markable; for the portraits of Anne, after her coronation, are rather vulgarly laden with crown, sceptre, necklaces, and heavy decorations. The original is inserted into the panels of the gallery of St. George at Windsor Castle. It is a fine and firmly painted specimen of Kneller's pencil. As the designs for the queen's medallion portraits were then executed, her costume partakes of classic simplicity of the numismatic art; her hair is arranged in the style of her well-known coinage profile. The portrait is sitting; the air and attitude are decidedly majestic, if not graceful; the dress is chiefly concealed by the flowing mantle of the order of the Garter, excepting the star on the side: The features are stronger and harsher than those generally recognised in the soft and comely visage of queen Anne; at the same time, they are indicative of far more natural energy, personal courage, and practical abilities. The only ornament on her person, the medallion of St. George, is partly concealed by the hand of the queen. It is traditionary, that Kneller pleaded with the queen to assume this attitude, in order to give him an opportunity of painting the most beautiful hand in England; and assuredly the hand in her Windsor portrait is a study worthy of any artist, both for the easy manner in which it rests on the medallion, and for its own elegance of form and pictorial finish. Anne's Kensington portrait is drawn in the same noble and simple style of art; but her hand is not raised, and the medallion of St. George is consequently entirely visible. In Anne's subsequent portraits, her vast profusion of chestnut hair is arranged in heavy falling curls on her shoulders and breast; the state crown surmounts it; the jewelled collar of the Garter supersedes the broad azure ribbon of the elder Garter order. There is, withal, an outspread of finery peculiarly unbecoming to a very fat woman. The public prints resume their journalizing of the queen's movements, as follows:: "London, April 11.-The queen took the divertisement of hunting on Wednesday, about Windsor, and returned on Thursday to her royal palace at St. James's." This hunting was performed in her high-wheeled chaise. "We hear there is struck to the value of 12001. or more, in coronation medals of 50s. a piece, to be distributed in Westminster Hall among those of quality." 1 Postboy, No. 1077. The queen had again lost the use of her feet, from gout and corpulence; an infirmity which made the important ceremonial of her coronation very fatiguing, and even embarrassing to her; on this account, she was carried in some of the processions in a low arm-chair,' instead of walking. The coronation took place, April 23, O. S. 1702; St. George's day being the seventeenth anniversary of that of her father. About eleven of the clock in the morning, her majesty came privately in a sedan-chair from her palace at St. James's, to Westminster Hall, from whence she was carried to the Court of Wards, where she reposed herself, while the heralds set the preparations in order in the court of requests, the painted chamber, and the house of lords, marshalling the several classes of the nobility as they were to proceed down the Hall. Prince George of Denmark was preceded in the entrance procession by the archbishop of Canterbury, and the lordkeeper of the great seal. He walked before his royal consort and her group of state attendants. These were, garterking-at-arms, between the lord-mayor and the black rod, then the high steward of England; then the queen's majesty, with a circle of gold set with diamonds on her head, her train borne by the duchess of Somerset, assisted by four young ladies of the bedchamber, and the lordchamberlain, entered Westminster Hall in procession, and after her first robing, seated herself under the canopy on the side of the table, where was provided her chair of state, cushion, and footstool, and a long table covered with rich tapestry. On this table was placed the regalia. The great officers-being the earl marshal (lord Carlisle), the lord high steward (the duke of Devonshire), and the lord high constable-stood ready there, at the command of her majesty, to distribute to its appointed bearers the various pieces which were placed thereon by the master of the jewel house. The procession went through New Palace Yard into Kingstreet, so along the broad Sanctuary, into the west door of the 1 Flying Post, No. 1086. Planché's Royal Records, edited from Bank's Collection, Brit. Museum; likewise from MSS. in the College of Arms, ably collated by Mr. Planché. 3 Edward the Confessor's Sanctuary was then standing, according to the account of Dr. Stukeley. Abbey church, all the way being covered from the steps of the throne at the King's Bench, to the steps of the royal platform in the church, with broad blue cloth two breadths in width, spread upon boards railed in on each side. This footway for royalty was as usual strewn with sweet herbs and flowers; the month was April, and the day of St. George is usually most redolent of the early glories of spring. Formerly the poor commonalty used to break in and cut away "the rayed cloth," almost as fast as the steps of the sovereign had passed over it, for it was considered the fee of the populace. But now blue cloth took the place of the striped or rayed cloth, and royalty lined the way with guards. Strange it was that when the prerogative of crown and church were many degrees higher, the populace of England surrounded their monarchs without an idea of harming them. Queen Anne, like her father and uncle, retained the title of sovereign of France. As part of the pageantry she likewise retained, at her coronation, two gentlemen, dressed to represent the dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine. This antique custom has been omitted in the latter coronations, with some wrong in regard to the dukedom of Normandyat least, since our queen still enjoys a very goodly inheritance, in the beautiful Channel Islands, as rightful duchess of Normandy; more especially, as the high-spirited descendants of the Norman chivalry, inhabitants of the said islands, consider that England, and all its people and dependencies, appertain to them, and not they to us. When the representatives of Normandy and Aquitaine, (who, we are concerned to record, bore the homespun names of James Clark and Jonathan Andrews,') were called by the heralds to take their places, they stood at the foot of the steps leading up to the queen's canopy, in Westminster Hall, but did not go up nearer to her throne. It is certain that, on account of the queen's infirmities of the feet, she was relieved from the fatigue of walking in the procession from the Hall to the Abbey-" she took the conveniency of being carried in an open chair," says a contemporary," from Westminster Hall along by the Broad Sanctuary, the houses on each side being crowded with 1 They were two gentlemen of the privy chamber. spectators, who rent the air with cries of joy when they beheld their queen." Whether her majesty alighted from her chair, on entering the Abbey, and took her place in the procession, as it proceeded up the choir, or was carried to the foot of the platform, is not mentioned. The queen, whether she walked or was carried, had nevertheless a long train,' which was borne, according to ancient custom, by the peeress of the highest rank among the female aristocracy of England. The lady who was entitled to perform this office, on this occasion, was the personal friend of her majesty, the heiress of the illustrious house of Percy, and wife to the representative of lady Katherine Gray, called the proud duke of Somerset, who took his place as the nearest relative of the blood-royal, then in the country. Lady Elizabeth Seymour aided her mother in the office of train-bearer, with lady Mary Hyde (one of the queen's first cousins), and lady Mary Pierrepoint, then a girl of thirteen, only remarkable for the promise of surpassing grace and beauty, but afterwards still more celebrated as the first among the female literati of her country, under the name of lady Mary Wortley Montague. Even if the queen went in her chair up the choir, it need not excite surprise that her train was borne; for, at royal christenings, the baby always had a long train, with train-bearers, although carried in another person's arms. The queen was escorted by the lord chamberlain, lord Jersey, she was supported by the bishop of Durham and the bishop of Exeter, and guarded by the late king's favourite, Arnold Keppel, earl of Albemarle, who was still retained as captain of the royal guard; he was the only person of king William's Dutch colony, who had ever shown any civility to queen Anne, who did not now forget his courtesy and humanity. The mere ceremonial of the coronation proceeded, in all respects, according to the ancient precedents, which have been too often detailed in the course of this series of royal biographies to need repetition, our plan being only to enter into narration, where accidental or personal circumstances occasioned an alteration. The recognition was performed 1 It must have been passed over the low back of the chair in which she sat, and so borne behind her by the duchess of Somerset, and the noble maidens, her assistants. in the old accustomed manner, the queen rising and standing by her chair while Tennison, archbishop of Canterbury, presented her to the people with these words, turning her and himself to the four sides of the platform-east, west, south, and north, and repeating the query each time: "Sirs, I here present unto you queen Anne, undoubted queen of this realm! Whereas all you that are come this day to do your homages and service, are you willing to do the same?" 1 The people answered, with loud and repeated acclamations, all crying out, with one voice, " God save queen Anne. The trumpets sounded after the conclusion of the recognition, and the choir burst into this anthem-"The queen shall rejoice in thy strength, O Lord: exceeding glad shall she be of thy salvation! Thou shalt present her with the blessings of goodness, and shalt set a crown of pure gold on her head." While the anthem was singing, the archbishop went down from the platform, and put on his splendid cope before the altar, the bishops vested themselves, and the officers of the wardrobe spread the carpet and cushions on the floor and steps of the altar. The formula of the coronation, from the earliest times, appointed two bishops to support the person of royalty during the ceremonial; this office, if antique illuminated MSS. may be trusted, was that of supporting St. Edward's crown, on each side, if it did not happen to fit the royal head on which it had descended. Thus the stalwart warrior, Edward I., is represented with a bishop on each side extending a hand to sustain the crown of St. Edward by one of its ornaments. The bishops had probably held it over the heads of the crowned children. Henry III., Richard II., Henry VI., and Edward VI. The custom had been lost since, for when the large crown, which had been made, in the place of that of St. Edward, destroyed in the civil war, to fit the head of the queen's uncle, Charles II., tottered on the less powerful brow of her father, it was his false servant, Henry Sidney, supported it, and not his faithful, but ill-treated bishop Ken, of Bath and Wells. Queen Anne required the actual aid of sustaining hands to support her person in a standing position; singular as it is, she was the only infirm person ever 1 Planché's Regal Records, p. 113. |