Queen Victoria Coronation
The coronation was extremely popular with the public, an estimated 400,000 turned up to observe the occassion, assisted by the development of the railway. In reality, the event which lasted five hours was punctuated by a series of blunders. During the service, the Archbishop of Canterbury put the ring on Victoria's wrong finger and an hour was wasted whilst she sat with her hand in the iced water to remove it.
Moreover, the Bishop of Bath and Wells turned over two pages of the service book by mistake missing the section where Victoria was actually declared Queen, making the ceremony invalid. This was not noticed until Victoria had left the Abbey and she had to come back to do it again.
Just to add to the sense of pantomime, Lord Rolle, aged eighty-two, lived up to his name, tripped and fell down the steps approaching Victoria.
The historian Roy Strong said that "the ceremony of 1838 was the last of the botched coronations",
If you require further information on this item you can contact us in a number of ways. Click here to see our contact information.
Id:3223 Q:0