VII
Under these circumstances, the' meaning' of royal ritual was further
developed and extended. Assuredly, the political power and personal
appeal of the monarch, the attitude of the media, the condition of
London and the state of technology, all of which had changed
profoundly during the previous period, remained unaltered. As
before, the monarch was the father of his people, and the patriarch
of Empire, and the royal ceremonial was as splendid and successful
as in the days of Esher. Yet, paradoxically, it is such very real
elements of continuity which both disguise and explain changes in
'meaning'. For it was the very fact of continuity, at a time of internal
unrest and international revolution, which imparted to royal ritual
in England those attributes of uniqueness, tradition and permanence
which, in the previous period, they had so conspicuously lacked. It
was not so much despite, as because of, the continuity in style and
circumstance, that the 'meaning' of royal ritual altered once more.
Moreover, the impression of continuity and stability was further
enhanced by innovation, as new ceremonials were invented. One such
series of innovations was centred on Queens Consort. During the
period from the 1870s to the 1910s, no spouse of a monarch had died:
Albert predeceased Victoria, and Alexandra outlived Edward. In this
third phase, however, the role of the Queen Consort and Queen
Dowager became important, and this was reflected in royal ritual.
At her death in 1925, Queen Alexandra was accorded a state funeral
which owed more to the precedent of her late husband than to Prince
Alberf.l86 Again, there was a lying-in-state (this time in Westminster
Abbey), followed by the procession through the streets of London
and then the private interment at Windsor. And, in the case of Queen
Mary in 1953, the ceremonial resembled that of the monarchs
themselves even more closely, for she actually lay in state in
Westminster Hall. Equally new was the fact that, so as to give
maximum proof of family solidarity, Queen Mary attended the
coronation of her son as George VI, another novel precedent which
was followed by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1953.186
The two public funerals of dowager queens were not the only new
royal occasions invented during this period. Because of the age of
Victoria and Edward, there were few weddings of the monarch's
children during the second period, the last being in 1885 when
Princess Beatrice married Prince Louis of Battenberg. But with two
relatively young kings on the throne between 1910 and 1953, the
potential for ceremonial derived more from the rites of passage of
the earlier stages of the family life cycle was enhanced. In 1922,
Princess Mary married Viscount Lascelles, and George V took the
occasion to transfer royal marriages back from the privacy of
Windsor or the Chapel Royal to the streets of London, by staging
the ceremony in the Abbey, with a full procession beforehand.l87 As
the duke of York explained, the result was a great public success:
'it is now no longer Mary's wedding, but (this from the papers) it
is the" Abbey Wedding" or the "Royal Wedding" or the "National
Wedding" or even the "People's Wedding"'.188 This was followed
in 1923 by the marriage of the duke of York, the first time a prince
of the royal house had been wed in the Abbey for five hundred years.
In 1934, the duke of Kent was also married there, and in 1947 so
was Princess Elizabeth. But, significantly, the wedding of the duke
of Gloucester, which took place in 1935, was staged in the relative
seclusion of the Chapel Royal at Buckingham Palace, for fear that,
in jubilee year, there might be too much royal ceremonial, and that
its scarcity value might be eroded.189
But the novelty of Abbey weddings for royal children and state
funerals for dowager queens was far surpassed by the Silver Jubilee
of George V, for which, again, there was no exact precedent, the
twenty-fifth anniversary of Victoria's accession having fallen at
exactly the time of Albert's death and her seclusion. Once more, the
innovation was a great success, arousing widespread feelings of
enthusiasm and support. In Lord Salisbury's opinion, the occasion
represented 'an astonishing testimony to the deeply founded stability
and solidarity of this country and empire under Your Majesty's
authority' .190 And Ramsay Macdonald, who described the service on
jubilee day as 'glowing with emotion', was even more moved by a
reception for the Dominion prime ministers: 'Here the Empire was
a great family, the gathering of a family reunion, the King a paternal
head. We all went away feeling that we had taken part in something
very much like a Holy Communion' .191 The idea of the monarchy
as secular religion could not be more explicitly articulated. But the
most extensive and, it seems, realistic appraisal of the popular feeling
which the jubilee evoked is summarized in Harold Nicolson's
biography:
There was pride in the first place, pride in the fact, that, whereas
the other thrones had fallen, our own monarchy, unimpaired in
dignity, had survived for more than a thousand years. Reverence
in the thought that in the Crown we possessed a symbol of
patriotism, a focus of unison, an emblem of continuity in a rapidly
dissolving world. Satisfaction in feeling that the sovereign stood
above all class animosities, all political ambitions, all sectional
interests. Comfort in the realisation that here was a strong,
benevolent patriarch, personifying the highest standards of the
race. Gratitude to a man who by his probity had earned the esteem
of the whole world. King George represented and enhanced those
domestic and public virtues which the British regarded as specifically
their own. In him, they saw, reflected and magnified, what
they cherished as their own individual ideals- faith, duty, honesty,
courage, common sense, tolerance, decency and truth.192
Whether such sentiments, expressed on this occasion, should be seen
as evidence of the success of mobilizing bias or as a genuine
efflorescence of collective opinion, or whether, indeed, they were
some combination of the two, will no doubt remain a matter for
debate. But that such feelings existed cannot be contested.
The remainder of the pageants of this period were of the type
already established in the preceding phase of development. George
V's funeral was an act of thanksgiving for the king who had survived
the war and weathered the peace. 193 George VI's coronation was an
extravagant, imperial re-affirmation of the stability of monarchy
after the interruption of the abdication. And, again, his funeral was
a further expression of national appreciation for a man who had not
wished to be king, but had triumphed over war and a stammer by
a strong sense of duty. The records of Mass Observation record
widespread grief, shock and sympathy, so much so, indeed, that it
seems likely that Richard Dimbleby's famous radio commentary
describing the lying-in-state at Westminster Hall did in fact embody
the feelings of the majority of his audience:
The oak of Sandringham, hidden beneath the rich, golden folds
of the Standard. The slow flicker of the candles touches gently the
gems of the Imperial Crown, even that ruby that Henry wore at
Agincourt. It touches the deep, velvet purple of the cushion, and
the cool, white flowers of the only wreath that lies upon the flag.
How moving can such simplicity be. How real the tears of those
who pass by and see it, and come out again, as they do at this
moment in unbroken stream, to the cold, dark night and a little
privacy for their thoughts ... Never safer, better guarded, lay a
sleeping king than this, with a golden candlelight to warm his
resting place, and the muffled footsteps of his devoted subjects to
keep him company ... How true tonight of George the Faithful is
that single sentence spoken by an unknown man of his beloved
father: 'The sunset of his death tinged the whole world's sky. '194
The contrast between this proud, loyal, reverential, popular broadcast,
and the savage Times editorial on the occasion of the death of George
IV, well illustrates the extent to which popular attitude towards royal
ceremony and royal occasions had altered.
The last great ceremony in this sequence, successfully conflating
monarchy and empire, stressing stability in an age of change, and
celebrating the continuity of Britain as a great power, was the
coronation of Elizabeth 11 in 1953. For it was still avowedly an
imperial occasion, with the queen's dress containing embroidered
emblems of the dominions, with regiments of Commonwealth and
colonial troops marching in procession, with the prime ministers of
the Dominions and India present in the Abbey, and an assortment
of heads of state from various exotic colonial protectorates.195 At the
time, it seemed as though the threats and challenges of the war and
austerity period had been surmounted: the empire was still largely
intact; the problem of Indian independence and republican status
within the Commonwealth had been triumphantly resolved; Churchill
was back at 10 Downing Street; Britain had once more asserted her
place as a great power; there was a new Elizabethan age around the
corner. All this was not only implicit, but was self-consciously
articulated at the time of the coronation. According to the Delhi
Express,
the second Elizabethan era begins on a note of spiritual buoyancy
which Britain has never experienced before. At no time in British
history has she enjoyed the moral prestige which the Commonwealth,
including Britain, now commands.
In this excessively euphoric context, it is not entirely surprising that
the archbishop of Canterbury should feel that Britain was close to
the Kingdom of Heaven on Coronation Day, or that Elizabeth
herself should make her ringing declaration of faith in the future. 196
The appeal of this sequence of ceremonies is well gauged by the
high level of commercial exploitation and commemoration. Once
more, at jubi