As instructed I bimbled around to Buck House to see Bigge and get my marching orders.76 He had a gloomy office overlooking the Quadrangle on the ground floor of the draughty and damp old barn, from where he conducted his duties as Vicky’s most senior courtier with all the joy of one who knows that his due reward will have to wait until he’s been reaped. His air of sacrificial duty was accentuated by the drabbest formal clothes, a bald head and a drooping moustache. He was, however, crisp in his manner.
“Ah, Speedicut, sit down. No need to take notes,” I wasn’t going to, “as you’ll be given the programme and a list of your duties when you leave. How much do you know of what is planned?”
“Not a great deal,” I said; he looked pained. “About the detail,” I added quickly.
“Well, although there will be events throughout the summer, the main celebrations are going to take place on 20th, 21st and 22nd June, the 20th being the sixtieth anniversary of Her Majesty Accession. This will be marked by a Service of Thanksgiving at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, followed by Her Majesty taking a drive, meeting the officers of Her Cavalry Guard of Honour and end with the presentation of a poem by the Poet Laureate and a Tattoo in the Castle’s Quadrangle.”
“So where do I come into all of this?” I asked, hoping to God that I wouldn’t have to shepherd the bloody wordsmith, a frightful bore called Austin.77
You see, this wretched fellow had damned nearly sent me to sleep at a ghastly dinner we’d attended a few weeks earlier – thanks, if that’s the right word, to an introduction from Lady Randy – hosted at a gaudy palace on the Thames by some parvenu Yankee (probably of European Jewish ancestry) called Astor. So Searcy told me the following day, this fellow Astor had tried to fake his own death a few years previously, failed to pull it off and was royally lampooned by the gutter press for his pains. In revenge, so Astor told us over the cigars and brandy, he’d decided to buy a national newspaper and had his eye on that unreadable rag, The Observer. Anyway, shortly after the fake-suicide fiasco he’d actually bought a magazine called The Pall Mall Gazette and, to boost his credentials as a putative British newspaper baron,78 he’d also bought a gothic monstrosity of a house on the Victoria Embankment and Cliveden from Hugh Grosvenor,79 who was delighted to be shot of it. Without any prompting, the bounder – Astor that is – told us that he’d spent a brace of a million dollars restoring these houses! But I digress; back to Bigge:
“You will not be involved in the events at Windsor,” he said. I let out a sigh of relief. “Nor will you be involved in the State Banquet and the Imperial Reception here on the 21st June.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Bigge, as a good courtier, looked affronted at my impatience.
“We wish you to use your skills and experience on the 22nd…” I nearly asked which particular ones he had in mind, fornication being the only personal skill I could think of at short notice, but I stopped m’self at the last moment. Instead, I interrupted him.
“What happens on 22nd?” Bigge looked as though he was giving birth to an ostrich’s egg.
“On 22nd June, Her Majesty will Process-in-State through the streets of the capital for the purpose of seeing Her people and receiving their congratulations. During the procession, Her Majesty will stop at St Paul’s Cathedral, where there will be a short Service of Thanksgiving, and at Mansion House where Her Majesty will be Welcomed to the City. On leaving the City, the Royal Procession will cross London Bridge to the South Bank and will then return to Buckingham Palace via Westminster Bridge, Parliament Square, Whitehall and The Mall. There will be seventeen carriages in the Procession with an Imperial Mounted Escort of six thousand, drawn from all of Her Majesty’s Regiments of Horse and Horse Artillery.”
“So where do I come in to all of this?”
“You, Colonel, will be responsible to His Royal Highness The Duke of Connaught for organising the Procession,80 coordinating with the Dean the short outdoor Service at St Paul’s Cathedral and the Welcome at Mansion House with the Lord Mayor.”
“You must be jokin’!” I couldn’t help myself blurting out. Bigge looked as though he was now giving birth to three ostrich eggs simultaneously.
“We do not joke in Buckingham Palace, Colonel.” He drew breath, recovered his poise and ploughed on. “You will, of course, have the full cooperation of the Crown Equerry and a small staff of your own consisting of Major St Albion, whom I believe you know, and a secretary from the Household.”
“Not from the Household: I want my own private secretary.”
“What’s that?”
“If I’m to do this job, Bigge, I require the support of my private secretary, Mr Frederick Searcy, late of Her Majesty’s 2nd Life Guards.” I didn’t say how ‘late’ and he didn’t ask. Instead, he thought for a moment.
“That will have to be at your own expense, Colonel,” he said at last.
“Certainly.” No price was too high to get Searcy on my official ‘team’.
“Then in that case there will be no problem. If you have no further questions, my assistant has a dossier for you to study and he will also show you where your office will be. You start on Monday. I will see you then, Colonel.”
“Just a moment, Bigge,” I said as I levered myself out of the chair, “may I assume that Her Majesty will show her appreciation for the work this is goin’ to entail?”
“There will be a Jubilee Honours List, if that’s what you mean. Whether or not your name will appear in it will depend on how you perform your allotted task.”
Atash drove me back to Stratton Street. Balanced on my lap was a bulky Morocco leather-bound file stamped on the cover: ‘Diamond Jubilee State Procession’. C-G happened to be in the hall when I arrived. Somewhat surprisingly, she did not ask me about my time with Bigge but gave me the glad tidings that we had received an invitation from Lady Randy to dine before the Devonshires’ ball ‘in order to meet my son Winston, who will be back on leave from India’. Before I could protest she said:
“I have, of course, accepted.”
So it seemed that there was no way of avoiding the little bugger. However, under the new circumstances, young Winston was the least of my worries. Searcy was waiting for me in my study.
“I’ve already made arrangements for you to meet with Major St Albion, Colonel. He’s coming here tomorrow for luncheon and has time in the afternoon to go through that,” he said pointing at the book of instructions. “I have informed Her Ladyship accordingly.”
“She didn’t mention it,” I said.
“Doubtless she will later, Colonel, when she asks you about your Jubilee job and its likely rewards. I would hazard that she is expecting nothing less than that you will be appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.”
“Knowin’ my luck, Searcy, I’ll be lucky to be made a Member of the Order of the Boot.”
“Let’s hope not, Colonel.”
“By the way – semi-retired or not – the Palace has agreed to my request that you will work on this project with me.” To my surprise, for I’d thought that being semi-retired he wouldn’t welcome the news, he smiled.
“As I expected, Colonel.” he said rather smugly.
“You’re not indispensable, y’know,” I quipped, for his attitude had caught me at a bad moment.
“No, Colonel?” I chose to ignore this and changed the subject.
“What are you doin’ this evenin’?”
“Ivan and I are going to dine with The Reverend Headlam.” I arched an enquiring eyebrow and Searcy paused. “To, err, welcome Mr Wilde’s return to civilized society.”81
“I had no idea that you knew the old pansy that well.” Searcy in turn ignored this, so I went on: “Well, whatever you’re doin’ tonight, I want you to take this document, go through it and work out who’s to do what, then let me know your thoughts tomorrow mornin’.” That would ruin his evening with the deviant jailbird, I thought, and pay him back for his cheek.
“Very good, Colonel. Although I could let you have my recommendations now.” Recognising when I’d been outmanoeuvred, I told him to sit down and tell me what he expected me to do.
“It seems to me, Colonel, that Major St Albion should look after the Escort. He will have to liaise with General Ewart, the Crown Equerry,82 regarding the carriages.”
“Not ‘Croppy’ Ewart, of the Second Battalion, who led the Donkey Wallopers at Kassassin?”83
“The very same Colonel. I believe that he and Major St Albion are old friends, so the Major shouldn’t have any trouble with Palace politics.”
“Let’s hope not: the damned place is a nest of vipers.”
“Major St Albion will also have to liaise with the Commander-in-Chief with regard to the Escort and the military route liners, of whom fifty thousand will be required in addition to the Metropolitan Police.”
“Fifty thou’!” I let out a low whistle.
“The route is six miles long, Colonel. As to my responsibilities, it so happens that I know the Lord Mayor’s Esquire,” I bet you do, I thought mischievously, “old Colonel Throgmorton,” not a pretty blond boy then, eh? “It would seem to make sense, if you agree Colonel, that I handle the Mansion House event – which leaves you, Colonel, with the Thanksgiving Service at St Paul’s. Dean Gregory and his staff are very efficient,84 so I don’t imagine you’ll find it too much of a burden. I hope you are in agreement with those arrangements?” I nodded. “That being the case, the Dean’s expecting you tomorrow at ten o’clock. Atash will drive you there and you will be back in good time for luncheon with Major St Albion.”
I don’t know if any of my readers have ever had dealings with senior clerics (I don’t count browbeating the local padre). My own experiences have been limited to preserving life when in close proximity to that ass, the late Lord Charles-Henry FitzCharles, and dozing unobtrusively through C-G’s stories about her Orthodox starets and savants. So it should have been with a fairly open mind that I trundled over to the Deanery of St Paul’s the following morning. It’s a dreary building, said to be by Wren but I doubt it, full of equally dreary ecclesiastical officials of the tight-arsed and prune-faced variety. As for the Dean himself, I can do no better than repeat Searcy’s somewhat dire briefing to me before I set off.
“Dean Gregory, Colonel, is a year or two older than you and equally as vigorous. He’s known in the church as ‘the Man of Iron’, he has a reputation as a reformer – his parents were Methodists – and he’s a man of strong principles, stern discipline and deep religious convictions.”
“He sounds perfectly frightful.”
“I couldn’t possibly comment, Colonel, as I’ve never met him: my information comes from his man who’s a member of the Nehemiah. Anyway, in short, he’s not a man to be trifled with and I suggest that you let him run the meeting. It seems that he already has a very clear idea of what is required and I think that all you will have to do is dovetail his plans into the arrival and departure of Her Majesty at St Paul’s and agree with him a whole host of protocol issues on which I’m sure he will have very firm views.”
“So I should just sit and listen?”
“Exactly, Colonel.”
As Searcy handed me up into our carriage, I remembered his encounter of the night before. Whatever I thought about Wilde as a man, which wasn’t much, he was a damnably witty playwright and had been made to pay a very heavy price for Master Bosie’s indiscretions – to say nothing about his being set up by me on the Brotherhood’s orders in order to keep the Cavell-Clarence business quiet.85
“I meant to ask you, Searcy,” I said though the window as our new footman placed a rug over my knees, “how did you find Mr Wilde?”
“A broken man, Colonel,” he replied as the carriage pulled away.
By the time I’d finished with the Dean, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say by the time he’d finished with me, I knew exactly how it felt to be released from prison. Dean Gregory was a great bull of a man, with Gladstonian side-whiskers, who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a prize ring or, given the funereal aura he exuded, in an undertaker’s parlour. His staff were clearly terrified of him. To put none too fine a point on it, he was a shit of the first water and an arrogant one at that. He’d barely asked me to sit down in his austere office, whose only colour was the flushed faces of the simpering ecclesiastical minions who ranged themselves behind him, before he launched into his plans for the Service of Thanksgiving.
It was clear that he had no interest in my views or any intention of taking any notice of anything I said. Without so much as a ‘by your leave’, and with his juniors sycophantically chorusing their approval at the end of his every pronouncement, he described the elaborate Service he’d planned to be held inside the Cathedral. Then, without drawing breath, he went on to dictate the seating plan, the line-up inside the West door, the procession to the dome, the Order of Service booklet, and the exit down the aisle. Finally, he turned back the clock to the moment of The Queen’s arrival.
“So that is what will happen, Colonel. Your job is merely to deliver Her Majesty to the steps of the Cathedral and then collect her an hour later when the Service is over.”
“An hour?” I blurted out, for I was sure that Bigge had said the service wouldn’t be more than ten minutes.
“An hour. Nothing less will do justice to the solemnity of the occasion,” he said with considerable firmness.
“But…” I started to say; he cut across me and completely ignored my protest.
“You are doubtless aware, Colonel, that Her Majesty is rather lame,” I wasn’t but it came as no surprise given her limited height and enormous embonpoint, “and I have anticipated that she will have trouble with the steps of the West Transept.”
“But the Service is supposed to be outside…” He ignored this.
“I have decided, therefore, that there will be an open sedan chair placed at the foot of the steps and four of my sacristans will carry Her Majesty up them and into the Cathedral.”
“Like the Pope?” I managed to interject.
“Not at all like the Vicar of Rome. There are no Popish ways permitted here.”
“No indeed,” chorused his acolytes.
“But, even if the Palace agrees to hold the Service inside, surely it won’t be a very dignified entry?” I managed to say without being ordered to the stake.
“What on earth do you mean?” he barked, as the priestlings looked outraged at my presumption to challenge the Iron Dean.
“Acceptin’ that your sacristans are able to bear The Queen’s weight, surely - given the incline – Her Majesty will be in danger of fallin’ out of the back of the chair goin’ up and pitchin’ forward on the return?”
“I’ve already considered that,” he said with a look of considerable superiority, “the poles of the chair will be carried on the shoulders of the sacristans and I have engaged two short men for the front and two tall men for the rear carrying positions on the way up and vice versa on the way down. Her Majesty’s seat will, in consequence, remain parallel with the ground as the sedan chair ascends and later descends the steps.”
“I’m not sure that Her Majesty’s Private Secretary will like this idea,” I said. There was a collective gasp from the clerics and the Dean’s colour changed from funereal white to baptismal pink. “He may consider it undignified.”
“He may consider it whatever he likes,” snapped the Dean. “It’s what is going to happen. I’m in charge here and what I say goes.” The subject was clearly closed and the dratted prelate moved on to what was to be done with the Escort and the empty carriages whilst the Service was in progress.
An hour later I was back at Stratton Street, Algy arrived shortly afterwards and, after a light luncheon of foie gras, poached salmon, a confit of duck, some sherry trifle and an excellent stilton, I took my old friend off to my study where Searcy joined us and proceeded to outline the main points of the Procession and its attendant events.
“I see a potential problem in all of this,” said Algy when Searcy had finished his briefing.
“Only one?” I queried.
“Well, one big one: how the hell are we to control the Procession, particularly with the Colonial troops taking the lead? The Indian Cavalry will be steady enough, as will the Canadian Hussars and the Natal Carbineers, but the Dyaks of North Borneo and the Cypriot Zaptiehs are another matter altogether.”
“You raise a good point,” I said, “Searcy?”
“I think that there is a reasonably practical solution, gentlemen. If you each take the place of the Life Guards’ Field Officer and the Escort Commander and ride on Her Majesty’s carriage, you can control the one bit of the Procession that really matters.”
“That’s won’t work,” I said flicking through Bigge’s book of words. “It states here quite plainly that The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Cambridge are ridin’ on the carriage, followed by the Duke of Connaught in his role as Officer Commandin’ the Procession. Any further thoughts?”
“Not at present, Colonel.”
“Well, I’ve got another clutch of problems for you to get your brain cells workin’ on.”
“Colonel?”
“It’s this business of the damned Service. It far too long, its inside and Bigge’s certain to veto the idea of The Queen bein’ carried into the Cathedral - and the Dean’s equally certain to insist on all three. I’ll be caught between a rock and a very hard place.”
“Leave it with me, Colonel.”
But despite doing so, Searcy didn’t come up with a solution and over the following weeks I got caught in the crossfire between two very big guns. To his credit, however, Searcy did come up with an answer to Algy’s point. I put it to Bigge at our next meeting.
“I will, of course, have to discuss it with Her Majesty,” said the sepulchral courtier when, after a heated but inconclusive discussion about the events at St Paul’s, I proposed it. “It’s an unusual idea, but – unlike the length and location of the Service and the Dean’s chair - I think I can persuade Her Majesty.”
He did and so it was, that on the morning of 22nd June 1897, Algy found himself just behind Bobs at the head of the procession,86 clad in the fancy-dress uniform of a Cypriot General. We’d all had to get up damnably early, for the Escort was so long that its head passed Buck House whilst Vicky was still munching her way through her bacon and eggs. Meanwhile, Searcy and I were changing in the Palace Guard Room into Highland dress for our roles as The Queen’s Highland servants who, since the dratted John Brown of un-sacred memory instituted the tradition, had replaced the usual footmen and sat behind the old trot on whichever carriage happened to be struggling to pull her along. For this procession, the Crown Equerry had selected a new open-topped landau pulled by eight Hanoverian creams with four postilions and eight footmen, all decked out in full State Livery of velvet jockey caps, powdered wigs, scarlet and gold coats, white britches and topped boots. All Searcy and I had to do – in addition to making sure that during the Procession the carriage stayed on course and that nothing untoward happened to our charge - was hand Vicky into the landau and then be on hand to get her in and out at St Paul’s and at journey’s end.
Shortly after eleven o’clock The Great White Queen, walking with the aid of a large white parasol, and the rest of the royal party emerged through the Grand Portico into the Quadrangle where we waiting for them. Vicky looked like an overweight and overdressed black pudding, garbed as she was in a voluminous black silk dress with panels of silver-embroidered grey, a chiffon cape and an absurd bonnet, adorned with a diamond aigrette whose sale would have solved the National Debt and from which protruded the tail feathers of several ostriches. Searcy and I handed up Alix and Princess Christian,87 whilst Bertie, Connaught and Cambridge were levered onto their mounts. Then, in our roles as the Jocks-in-Waiting, we handed the old girl up into the landau (thank God there were two of us as I’d never have heaved her enormous bulk into the vehicle on my own). As we did so she gave me a beady-eyed stare.
“And how is your dear Indian servant, Mr Karachi, Colonel?” she trilled in her high pitched voice. For a moment I couldn’t think who she meant, then I remembered how she’d commandeered Khazi around the time that Bertie nearly popped his clogs from typhoid.
“He was an Afghan, Your Majesty.”
“No, no, Colonel, you are quite wrong there, for he taught me to speak Hindoostani.” What he taught her was Persian, with hilariously obscene consequences, if I remembered rightly.88 “Such an excellent man and of such noble bearing. I trust he is well.”
“As well as can be expected Ma’am, given that he lies six feet under in a foreign field.”
“What can you mean, Colonel?”
“That he was felled by a Boer, Ma’am, durin’ the Jameson Raid.” The Queen puckered her nose.
“How sad, but we will not speak of that ignominious chapter of our rule in southern Africa. Mr Rhodes is a great man and he has done much to expand our Empire and to bring Christian civilisation to the poor, ignorant natives, but his methods…” She sniffed. “That said, the most unwise and intemperate intervention of our eldest grandson was – whatever the circumstances - quite unforgivable.” She sniffed again as she settled back into her seat opposite Alix and Princess Christian. Shortly afterwards the carriage was rolling through the front gate, headed by more mounted foreign royals than you could count and followed by their womenfolk in sixteen four-wheelers.
Some of my readers will have seen the show at the Paris Cinematograph,89 so I won’t trouble you with the details of the gaudily bedecked route from the Palace or of the heaving masses of the great unwashed who lined it fifty to a hundred deep. From our lofty perch behind The Queen, Searcy and I probably had a better view than her and certainly than any of the spectators, including C-G for whom I’d managed to secure a seat in the Royal Household stand at the head of The Mall. All went well - until we got to St Paul’s.