Demise of the Crown: Westminster to Windsor

As the official public record since 1665, The Gazette has been recording the deaths of monarchs for over three centuries. As part of our ‘Demise of the Crown’ series, historian Russell Malloch looks through the archives at The Gazette’s reporting of demise events following the final monarch burial at Westminster Abbey.

Chapters

Introduction

Farewell to Westminster

Knights of the Garter

The three Kings

Death and accession notices

Westminster to Windsor

King George II was the last monarch to be buried in Westminster Abbey, although the church hosted the coronation ritual and the funerals of family members for more than a generation after he died, and The Gazette reported the vault in King Henry VII’s Chapel being opened on several occasions after 1760 to receive the remains of the sovereign’s relatives.

William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was laid to rest in the abbey in 1765, and there were services to grieve for the passing of George III’s brothers and sister, Frederick in 1766 (Gazette issue 10589); Edward Augustus, Duke of York, in 1767 (Gazette issue 10778); Louisa in 1768 (Gazette issue 10835); and Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, in 1790 (Gazette issue 13241). The London church also organised the post mortem services for the King’s mother Augusta, Princess of Wales, in 1772 (Gazette issue 11223), as well as his aunt Amelia in 1786 (Gazette issue 12803).

Each of the late 18^th century ceremonies at Westminster involved a procession, with a senior peer or peeress acting as the chief mourner. That job was performed by the dukes of Dorset (1790), Grafton (1765 and 1767) and Kingston (1766), and by the duchesses of Bolton (1786), Grafton (1772) and Manchester (1768). The coronet of the deceased was carried by one of the kings of arms, and their style and titles were proclaimed by Garter king of arms.

Armed forces

A military element was introduced to the proceedings in 1765, to recognise the military career of the Duke of Cumberland, who was present at the battles of Culloden, Dettingen and Fontenoy, as his canopy was supported by twelve general officers, including Jeffery Amherst, who commanded the recent operations against the colonists in North America (Gazette issue 10573).

The Royal Navy was allocated a similar role at times, and The Gazette of 1767 reported that eight vice-admirals wearing “their uniform coats, black waistcoats, and crepes in their hats” supported the canopy for the Duke of York, who was promoted rapidly from midshipman to the rank of admiral in the Blue Squadron (Gazette issue 10778).

At the last royal burial in Westminster Abbey in 1790, a similar connection was made between the deceased’s membership of the armed forces, and the role that was given to some of those who helped at their funeral. In this instance, the canopy of Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, an admiral in the White Squadron of the Royal Navy, was supported by eight admirals, including Lord Howe, whose defeat of the French fleet in 1794 was the catalyst that led to the creation of the modern system of honours for the armed forces (Gazette issue 13241).

The connection between the forces and the funerals continued well into the Windsor era, which began in the early 19^th century. This was demonstrated during the 20^th century by the field-marshals who acted as pall bearers for Queen Victoria’s son and field-marshal, Arthur, Duke of Connaught, in 1942, and the four and five star officers from the navy, army and air force who performed the same role most recently for King George V’s son, field-marshal and marshal of the Royal Air Force, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1974.

William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland by Reynolds

Knight’s banner

Some of the princes whose funerals were reported in The Gazette were knights of the Garter, and so had heraldic banners and stall plates at Windsor, but William, Duke of Cumberland was the only prince with a similar memorial in Westminster Abbey, having been gazetted as one of the founder knights of the Bath in 1725 (Gazette issue 6376).

The Order of the Bath had followed the Garter’s practice of offering up the heraldic achievements of deceased knights at the next available installation service, and The Gazette of June 1772 reported Cumberland’s banner and crest being placed on the altar in King Henry VII’s Chapel (Gazette issue 11257).

A service for offering up of Cumberland’s Garter banner, along with that of Edward, Duke of York, was held one year earlier, before an installation in St George’s Chapel. That ceremony demonstrated the current royal association with Windsor, as the knights who were installed in the summer of 1771 included the King’s sons George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales (later King George IV) and Frederick (later Duke of York), as well as the King’s brother Henry Frederick, the new duke of Cumberland (Gazette issue 11164).

The Gazettes of the late 18^th century continued the policy of publishing information about mourning arrangements, as illustrated by the notices for the Duke of Cumberland, who was the last prince to be buried in Westminster Abbey. The Lord Chamberlain’s Office announced court mourning from September to November 1790, with an easing of the black dress code and a period of “half mourning” towards the end of that period. The earl marshal’s order indicated that the general measures would also run from late September, and that “all persons do put themselves into decent mourning” (Gazette issue 13238).

The Gazette’s different treatment of British and foreign princes was evident from the provisions for lamenting the passing of four well-known monarchs during the last decade of the 18^th century. The Gazette did not publish the ceremonials for the funerals of Frederick the Great of Prussia, or Catherine the Great of Russia, but the Lord Chamberlain’s Office announced mourning for the Prussian king in 1786 (Gazette issue 12782), and the Russian empress in 1796 (Gazette issue 13966). A similar situation arose after Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed, as The Gazettes of January and October 1793 announced that black dress should be worn after the French king and queen met their grim fate on the guillotine (Gazette issue 13496 and Gazette issue 13585).

Windsor burials

The shift in the focus for royal interments from Westminster to Windsor was influenced by plans made by George III’s brother William Henry, Duke of Gloucester.

Apart from the obvious and recent links with the Garter’s chapel, including the installations and offering up of the banners of deceased knights, Windsor had a long history of royal burials, and had provided the resting place for some of the earlier English monarchs. The sequence began with Henry VI, whose body was transferred to the castle a few years after his death in 1471, and he was followed by Edward IV in 1483, and then Henry VIII in 1547. The remains of Charles I were brought to Windsor after his execution in 1649.

Windsor had also started to become a home for the royal family, and during the late 1770s George III’s son Alfred and daughter Amelia were born there. The King took steps to improve the quality of the facilities at the castle, and to extend the accommodation in St George’s Chapel to allow him to proceed with his plan to increase the royal membership of the Garter, which he did in 1786, by admitting four of his sons to the order (Gazette issue 12756).

Even as George III’s Windsor schemes were still works in progress, Westminster was used for royal burials, and the abbey provided the initial resting place for two of the King’s younger sons, after the death of Alfred in August 1782 (Gazette issue 12324), and Octavius in May 1783 (Gazette issue 12437). The remains of the two princes were moved to a new royal vault at Windsor in 1820.

Duke of Gloucester

The movement of the royal obsequies from central London to the county of Berkshire was first evident from The Gazette of 1805, and followed steps taken 30 years earlier by the Duke of Gloucester, who obtained the permission of the dean of Windsor to create a vault in St George’s Chapel to house the remains of his daughter Caroline, who died in 1775 at less than one year old.

The duke expired three decades after his daughter, and preparations were made for a conventional funeral in Westminster Abbey. But before the abbey plans were completed, Gloucester’s son reminded the King about the existence of his father’s vault, and his wish to be buried at Windsor. The King advised his nephew that:

“it changes the funeral from a public to a private one. I have in consequence recalled the orders previously given and directed the Earl of Dartmouth [the lord chamberlain] to consult with you that at the same time care may be taken that every mark of respect conformable to the mode now adopted be attended to. Your attending as chief mourner is by no means changed by this present mode.”₁

Lord Dartmouth stopped the work at Westminster, and the men were instructed to dismantle the scaffolding, and to leave the vault at peace. This change to the royal schedule was deemed to be of sufficient public interest as to merit a notice in The Gazette (Gazette issue 15838):

“On the morning of Wednesday next, the 4^th of September, the remains of His late Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester will be removed from Gloucester House to Windsor, where they will be privately interred in the vault built by order of His Royal Highness, for himself and family, in the choir near the sovereign’s stall, within the Royal Chapel of Saint George; in which vault the remains of Her late Royal Highness the Princess Caroline Augusta Maria, youngest daughter of His Royal Highness, were deposited on the 22d of March 1775.”

Only four months before the prince’s funeral, Windsor was the centre of royal attention, as the Duke of Gloucester and his son attended the first installation of knights to be held there since 1771. The Garter ceremony took place on St George’s Day of 1805, which meant that the chapel, and some of the castle’s principal rooms, were likely to be in a fit state to host a decent royal funeral.

The first princely departure to be observed at Windsor had familiar elements, as the Duke of Gloucester’s remains lay in state at his residence in London, and the hearse was then drawn by eight horses to the castle, with a military escort in place. The body was “covered with a Holland sheet and a black velvet pall, adorned with eight escocheons of His late Royal Highness’s arms, under a canopy of black velvet,” while the pall bearers were members of the Gloucester household. The duke’s military career, including his rank as a field-marshal, and position as colonel of the 1^st Foot Guards, was reflected in the canopy being supported by eight general officers, including a knight of the Bath and a future field-marshal (Gazette issue 15840).

The programme that had worked well at Westminster for several generations until 1790 was retained at Windsor in 1805, and so the parade included the officers of arms, along with Lord Dartmouth as lord chamberlain, although the night-time event was conducted on a somewhat reduced scale. The ceremonial was given a Berkshire flavour, as the troops who lined the route included men from the corps of Windsor Volunteers bearing flaming torches, and the body was received at the entrance to St George’s Chapel by the Poor Knights of Windsor, the band of former army officers who performed duties linked to the spiritual welfare of the knights of the Garter.

The duke’s coronet was carried by a herald, and after the dean of Windsor concluded the burial ritual the prince’s style and titles were proclaimed by the deputy to Garter King of Arms, who noted his status as the King’s brother and a knight of the Garter, and his corpse was deposited in the vault beside his daughter’s coffin.

This was the first royal funeral of the 19^th century to engage the services of the dean of Windsor, who was responsible for the care of St George’s Chapel and its ritual. The holder of the deanery had served as an officer of the Garter since Tudor times and was therefore familiar with the religious and practical aspects of the order’s business. The person who took the Gloucester service was Edward Legge, who was the brother of lord chamberlain Dartmouth, and had only taken over as dean and register in February 1805 (Gazette issue 15782).

Gloucester vault

The Gloucester vault housed the remains of four members of William Henry’s family, starting with his widow Maria in August 1807, then their son William Frederick and daughter Sophia, and lastly William Frederick’s wife Mary (George III’s last surviving daughter) in May 1857.

The Gazette recorded the ceremonial for each of the four Gloucester funerals, with the arrangements for Princess Sophia’s interment in December 1844 being the first to mention a railway conveying royal remains, as her casket was initially placed on a horse-drawn hearse, but then went by train from the Great Western Railway terminus at Paddington to Slough, where it was received by a guard of honour of the Scots Fusilier Guards and carried to St George’s Chapel under an escort of the Royal Horse Guards (Gazette issue 20423).

Each Gazette report mentioned the use of William Henry’s vault, which was located near the sovereign’s stall in St George’s Chapel, and was later marked by a cenotaph, which was designed by Gilbert Scott, and erected by Queen Victoria out of affection for her “Aunt Gloucester.” The structure is dated 1859, and displays the names of the five members of the royal family who effectively started the revival of funerals at Windsor.

The Gloucester vault was unique to the House of Hanover, and no separate tomb or resting place that was dedicated to the use of the spouses and/or children of any of the sovereign’s sons and daughters was created within St George’s Chapel after 1805.

The change in the burial arrangements for the Duke of Gloucester did not affect the formal steps that were taken to mourn his passing, and in August 1805 the earl marshal ordered a general mourning, and the Lord Chamberlain’s Office imposed a black dress code for the court, while the officers of the army and navy had to wear a black crape round the left arm of their uniform (Gazette issue 15837).

The black dress practice continued into the era of the Windsor funerals, and during the whole of the 19^th century, and so The Gazette recorded a series of mournings for both British and foreign princes, with the period running to three weeks or more for a king or emperor.

St Paul’s Cathedral

Less than a year after the Gloucester vault was opened in 1805, The Gazette reported the funerals of two of the duke’s most famous contemporaries, starting in January 1806 with the pageant in St Paul’s Cathedral for Lord Nelson, who fell at the battle of Trafalgar (Gazette issue 15881).

The Nelson event was more ostentatious than most funerals, and was attended by the Prince of Wales, while the chief mourner was Sir Peter Parker, who was one of the Duke of Cumberland’s pall bearers in 1790. The programme included the carrying of a coronet and heraldic banners, places for baronets and knights of the Bath, and many of the trappings of a royal ceremony. Lord Dartmouth was on duty as lord chamberlain, Garter king of arms proclaimed the admiral’s style and titles, and Nelson’s personal staff threw their broken staves into his grave.

One month later, The Gazette noticed the service in Westminster Abbey for the prime minister William Pitt (Gazette issue 15895t). As with Nelson, Pitt’s ceremonial was more elaborate than that for most of the royal family, with the archbishop of Canterbury and three dukes acting as pall bearers.

The Nelson and Pitt events were exceptional, both for their scale and for an account appearing in The Gazette, which did not reproduce another non-royal funeral ceremonial until the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852, and then on the passing of prime minister William Gladstone in 1898.

Gazette Succession to the Crown paperbook

Succession to the Crown: From Charles II to Charles III

Succession to the Crown is essential reading for anyone with a keen interest in the British royal family and provides an excellent and trusted source of information for historians, researchers and academics alike. The book takes you on a journey exploring the coronations, honours and emblems of the British monarchy, from the demise of King Charles II in 1685, through to the accession of King Charles III, as recorded in The London Gazette.

Historian Russell Malloch tells the story of the Crown through trusted, factual information found in the UK's official public record. Learn about the traditions and ceremony engrained in successions right up to the demise of Queen Elizabeth II and the resulting proclamation and accession of King Charles III.

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About the author

Russell Malloch is a member of the Orders and Medals Research Society and an authority on British honours. He authored Succession to the Crown: From Charles II to Charles III, which explores the coronations, honours and emblems of the British monarchy.

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Succession to the Crown: - From Charles II to Charles III (TSO shop)

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