Page:The Queens of England.djvu/611

VICTORIA. 547 heralds, with all military pageantry, have, from Temple Bar, the Royal Exchange, and the steps of St. Pauls', proclaimed Edward VII. King of England. Already kings and princes from every country hasten to share in the last sad rites and honor the Queen, who in death, as ever in life, commands the homage of all nations. Never was such a monarch ; never such a reign. The ar- rangements for her funeral, suggested hy her own hand some time ago, show her premonition that when her time should come to "cross the bar," it would be from her beautiful island home overlooking the sea ; and here, indeed, surrounded by her family, her life passed peacefully, without pain, into the Be- yond. For ten days the tired body has rested where she left it. As the march of events and luster of the reign have been phenomenal, so too is pageant of mourning that lines the path of her last stately progress from Osborne to Windsor. A pageant of massed human beings in black, from Portsmouth through London, and along the route to Windsor, silently, and with heartfelt tears, mourn the Queen they loved. The daughter of a soldier ; herself the commander of vast armies ; mistress of the greatest naval power afloat ; and ever interested in and proud of the men who have been the bulwarks about her empire, the Empress wished a military funeral. And so with mental vision we follow, with millions on either side the water, the solemn pomp and pageantry of arms. The oak casket is borne from the house and placed on the gun car- riage by her devoted sailors ; and between a double rank of grenadiers and the Queen's aids-de-camp, the eight horses, each attended by an equerry, followed the company of High- landers, whose bagpipes gave forth the weird music of the Black Watch. The King, the Kaiser of Germany, King of Belgium, fol- lowed by Princes and Princesses, £nglish German, and Danish, walk behind the military carriage that bears the remains to the royal yacht. ' Amid the roll of drums the coffin is borne to the quarter of the Alberta and placed on the catafalque beneath canopy of ruby velvet. Over it is thrown the royal standard, and the ermine coronation robe worn by the youthful sovereign of long ago; and there, too, rested the golden crown and orb. The yacht glides silently into the current, and like a thing of sentient life, unmanned and unattended so far as eye could