Tuesday, August 14, 2007

• Yes, yes, I know... I've been gone a while...

  Currently Watching The Duchess of Duke Street - Series 2 see related

  I think I owe you all an apology for being absent from xanga without explanation for so long.  At first it was due to our phone lines being down, (blasted internet service provider/phone companies) then due to general business, then to my trip to Houston to visit dear friends , now to general anxiety due to the begining of college classes.  At any rate, I have tried to keep up with you all, and greatly appreciate your comments about my last post. 

  Lately I have reading a very good biography of Queen Victoria, who was really quite different than my conception of her.  I found this amusing anecdote about her coronation in the book Crown, Orb, and Sceptre: The True Stories of English Coronations by David Hilliam. Apparently, her coronation ceremony, highly ritualized and infused with symbolism, was only rehearsed once, the day before, for only a few minutes.  Since her accident-ridden ceremony, all the coronations have been extensively rehearsed. 

  "In many respects, however, Victoria's coronation was oddly marred by a series of mishaps.  She arrived half an hour late, having driven from Buckingham Palace dressed in a robe of crimson velvet.  Her attendant ladies were quite at sixes and sevens trying to cope with her train, twelve yards long, as well as their own.  Then, after she had been conducted to King Edward's chair, one of her attendants, the octogenarian Lord Rolle, having to walk backwards, stumbled over and rolled down the steps to the throne.  A contemporary writer described how 'the large infirm old man was held up by two peers, and had nearly reached the royal footstool when he slipped throughthe hands of his supporters, and rolled over and over down the steps, lying at the bottom coiled up in his robes.'  Everyone nearby rushed forward to help, including the queen herself, and the sight of the queen's sudden and natural concern was spontaneously applauded by the lords and ladies surrounding her, who had witnessed the affair.

  Then there were problems over the presentation of the orb [apparently Victoria already had it in her hands when the time came to present it to her], and after that the bishops of Bath and Wells clumsily turned two pages of the service order together.  Victoria told him to go back and start that section again.  However, the worst incident of all happened when the Archbishop of Canterbury tried to put the ruby coronation ring on her finger.  Victoria's fingers were so tiny that a new and special coronation ring had been made for her.  Now, fingers can be counted in two ways: either starting with the thumb or else starting witht he index finger, and unfortunately the jeweller wrongly assumed that he should start with the index finger, thus making a ring to fit Victoria's little finger, whereas he should have been making one to fit the third finger.  The good archbishop insisted on ramming this tiny ring on to Victoria's middle finger, thus causing the poor girl agony.  In fact she spent two hours later that day trying to get it off."

  I need to be off, but I hope to return your comments soon..  Toodles!

  • 4:23 PM
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