Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1901 — BURIAL OF A QUEEN [ARTICLE]

BURIAL OF A QUEEN

/ictoria’s Remains Borne with Splendor to the Tomb. GRIEF Asl ID POSIP. I Spectacle One of Combined Magnificence and Humility. 4* Royalty Pays Final Homage to the Dead t overeign- Victoria’s Journey to Ejtrtb from Whence She Came and Over Which She Ruled—Most Imposisg l'agrant in World’s History —Guns Thun-.ler Their Grie ' in Sonorous Salute. The scenes of solemn pomp which were Inaugurated at_ Cowes Friday and which were -brouglrt-to--a~ek>se~Saturday with, the solemn services at Windsor are probably unparalleled in the history Of funer»al pageantry. All England apparently rested hushed and thrilled in the mournful consciousness that it was to say a final farewell to its queen, and the world at large could not but be impressed by the remarkable ceremonial in which national grief displayed itself. It would seem, from the fact of her expressed wish for a military funeral, that Queen Victoria desired that in the rites nothing should be omitted to emphasize the dignity of queenhood. Victoria the woman, the “mother of her people,” was assured of the sincere mourning of all classes. The recent ceremonies were those due the monarch ,and the wearer of the crown. The file of warships between which the vessel bearing the Queen’s coffin passed—in itself a visible evidence of the strength of the nation —the wail of bands and the thunder of guns and the great military cortege which awaited the body at London—all the features of the ceremonial were suggestive in some way of the regal traditions of a monarchy which traces its origin back to the days of the crusading kings. Journey from Cowes. The first portion of the journey of Victoria to the earth whence* she came and over so large a portion of which she ruled was completed Friday. Through winding lanes of almost summer verdure, through floating walls of steel—bulwarks of the mourning nation—her body was borne; on land by a gun carriage, on water by a royal yacht. As the cannon wended its slow way from Osborne House the afternoon sun shone brightly on the jewels in the crown and scepter placed on the oaken coffin containing the body of the dead sovereign. Over the royal standard covering the casket was draped the ermine coronation gown donned by the youthful ruler so many years before. Behind the cortege' came Kings, Emperors and princes, walking humbly between the black clad lines of sorrowing islanders. All the colors of a dozen royal courts were massed in the uniforms of the rulers of a half dozen nations and their trains. The sunlight gleamed from the hilts of jeweled swords and gemmed decorations. When the journey through the cedarhedged path was ended there followed a sight notable and impressive. It was the transit of the funeral yacht across the waters between walls of warrior steel.

Gnns Thunder Grief. Battleship after battleship thundered its grief, bund after band wailed its dirge, and. crew after crew bowed low their heads as the pigmy yacht swept past. It bore no passengers save an admiral oil the bridge and four red-coated guards at the corners of the simple, gleaming white bier resting amidships. It was a picture that neither a painter’s brush nor an orator’s eloquence could depict. There swept in advance eight venomous, black torpedo boats, crawling so slowly that the water was scarcely rippled. Then came the solitary royal yacht bearing apparently no living thing. Admiral Fullerton, in a cocked hat, was a motionless silhouette, the four figures at the corners of the coffin seemed to be of,stone. The boat slowly glided on in the mellow light of the afternoon sun, itself almost golden in hue, sharply contrasting with the black warships, while the nearest shore seen between the warships was itself deeply fringed with mourning by the presence of myriads o 4 human beings. The Alberta emerged from the smokecrowned steel lane, the last gun was Weed, the sun sank behind a cloud, a new moon hung low in the winter sky, the anchor dropped in Portsmouth harbor, and the first part ofirVictoria’s last journey came to nil end. Somehow the pomp and parade was not Incongruous and one felt that it was all a great and majestic tribute to a reign which was an era and to a sovereign to whom the world has paid its highest honors. Victoria LnKl to Rest. In the scenes witnessed Saturday the historic character of the ceremony was emphasized both in the pageantry and in the environment wherein they took place. The body, after it hud been borne across London, from Victoria to Puddington station, was taken to Windsor, the historic home of English royalty since the days of the Norman conquest. There, in St. George’s chapel, a beautiful structure hung with the escutcheons and banners of her royal ancestors and reminiscent in every stone of some chapter of English history, final services were held and the Queen's body lifted for the last time, was homo thence to the prince consort's mausoleum at Frogmore. Here is the last resting place of England's Queen. Under the massive granite pnrcophagus, upon the right of which rests the recumbent marble statue of the prince consort, she was laid at rest as she had- commanded thirty-eight years ago. The tablet above the vestibule to the mausoleum bears the legend Inscribed at her own orders in 1802, with the words, “Farewell, beloved! Here at last I will rest with thee; with thee, in Christ, I will rise again.”