welcome to her remarkable history remember to support our Channel please subscribe Queen Victoria's disastrous funeral when Queen Victoria died on the Isle of Wight inside Osborne house on the 22nd of January 1901 there was great panic and worry inside of Royal circles Victoria had ruled since June of 1837 and she was at that time the longest reigning monarch of any in British history ruling for 63 years and 216 days at half past six in the evening with her son and successor surrounding her and her oldest grandson the Kaiser of Germany she passed away surrounded by
her family and her favorite dog was laid upon her deathbed but Victoria had written instructions for her funeral years before but there was a great stress as a state funeral had not been planned for some time and certainly one not of the scale of Victorious there was no one alive who had a recollection of the death of a former Monarch and with this the planners of the funeral were greatly stressed the queen after her death was dressed in a white dress and she wore her wedding veil but then many members of her family assisted helping
lift her body into the coffin but the funeral was already going wrong before the body was even sent back to the mainland one of the first issues with Queen Victoria's funeral and the moments after her death is that the Royal Undertakers were then summoned from London and they forgot something very important they traveled to the Isle of Wight having forgot the coffin the very vessel in which she would be buried so a local Carpenter on the Ireland was found and it was he who designed and created the coffin for the queen this must have been
an honor for him but then when this arrived at Osborne house along with the Royal Undertakers and her family Victoria's body was laid inside of the coffin inside this wooden box the dressers and doctors put a number of mementos inside of it including one of her husband's dressing gowns along with a plaster cast of his hand and they also placed a lock of John Brown's hair Victorious Scottish attendant who she was greatly fond of and also John Brown's mother's wedding ring was also placed in the coffin the Queen Victoria's funeral was scheduled for the Saturday
the 2nd of February and would take place at Saint George's Chapel in Windsor Castle but the final Journey was a stressful one because no one seems to know the procedure with a royal burial the historians and secretaries in the royal family were frantically searching with what the etiquette was there was also no photographs for reference and it was said the ignorance of historical precedent in men whose business it is to know is wonderful the Panic occurred straight after her death but despite Victoria making specific demands for her burial things went very wrong from the start
Victoria requested that she did not want to be embalmed and she did not want her entrails and heart removing this had been used in The Tudor period as even Elizabeth the First's heart was cut out and was placed in a lead casket despite the fact that Tudor Monarch left Specific Instructions for this not to happen Victoria also wanted to not have a death Mass cast but upon the insistence of Kaiser Wilhelm II this was done which was not fair Victoria also said that she did not want to lie in state and instead she wanted a
military and state funeral but as there was no coffin The Undertaker also arrived asking for the Queen's measurements which shocked her relatives Kaiser Wilhelm was shocked by the problems and he said it is always like this when an ordinary humble person dies everything is arranged quite easily and with reverence and care when a personage dies you fellows all lose your heads and make stupid mistakes which you ought to be ashamed of the same happens in Germany as in England you are all alike but the Kaiser then took matters into his own hands and he then
forbade The Undertaker's assistance to touch Victoria saying that it should be the family and courtiers who deal with the body one witness the bishop of Winchester said if the occasion had been a less grave and solemn one there would have been much that was humorous in the employer's harnerage to further dull Undertaker's assistant the emperor frightened the poor fellow into helpless obedience the man was simply terrified he was so unsuitable a person as it appeared to me that we declined to leave him as he wished in the room to take the necessary measurements and as
a matter of fact of the measurements were taken by the emperor Sir James Reid and myself under the direction of the man who stood by and told us exactly what he wanted it was altogether a curious scene so Victoria was to be placed inside of an oak shell coffin which would then be placed inside of a mahogany outer coffin but this did not arrive in time it was then said that the Queen's private doctor the side of the chamber put a layer of charcoal on the floor of the coffin and then the Kaiser King Edward
Mrs tuck Victoria's head hairdresser and myself lifted the Queen's body into it I helped Mrs tuck put a satin dressing gown on the queen and she arranged her hair in Veil and then I packed the sides with bags of charcoal in muslin there was further arguments between different Nobles and the Lord Chamberlain had two who had the right to make the funeral arrangements but the plans for Victoria's funeral were rushed through and were made very quickly Victoria wanted to be buried with respect and to have a simple funeral many of these requests shocked those who
had been close to her she was a woman who for much of her life wore black but she wanted a white funeral and for the coffin to be draped in white and she wanted her country to mourn her wearing black but there was a confusion as to what the royal family should wear and the Queen's granddaughter wrote there was great consternation and bewilderment in the Lord Chamberlain's office as well as in the royal family as to what was the correct mourning for The Sovereign it was 64 years since such a tragic event had taken place
no one knew what should be worn old prints and pictures of long ago were studied to see how to bring up to date and modernize the cumbersome trappings of mourning regarding the mementos that Victoria wanted placing in the coffin including John Brown's items this was kept a secret it's believed even from members of her close family but the chaos in London continued as the funeral edged closer and on the 1st of February the Queen's coffin was transported to the Royal yacht the Alberta local mourners gathered and watched the ship set sail and 40 warships escorted
the yacht and fired a salute in honor and the funeral march by Chopin was played on every ship it was then said of this tribute that hardly less solemn and striking than yesterday's great historic Naval pageant was the night vigil on board the funeral barge where the late Queen lay almost be said to have Lane in state upon the bosom of the water over which till a few hours ago she held such Regal sway the coffin was guarded all night by trusty Marines outside the base in lay the Victoria and Albert with the King and
other Royal mourners on board Beyond them the long array of Warships forming a glittering Lane scintillating with myriads of light and extending as far as the eye could reach across the still dark Waters of the solent but then on the 2nd of February it was raining heavily but thousands of mourners crowded the Streets of London to pay their respects to the queen it's believed that there were around 1 000 Spectators who were injured in a crush to see the parade but after the train journey to Windsor A procession from the station to Saint George's Chapel
started and things then went wrong the horses were very cold and they pulled the gun Carriage carrying Victoria's coffin but this then Broke Free and it ran off into the distance it was a huge mistake and mishap and with this the Royal tradition was then born as it was proposed that 138 Naval guards should pour the courage to the chapel with ropes but those who were in charge of the horses were Furious and were incredibly humiliated because of the problem with the coffin and the horses the procession to the chapel slowed and some in the
crowd got restless you could hear a band in the distance but nothing was happening the Queen Alexandra came tearing out looking this way in that way before claddon persuaded her to go back into the chapel but the funeral party then got to the church and the service continued with very few issues it was said of the service that glorious music beloved by the queen Rose from organ and choristers the white coffin with its gleaming crown and orbs was lifted onto the beer above the throng standing out the words of Hope and peace and Faith of
the burial service were said the herald proclaimed the departure of one Mighty Sovereign and the Ascension of king Edward VII and then gradually the mourners left and the banners in the generous array above the dark carved Pinnacles of the chancel drooped alone over the Guardsmen who in their baskings with arms reserved remained to watch over the Dead but then the committal and the burial was to take place this was the stressful part as the coffin needed taking to the Royal mausoleum in Frogmore in Windsor where Prince Albert had been buried to avoid further humiliation there
was a rehearsal carried out a day before the burial on the 3rd of February but after two days of laying in state she was finally interred beside her late husband however in one final blunder one suspect who was suspected of being mentally ill made his way into the service and there he had been LED away but it was believed that the final simple part of the funeral of Queen Victoria was what she wanted was sleet turning to snow outside too Queen Victoria was at the time the longest reigning monarch in British history and she oversaw
huge expansion with the British Empire however surrounded by her close family she died at the house on the Isle of Wight that she greatly loved but her funeral and the procession was not short of mistakes and things that went wrong and there was a huge degree of stress for those who planned the Royal Funeral thank you for watching and to support please subscribe to her remarkable history thank you
