This year marked the 40th anniversary of my appointment as a herald, one of the human playing-cards who turn out in colourful costumes to lend a splash of colour to state occasions overseen by the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk. We knew that we would be mobilised for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, but of course hoped that the day would never come.
I was at my club when the news arrived. Following the drill, I immediately rang the Garter King of Arms, our boss, who told me to report to the College of Arms at 8am the following morning for briefing. Thus began a marathon that ended with us marching for nearly four miles, through London and Windsor Great Park, in full ceremonial dress, leading the procession that carried Her late Majesty to her final resting place.
The dress rehearsals took place in the small hours. For the funeral itself, we left the College of Arms at midnight and didn’t get back until daybreak. The porter’s saintly wife kindly cooked us breakfast, which was at least a treat. On some days we had only two hours’ sleep; fine for the younger members, but gruelling for those of us of riper years.
The Proclamations of the King came on 10 September. Mourning was set aside for a day; flags flew at full mast and we were still fresh. After donning our heraldic tabards at St James’s Palace, we lined up in the Armoury while the black-clad members of the Accession Council trooped out from the Acclamation in the Throne Room; some greeted us as they went.
With the state trumpeters we passed through the window onto the roof overlooking Friary Court and flanked the Earl Marshal and Garter King of Arms, who read the Proclamation after a loud fanfare. The wording has barely changed since Queen Victoria’s time. After more trumpets, the soldiers below gave three cheers for the new King and the national anthem was sung. For most people “King” replaced “Queen” for the first time.
The ceremony at the Royal Exchange was more spacious; we led the Lord Mayor’s procession from the Mansion House through phalanxes of steel-helmeted and breast-plated pikemen from the Honourable Artillery Company. The City does things well, and with a hint of opulence. There were dozens of dignitaries in sable-trimmed robes, the scarlet-and-gold-uniformed City Marshal, the Lord Mayor’s chaplain, Mgr James Curry, and the sword-bearer, Tim Rolph, whom the press dubbed “the boy in a fur hat”. He happens to be in his forties.
There Clarenceux King of Arms read the Proclamation standing next to the Lord Mayor, Alderman Vincent Keaveny, with the heralds ranged on either side and banks of liveried worthies on the steps behind. The fanfares were especially impressive; there were two lots of trumpeters, who answered each other from the Corinthian porticoes of the Mansion House and the Royal Exchange. It was a perfect match of setting and action.
Most moving of all was the reception of Queen Elizabeth’s coffin into Westminster Hall on Wednesday 14 September. Standing in silence, waiting for the cortege to come from Buckingham Palace, it struck me what an experience it is to admire great architecture in such circumstances, rather than as a tourist. The part-glazed doors allowed a view of the horses, gun carriage and all the King’s men, and a first glimpse of the coffin draped in the royal standard and topped with the Imperial State Crown.
As the bearer party of young Grenadiers carried the coffin through the door towards us, a ray of sun caught the 3,000 diamonds in the crown, nearly blinding us like a flash of bulbs. The most transcendent moment came when four men from the Household Cavalry took up their vigil posts at the corners of the catafalque, reversing swords and placing their gloved hands on the hilts, then bowing their heads and standing absolutely still. It was like looking at sublime sculpture.
By the time of the funeral, my ability to be moved had become more internalised; in some ways, in retrospect, the overnight rehearsals were as thrilling as the real thing. On the day itself, with all eyes on the processions, I was more concerned with keeping going and maintaining the reserves of stamina and adrenaline needed for the long march, while simultaneously being drained by the emotion and grandeur of it all.
As a Catholic, there was the interest of attending full Anglican traditional liturgy: the lack of frills; the glorious Gothic architecture; the sublime music; the beauty of the 17th-century English words. The “royal peculiars” of Westminster Abbey and St George’s Chapel at Windsor remain the high exemplars of something uniquely English.
There were also heart-tugging moments, especially at Windsor: the sea of flowers that covered the verges leading up to the castle and the lawns inside; Emma, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite pony, by the side of the drive; the blinds drawn in her personal rooms in the Victoria Tower. In the quadrangle were the late Queen’s two young corgis, Muick and Sandy, like orphans led by scarlet-coated footmen. Et in Arcadia Ego.
John Martin Robinson is Maltravers Herald Extraordinary
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