Victoria had ruled since June 1837, and she was at that time the longest reigning monarch
of any in British history, ruling for 63 years and 216 days.
At half past 6 in the evening with her son and successor surrounding her, and her eldest
grandson the Kaiser of Germany, she passed away surrounded by her family and her favourite
dog was laid upon her deathbed.
But Victoria had written instructions for her funeral years before, but there was a
great stress as a state funeral had not been planned for some time, and certainly one not
of the scale of Victorias.
There was no one alive who had a recollection of the death of a former monarch, and with
this the planners of the funeral were greatly stressed.
The Queen after her death was dressed in a white dress and she wore her wedding veil,
but then many members of her family assisted helping lift her body into the coffin but
the funeral was already going wrong before the body was even sent back to the mainland.
One of the first issues with Queen Victoria’s funeral and the moments after her death is
that the royal undertakers when they were summoned from London forgot something very
important.
They travelled to the Isle of Wight having forgot the coffin, the very vessel in which
she would be buried, so a local carpenter on the Island was found and it was he who
designed and created the Queens coffin.
This must have been an honour for him, but then when this arrived at Osborne House, along
with the royal undertakers, and her family, Victoria’s body was laid inside of the coffin.
Inside this wooden box, the dressers and doctors put a number of mementos inside of it, including
one of her husbands dressing gowns along with a plaster cast of his hand.
Also they placed a lock of John Brown’s hair Elizabeth’s Scottish attendant who
she was greatly fond of, and also John Brown’s mother’s wedding ring was also placed in
the coffin.
But Queen Victoria’s funeral was scheduled for Saturday 2nd February and would take place
at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle, but the final journey was a stressful one.
Because no one seemed to known the procedure with a royal burial, the historians and secretaries
in the royal family were frantically searching what the ettiquette was.
There were also no photographs for reference and it was said, ‘The ignorance of historical
precedent in men whose business it is to know is wonderful.’
The panic occurred straight after her death, but despite Victoria making specific demands
for her burial, things went wrong from the start.
Victoria requested that she did not want to be embalmed, and she did not want her entrails
and heart removing.
This had been used in the Tudor period as even Elizabeth I’s heart was cut out and
was placed in a lead casket, despite the fact the Tudor Monarch left specific instructions
for this not to happen.
Victoria also wanted to not have a death mask cast, but upon the insistence of Kaiser Wilhelm
II this was done which was not fair.
Victoria also said that she did not want to lie in state, and instead she wanted a military
and state funeral.
But as there was no coffin, the under taker also arrived asking for the Queen’s measurements
which shocked her relatives.
Kaiser Wilhelm was shocked by the problems, and he said, ‘ “It is always like this.
When an ordinary, humble person dies, everything is arranged quite easily and with reverence
and care.
When a ‘personage’ dies, you fellows all lose your heads and make stupid mistakes which
you ought to be ashamed of.
The same happens in Germany as in England: You are all alike!”
But the Kaiser then took matters into his own hands, and he then forbade the undertaker’s
assistant in touching Victoria saying that it should be the family and courtiers who
deal with her body.
One witness, the Bishop of Winchester said ‘If the occasion had been a less grave and
solemn one, there would have been much that was humorous in the emperor’s harangue to
the rather dull undertaker’s assistant.
The emperor frightened the poor fellow into helpless obedience.
The man was simply terrified.
“He was so unsuitable a person, as it appeared to me, that we declined to leave him (as he
wished) in the room to take the necessary measurements, and as a matter of fact the
measurements were taken by the emperor, Sir James Reid, and myself, under the direction
of the man, who stood by and told us exactly what he wanted.
It was altogether a curious scene.”
So Victoria was to be placed inside an oak shell coffin which would then be placed inside
a mahogany outer coffin, but this did not also arrived in time.
It was then said that the Queen’s private doctor inside of the chamber ‘put a layer
of charcoal on the floor of the coffin and then the Kaiser, King Edward, Mrs Tuck Victoria’s
head dresser and myself lifted the Queen's body into it.
I helped Mrs Tuck put a satin dressing gown on the Queen and she arranged her hair and
veil and then I packed the sides with bags of charcoal in muslin.”
There was further arguments between different nobles and the Lord Chamberlain ad to who
had the right to make the funeral arrangements.
But the plans for Victoria’s funeral were rushed through and were made very quickly.
Victoria wanted to be buried with respect and to have a simple funeral, and many of
these requests shocked those who had been close to her.
She was a woman who for much of her life wore black, but she wanted a white funeral, and
for the coffin to be draped in white, and she wanted her country to mourn her wearing
black clothes.
But there was confusion as to what the royal family should wear, and the Queen’s granddaughter
wrote, ‘“There was great consternation and bewilderment in the Lord Chamberlain’s
office, as well as in the Royal Family, as to what was the correct mourning for the Sovereign.
“It was 64 years since such a tragic event had taken place.
No one knew what should be worn; old prints and pictures of long ago were studied to see
how to bring up to date and modernise the cumbersome trappings of mourning.”
Regarding the momentos that Victoria wanted placing in the coffin including John Brown’s
items, this was kept a secret it’s believed even from members of her close family.
But the chaos in London continued as the funeral edged closer, and and on the 1st February
the Queen’s coffin was transported to the royal yacht, the Alberta.
Local mourners gathered and watched the ship set sail, and 40 warships escorted the yacht
and fired a salute in honour, and the funeral march by Chopin (Show Pan) was played on every
ship.
It was said of this tribute that, ‘“Hardly less solemn and striking than yesterday’s
great historic Naval pageant was the night vigil on board the funeral barge, where the
late Queen may almost be said to have lain in State upon the bosom of the waters over
which till a few hours ago she held such regal sway.
“The coffin was guarded all night by trusty Marines … Outside the basin lay the Victoria
and Albert, with the King and other royal mourners on board … beyond them the long
array of warships, forming a glittering lane, scintillating with myriads of lights, and
extending, as far as the eye could reach, across the still, dark waters of the Solent.”
But then on the 2nd February, it was raining heavily but thousands of mourners crowded
the streets of London to pay their respects to the Queens.
It’s believed that there were around 1000 spectators who were injured in a crush to
see the parade.
But after the train journey to Windsor, a procession from the station to St George’s
Chapel started, and things then went wrong.
The horses were very cold, and they then pulled the gun carriage carrying Victoria’s coffin,
but this then broke free and it ran off in the distance.
It was a huge mistake and mishap, and with this a royal tradition was then born as it
was proposed that 138 naval guards should pull the carriage to the chapel with ropes,
but those who were in charge of the horses ‘were furious and were incredibly humilated.’
Because of the problem with the coffin and the horses, the procession to the chapel slowed,
and some in the crowd got restless.
It was said, ‘“You could hear a band in the distance, but nothing was happening.
Then Queen Alexandra came tearing out, looking this way and that way, before Clarendon persuaded
her to go back into the chapel.”
But the funeral party then got to the church, and the service continued with very few issues.
It was said of the service that, ‘“Glorious music, beloved by the Queen, rose from organ
and choristers.
The white coffin, with its gleaming crown and orbs, was lifted onto the bier above the
throng standing around it.
“The words of hope and peace and faith of the burial service were said; the herald proclaimed
the departure of one mighty sovereign and the accession of King Edward VII, and then
gradually the mourners left, and the banners in the gorgeous array above the dark carved
pinnacles of the chancel walls drooped alone over the guardsmen, who, in their bearskins
and with arms reversed, remained to watch over the dead.”
But then the committal and the burial was to take place.
This was the stressful part, as the coffin needed taking to the Royal Mausoleum in Frogmore
in Windsor where Prince Albert had been buried.
To avoid further humiliation there was a rehearsal carried out a day before the burial on the
3rd February, but after 2 days of laying in state she was finally interred beside her
late husband.
However in one final blunder, one suspect who was suspected of being mentally ill made
his way into the service and he then had to be led away.
But it was believed that the final simply part of the funeral of Queen Victoria was
what she wanted, with sleet turning to snow outside too.
Queen Victoria was at the time the longest reigning monarch in British History, and she
oversaw huge expansion with the British empire.
However surrounded by her close family she died at the house on the Isle of Wight that
she greatly loved.
But her funeral and the procession was not short of mistakes and things that went wrong,
and there was a huge degree of stress for those who planned the royal funeral.
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