Out one must go again. I must be seen to be about, to wave at my people, and so: here I am, going to Parliament again for the State Opening with the Princess of Wales and Princess Beatrice – such dull conversation, Bertie the Prince of Wales being away in India on his own State visit. Such a rush, always such a rush, the people need to see me. I am such public property. I look at them from the carriage, such a dark miserable day, really it is not to be borne. How the carriage does bump and tumble, as if the ground were most uneven. Whatever is going on? It is the strange weather, they say, the sleet, that and a peculiar collection of filth and objects all over the ground. And why on earth has it not been cleared away? I shall make a deal of fuss over this. Standards are slipping everywhere. I quite miss Osborne, I’ll get out of London as soon as I am able, really it is quite spoiled to me. I shall return to the Isle of Wight. There’s no warmth here, I feel I shall never find warmth again. What a public thing I am, to be pushed out here and there for their gratification. Well I may wave a little I suppose. I can hardly see them this morning, I suppose they are out there. Truly, one sometimes feels that one’s the only real person left and all the rest are dolls. And I am the Queen and they must make such a fuss of me. I do wave a little, yes I saw some of them there, they have flags. Well then, along we trundle – such bumpiness! Beatrice looks like she may lose hold of her breakfast, she had better not. I give her a look and she seems to understand. Down The Mall, turn into Whitehall, very well, very well. There are the officers, yes indeed they do look fine, a little shine to them, does one good I suppose. Everything must be kept in order. Down we head towards Parliament. What a lot of children there are! Really, should they be out on the road like that? What’s going on? Why do they wave at me like that, with panic in their faces, they’re shouting! They’re shouting at me! Good G—! I shan’t look at them. They’ve been rounded up now, pushed back, I wonder what that was about. It’s rather put me out of sorts, I must say. To see the children so wild.
Ah, here we are now, the Royal Entrance. The Union Flag is tugged down and the Royal Standard hoisted up in its place.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
What? What! It is all well. Calm now, calm. It is as it should be, the forty-one-gun artillery cannonade fired from Hyde Park and from the Tower, yes, yes quite right. I had quite forgotten it for a moment.
And here are the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain ready to receive me.
Quite right.
Yes, all in order, let us get this over with. No children now I suppose, can’t get at me from behind the gates.
‘Don’t go in! Don’t go in!’
Awful children again. Calling!
‘Good morning, ma’am.’
I nod at the people come to greet me.
‘Don’t go in, it isn’t safe! A trap!’
‘A trap!’
‘What,’ I say, ‘is all this fuss?’
‘Nothing to worry over, ma’am, just some children over-excited. Please, ma’am, shall we go in.’
‘By all means. Find out what is going on, won’t you?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It is perfectly safe. Some children a little excited, no doubt. If there’s anything untoward it shall be sorted out. And those children will most certainly be reprimanded. Come along now, you’re inside, nothing to worry over.
‘Ma’am.’
‘Ma’am.’
We have progressed into the Robing Room, very good then. They’re all bowing about me and muttering, I’m not much in the mood for talking, not now, I do feel a little put out. As if they don’t care for me any more, my people. Well, one must get on. Ah, there’s Admiral Clifford, that’s something I suppose.
‘Ma’am.’
‘There’s was some fuss outside, Sir Augustus.’
‘Yes ma’am, all under control now.’
‘What was it?’
‘Some children, ma’am, wanting to see you.’
‘They seemed, Sir Augustus, to be warning me. Is everything quite as it should be?’
‘Yes, indeed, ma’am. The Houses have been inspected from top to bottom, the Yeomen of the Guards have thoroughly searched.’
‘No gunpowder then?’
‘Oh no, ma’am, none at all, only … some dirt.’
‘Dirt?’
‘In the cellars, ma’am. Some odd objects, somehow amassing.’
‘I don’t want to hear of it.’
‘No, ma’am, only to assure you that everything is perfectly safe.’
‘Of course it is, Clifford, why even are we talking about it?’
‘I do beg your pardon, ma’am.’
‘Are you trying to worry me?’
‘Quite the opposite, ma’am, I do assure you.’
‘I do not scare easily.’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Anything else to report, Clifford?’
‘Not exactly, ma’am.’
‘Spit it out. I shall see the minutes, I shall demand them from Ponsonby the moment I’m back at the Palace.’
‘Rats, ma’am, there have been … well, some rats.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then catch them! Then kill them. I do not need to be concerned about a couple of rats scurrying about in the cellars.’
‘More than a couple, ma’am.’
‘How many?’
‘Hard to say exactly … perhaps as many as a hundred.’
‘Disgusting!’
‘Yes, ma’am, as you say.’
‘Well have them exterminated. How on earth did they get in?’
‘It seems, ma’am, it seems perhaps, well, there have in general been more of them … rats, you see, since the burning of Forlichingham.’
‘Do not talk to me of that place!’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Now the day is utterly ruined. I must remain calm. Rats here, rats all about, makes one shudder to think of it. I thought, I was told, that all would be well once Forlichingham was destroyed. But now the dirt has come back into the city. I have seen great mounds of rubbish. I have, the Queen has. And if I have seen them, I for whom everything is cleaned and made wholly hygienic, I say if I have seen rubbish then how much is there, how much filth and dirt is there beyond my sight? Daily I am given reports of a spreading disease, daily, and this strange illness apparently can be caught by objects, by touching objects, or that objects themselves may grow ill and die. I do not fully understand.
‘Ma’am.’
They put the robes on me. Well then, there is order, very good. I may be calm now, I must be calm, it must be some twenty minutes after eleven o’clock and soon I must go into the chamber. There now, deep breath, very good. Oh Albert, what a terrible winter we are having. How they all busy themselves about me, dressing up their doll, I must look very splendid, of course, of course.
What is that indecent fireplace doing? That doesn’t belong here, who put that marble monstrosity there? Female caryatids with barely a stitch on, I don’t like the look of that at all. It is on castors now and being rolled away, but why on earth was it ever here? And who is that strange woman in the terrible clothes, and the awful mob cap and all those pearls, what is she doing here, and why does she grin at me so, she’s not supposed to look at me like that, who on earth is that old crone?
‘Who are you? What are you doing?’
‘Good morning, ma’am. I’m here to get you ready.’
‘Who are you, I say?’
She comes in close, too close, far too close, her ancient fingers about my person. She whispers in my ear, ‘You may say I am Viscountess Refuse, Duchess of Debris, the Honourable Septic-tank, the Dowager Dungheap, Lady Muck.’
‘Get away, woman!’
But then Clifford comes in.
‘Are you ready, ma’am? It is nearly time.’
‘I say when it is time,’ I cry, and then take a breath and recover myself. ‘I do apologise, Sir Augustus. Of course, I must go now, into the chamber. It is very nearly half past the hour?’
‘Very well, let us in.’
I am most happy to be away from the horrible woman, how she kept grinning at me, her old fingers about my person. I shall have her punished, it is not to be countenanced. Still I may worry over that later. But good heavens who is here now? I cannot believe it, there are Lady Rossman and the Countess of Cardigan!
‘Clifford, come here!’
‘Ma’am.’
‘What are these women doing here, Rossman and Cardigan?’
‘They are here for your Opening, ma’am.’
‘I am not about to be opened, sir, and you will find that both Rossman and Cardigan have chosen to marry commoners and so have lost all their rights to the peerage!’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘So remove them!’
‘Now, ma’am?’
‘Instantly!’
What a fuss they make of it, but really they should know better! The marshal of the North Stairs leaves off his position to the Royal Gallery just to have the horrible women removed. Some of the ladies are not in full dress. I am most perturbed! And look at these children here, I shall have all children barred from the ceremony on future occasions. So then. Here at least is the Duke of Richmond, and Gordon bearing the Sword of State. That is much better, and beside him is the Marquis of Windsor with the Cap of Maintenance, very well then. That is good. That is quite right.
I look down at my star of the garter, at the sash of Empire, all is as it should be, do be calm, do calm. But then … what is that pinned there? Something new, something that I never saw before. Some new badge. I was not informed about it. I think it was the old woman who put it there, why whatever is it, it’s some sort of a leaf, it is a bay leaf I think. What on God’s earth does that signify? As if one were being readied for the pot.
Well, well, in we go, do not think of that now, the ceremony is set and well oiled, merely follow the path. I am guided along, I know the route, I have done this before often enough. I progress along the Royal Gallery, people bow to me either side, all is well, all is well. There was a man there who looked so like Albert, so like him, well then that’s a good sign is it not. Certainly it is. Very well then, I am ready.
Slight pause in the Prince’s Chamber as I am announced. All is as it should be.
I hear the peers rising.
In I go, to my golden throne.
I sit. All stand before me. The princesses at my side, on my left the Duchess of Teck.
I am holding my sceptre and my orb.
I look about my peers, and they all look at me; it’s crowded in the gallery, all the correct people in attendance. All come to see me. I’ve had a good breakfast, yes indeed, some kidneys and a good slice of tongue, two eggs, claret and whisky because of the weather and a little pearl-barley soup, plenty of fuel. It is very light in here, all gas of course, the sun giving so little help, but I am glad of the bright light. I look at these, the very best of my people, and it seems to me, among the wigged heads, that I see Albert again, so many faces so like his. I am unwell, I think, I am unsteady. How can those faces be his? And yet, and yet they are. Albert, young again. Here and there and there and there!
I mean to call out! I mean to cry out. But, no, no, I must not. I must do my duty, I must open Parliament. Calm, calm as a clam. Something strange in the bright light surely, all can be explained, I’ll ask Sir Henry Thompson, my physician, he’ll know, he knows all the strangenesses of the human corpus. But he cannot explain the creeping disease, he does not know why my globe is ill, why my watercolours cannot be painted with and why my pillows have been damp these last nights.
Do not think of that, not now.
Concentrate.
Calm as a clam. Be Imperial.
Quite right.
In a minute the gentleman with the title of Black Rod shall go to fetch the Members of Parliament from the House of Commons, there shall be another big bang when the doors to the Commons are shut in his face, all according to tradition, and then, well then another big bang or rather great knocks by Black Rod upon the door. Three in all shall be sounded and then the door shall open and all the Commons shall come in, in all their ghastly hubbub, Disraeli and Gladstone at the head, and then the Lord Chamberlain shall deliver my speech for me.
So then.
There goes Black Rod.
Bang!
That’s the noise of the doors slamming.
They shall be here soon enough, there’s no stopping them.
The House of Lords 11:32 8th February 1876, Moments Before the Arrival of the Members of Parliament