Demise of the Crown: #20: Nine Kings

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 funeral of King Edward VII.

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Funeral arrangements

One striking image from the passing of King Edward VII in 1910 was a photograph of the nine kings who gathered in London, seven of whom wore their ribands as knights of the Garter. After looking at the picture in later years, the Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII) thought about his grandfather’s funeral, at which he and his brother had walked behind their father and the German Emperor:

“I could not but reflect on how swiftly for most of them time ran out. Within three years the King of Denmark died; and his brother, the King of the Hellenes, fell before an assassin’s bullet at Salonika. The young King of Portugal was soon an exile in England, and four years later the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were the victims of a double political murder at Sarajevo. Before the convulsions unloosed by that insane act subsided, three great Empires lay shattered; eight and a half million men were dead; and the principal architect of Europe’s tragedy, the German Emperor, had become the lonely wood-chopper of Doorn.”₁

Nine sovereigns at the funeral of Edward VII

This gathering provided a potent reminder of the logistics that lay behind such a vast undertaking as Edward’s funeral, beyond the simple matter of ensuring that each visitor could access his Garter insignia, as and when it was required.

There were matters of transport and security, in addition to fitting out Westminster Hall and St George’s Chapel; finding places for photographers and film crews; regulating public admissions, and providing uniforms, accommodation and food and drink for the men and women who took part in the various events. Then there was the selection of the musical and religious content; the printing and distribution of invitations, tickets, ceremonials and orders of service, and the police and ambulance arrangements for London and Windsor.

There were also questions of precedence and propriety to settle, not least the awkward issue of what place, if any, should be given to the King’s companion Alice, Mrs George Keppel. Frederick Ponsonby, the veteran of Victoria’s funeral campaign, considered some of the challenges that confronted the planning teams in 1910:

“The funeral procession through London was well managed and the crowd was the largest I have ever seen. King Edward’s equerries were the pall-bearers, but as the extra equerries were afterwards added and all sorts of officials thought they had the right to walk at the side of the gun-carriage, there was a crowd-jostling effect which was undignified. The final ceremony at Windsor was entrusted to me, and with memories of Queen Victoria’s funeral only nine years earlier I found no difficulty in organisation.”₂

Some of the issues that arose during the obsequies were directed to the earl marshal, including concerns about the precedence of the speaker of the House of Commons, James Lowther (Gazette issue 28338), who commented on the lying in state, the main procession, and the place he was assigned in the chapel:

“a vast stream of people, estimated at 10,000 per hour, poured down the steps from the south end of the Hall, and, dividing at the foot, passed by on either side of the coffin and out of the big doors into Palace Yard. It was a most impressive sight to see this endless stream, like a mighty river, coming down and slowly and reverently passing along, taking a last farewell of the King whom they had honoured and loved. The gloom of the ancient and historic place, the immobility of the gentlemen-at-arms and of the Indian officer and soldiers, who stood with bowed heads and reversed arms in guard around the coffin, made an ineffaceable impression.

[…] The sight of the King’s charger, with empty saddle, and the King’s favourite terrier, “Caesar,” led along behind the gun-carriage bearing the coffin, was a sight which those who saw would not readily forget.

I saw the procession start from Westminster and then proceeded in full uniform to Windsor. The place allotted to me was in the nave and my neighbour was the lord mayor of Cork. I subsequently protested to the earl marshal that the representative of the Commons should have been assigned a more important place at such an important state function, a protest which bore fruit on a subsequent similar occasion.”₃

The clerk of the Privy Council, Almeric FitzRoy (Gazette issue 26995), had already performed important duties on the demise of the crown, by organising the accession council. He was satisfied with his seat at Edward’s funeral, which “was as cool as any and very favourable for seeing all that passed”, and allowed him to witness the conduct of the dean, minor canons and choir of Windsor:

“These last soon fell into a disgraceful disarray: the minor canons seemed lost to all sense of the dignity of the ceremonial on which they were engaged, and, instead of observing their station and attitude of attention, were occupied in craning their necks forward in every posture of idle curiosity, in order to obtain a view of what was passing outside the building; the choir followed their example, and shaped into a huddled mob, while the dean of Windsor, whose duty it was, as their leader and head, to see that order prevailed, deserted his place for a seat among the spectators, where he became absorbed in conversation with a lady. I never saw, in circumstances of similar ceremony and pathos, such a complete détente and disorder among the principal assistants.”

The Gazette does not identify the names of the curious canons, who worked under Philip Eliot, who had been the dean and register of the Garter since 1891 (Gazette issue 26157).

Later in the same account FitzRoy praised the input of the earl marshal’s committee, and said “among them the representatives of the Office of Works and the police deserve the highest praise.” FitzRoy’s remarks confirm the need for practical plans to be made and executed to ensure the smooth running of the funerals The Gazette has reported since 1685, through to the very complex events that unfolded after the death of Elizabeth II in 2022.

Speaker Lowther thought that the effect of Edward’s death upon the political world “was to allay for a time the storm which was brewing”, by which he meant the constitutional crisis, and the role of the House of Lords at home, rather than any threat of war in Europe, which eventually came to pass in 1914, not long after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who represented the Austrian emperor at the Windsor services for Victoria and Edward VII, and whose mourning notice was one of the last to be gazetted (Gazette issue 28845).

Funeral honours

King George followed his father’s example and used the Victorian Order and its medal to reward the work of people who had helped to manage the demise of the crown.

The Gazette of May 1910 (Gazette issue 28376) reported honorary appointments for the deputations from the European regiments of which the late King was colonel-in-chief or honorary colonel, and in June the awards for the army and navy were announced, including a promotion for Lieutenant Denniston of the Grenadier Guards, who earned his MVO at Osborne in 1901 (Gazette issue 28384), and later featured in the press in connection with his wife, whose fortune funded Howard Carter’s discovery of the treasures of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, more than 3,200 years before Edward’s remains were laid to rest in St George’s Chapel.

The recipients of a funeral MVO in 1910 included another Grenadier Guards officer, Viscount Gort, whose valour earned the Victoria Cross during the first world war (Gazette issue 31034), and who commanded the British Expeditionary Force that went to France at the start of the second war, and was forced to evacuate from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

Two ‘demise of the crown’ investitures were held. On 6 June the King presented insignia to several naval officers and handed medals to more than 130 of their men, while some of the crew received a bar to attach to the riband of the Victorian Medal they earned at Windsor in 1901. The Court Circular reported what happened:

“The King this morning, in the garden at Marlborough House, inspected the officers, petty officers, and bluejackets of the Royal Navy who manned the gun carriage in the state funeral procession of His late Majesty at Windsor. The Queen, attended by the Lady Mary Trefusis, was present.

[…] The Bluejackets, formed up in line under the command of Captain Reginald Tupper, R.N., A.D.C., received their Majesties with a royal salute.

After the inspection the King presented the officers with the Royal Victorian Order and gave medals to the men.

The King presented the gun carriage to the detachment as representing the Royal Navy, to be kept in the custody of HMS Excellent at Whale Island, and the officers and men then marched from the garden to Buckingham Palace, where they were entertained to luncheon.”

On the following day, the King presented awards to army recipients in the garden at Marlborough House, after inspecting the gun detachment of BB Battery Royal Horse Artillery, the King’s Company the bearer party of non-commissioned officers of the Grenadier Guards under the command of Lieutenant Dennistoun, who performed special duties at the lying in state and the state funeral.

It is difficult to justify the allocation of so many medals to the Royal Navy on this occasion, as most of the men had little responsibility for the task in hand, especially by comparison with the bearer parties, who had a much more demanding job to do. The situation in central London in 1910 was quite unlike the situation at Windsor Station in 1901, when the navy was faced with an unusual as well as a high-profile problem, which they had to address without warning or training. By the time of Edward’s funeral, on the other hand, the authorities had almost a decade to execute what was, with planning and preparation, a relatively simple transport operation.

The disparity between the weight of the services rendered, and the grant of naval honours, became even more apparent in later reigns, as the 1910 precedent was followed in 1936, 1952 and 2022, by which time home awards of the Royal Victorian Medal had generally been limited to recognising the work of members of the royal household, but only after many years of good service, rather than for playing a small part in a carefully planned operation, with minimal risk of the kind that faced the naval crew in 1901.

Royal thanks

In addition to the grant of state honours, the services of those who helped after a demise of the crown were acknowledged in different ways. There were precedents of royal souvenirs being presented for assisting with family deaths, as in 1884 when Queen Victoria gave a diamond pin and pictures to the Seaforth Highlanders who formed the bearer party for Prince Leopold.

Some of those who assisted in marking the passing of the sovereign received a letter, and portraits continued to be a popular form of ‘thank you’. After Edward’s funeral, for example, the Gentlemen at Arms who watched over his remains in Westminster Hall received a letter from Frederick Ponsonby, as the assistant private secretary to the King. From Marlborough House, in July 1910, Ponsonby wrote:

“Dear Sir,

I have received the King’s commands to forward to you the accompanying engraving of His late Majesty King Edward VII, in remembrance of the lying-in-state at Westminster Hall, on which occasion you assisted in keeping watch.

The King has signed the engraving in personal recognition of your last services to his beloved father.

Yours faithfully,

F E G Ponsonby”

Sir Frederick Ponsonby continued to play an important role in connection with royal funerals, partly because of his status as the secretary of the Royal Victorian Order, in which capacity he signed many of the order’s warrants of appointment, and the award documents for the Royal Victorian Medal.

Less than a decade had elapsed between the funerals of Victoria and Edward, but it had been more than 25 years since the last demise of the crown when Ponsonby (latterly Lord Sysonby) died in October 1935 (Gazette issue 34166), and so could not take part in his third royal show, or help with the horses, as he had done in 1901.

George V greatly valued Ponsonby’s work for the royal family, and the Court Circular contained a rare public expression of the King’s loss. Curiously, Ponsonby, who had done so much to organise state events, asked for no ceremonial, and for none of the usual funeral or memorial services, and so his loss passed largely unnoticed outside his family.

Mourning reductions

The court and general mourning for Edward VII was reduced from the one-year period that had been set to mark his mother’s demise.

On 9 May 1910 the earl marshal wrote to the clerk of the Privy Council, Almeric FitzRoy, to explain that the King was “very anxious, on account of the distress which may be caused, that the general mourning shall be as short as possible”, and while in the past the determination of the mourning was announced by a later order, the Duke of Norfolk thought it might be desirable “although it is an innovation, that the order in council tomorrow should not only declare the day of beginning, but also the day of termination.”

The earl marshal’s view was challenged by the archbishop of Canterbury, who appreciated Edward’s desire to prevent distress from unemployment in many trades, but believed that the King might not wish “to inaugurate a system of reducing to the briefest minimum all public recognition of great national sorrows.” At the council meeting on 10 May, FitzRoy recorded that “it was ultimately decided to insert no date in the order, and leave it to the earl marshal in the usual course to define the limit by a subsequent instruction.”₄

The result appeared to be confused, as The Gazette of 10 May ordered a general mourning from 12 May and did not set an end date (Gazette issue 28368), but on the next day the earl marshal explained that “after the 17^th day of June next it will not be desired or expected that the public should appear in deep mourning, but that half mourning should be worn until the 29^th day of July next.” (Gazette issue 28370)

The negative impact of mourning on trade, which the silk manufacturers raised in the early 18^th century, and the drapers did in 1901, had not gone away. On 24 May the earl marshal featured in The Gazette once again, when he announced that “in order that the trades concerned should not suffer from the period of general mourning being extended to the end of the summer season”, it had been decided that full mourning should last until 17 June, and half mourning until 30 June (Gazette issue 28377).

The general mourning system was retained to mark future demises of the crown, but for much shorter periods than in 1901 and 1910.

Edward VII Memorial

The principal memorial to be erected in London to commemorate the reign of Edward VII was intended to be a massive architectural monument in Green Park, showing the monarch in his Garter robes, and with symbolic sculptural groups. That scheme was later abandoned, and a more restrained equestrian statue was commissioned for the centre of Waterloo Place, close to where the regency court had once operated from Carlton House.

Edward’s statue was the work of Bertram Mackennal, and was unveiled by his son in July 1921, when he conferred the second class of the Victorian Order (KCVO) on the sculptor (Gazette issue 32398). The King was shown carrying the baton of a field marshal, with the riband and star of the Garter and his other insignia.

The planning recalled elements of a royal funeral, as the dedication service was performed by the archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by choirs from the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey. A guard of honour of the King’s Company of the Grenadier Guards, with the regiment’s band was mounted in Pall Mall, facing the memorial, and detachments from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and regiments of which Edward was the colonel-in-chief were formed up beside the statue. There were also representatives of the Gentlemen at Arms and the Yeomen of the Guard, and the King’s Indian Orderly Officers were on duty.

The address that was presented by the memorial committee at the unveiling, and the King’s reply, were published in The Gazette a few days after the ceremony (Gazette issue 32402).

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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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The Gazette

National Portrait Gallery

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