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Mall towards the Abbey: the Lord Mayor of London in his elaborate coach; the junior
members of the royal family in cars; foreign royalty including the cheerful, elephantine
Queen Salote of Tonga, indomitable in an open carriage in the rain, dwarfing the frail
Sultan of Kelantan who sat opposite her; Churchill, pink and baby-faced, leaning
angrily out of his carriage window as a traffic jam developed at the narrow passage
through Admiralty Arch at the foot of the Mall. Back at the Palace, Elizabeth seemed at
ease, stopping on her way along the corridor to show the housemaids the details of her
gown, before travelling with Philip by her side in the huge Gold State Coach, decorated
with baroque palm fronds and garlands, and the door panels with classical scenes
painted by Cipriani in 1761. She was wearing Queen Victoria’s diadem on her head,
with the St George’s Cross and the other emblems of the United Kingdom glittering in
plain diamonds. In her white dress and with a radiant, eager smile on her face as she
waved to the crowds, she might have been a young bride on the way to the church, had
it not been for her ermine and velvet cloak and train. Beside her Philip sat resplendent
in the uniform of Admiral of the Fleet (the exalted rank to which with Field Marshal and
Air Chief Marshal he had recently been promoted) with cocked hat, gold bullion
epaulettes and Garter Star. The carriage was drawn by four pairs of the Windsor Greys
in scarlet and gold harness with postillions in gold-braided red jackets astride the nearside
horses and grooms and beefeaters (Yeomen Warders) walking beside it in their
uniforms of scarlet and gold.
At 11 a.m. the coach drew up to the Abbey door. Elizabeth stepped out and went to
her ‘retiring room’ to prepare for the ceremony. As the room had no windows, the
Minister of Works, David Eccles, had had the happy idea of lightening it up with a
trompe l’oeilmural by Roland Pym showing Victoria and Albert bowling along in an open
carriage through a sunlit Windsor Great Park. Since nine o’clock that morning a series of
elaborate processions had preceded her up the aisle to take up their stations, royalties,
envoys and rulers of foreign states attended by men with playing-card uniforms and
extravagantly medieval-sounding titles. The procession of members of the royal family,
including the Harewoods, Mountbattens and Cambridges, was attended by Rouge
Dragon Pursuivant of Arms and Portcullis Pursuivant of Arms; the procession of Princes
and Princesses of the Blood Royal, their Royal Highnesses the Princess Royal, the
Duchesses of Gloucester and Kent and their children, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone,
and her husband, brother of Queen Mary, Lady Patricia Ramsay, daughter of the Duke
of Connaught, and Princess Marie Louise, was attended by Bluemantle Pursuivant of
Arms and Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms; and, finally the procession of Queen
Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, the Lord Chamberlain of Her
Majesty’s Household, the Earl of Airlie and the Mistress of the Robes, the Dowager
Duchess of Northumberland, with Ladies and Women of the Bedchamber, was attended
by Somerset Herald, Windsor Herald, Richmond Herald, Chester Herald, York Herald
and Lancaster Herald. Six minutes later the regalia to be used in the ceremony was
delivered to the peers who were to carry them: Saint Edward’s Staff to the Earl of
Ancaster; the Sceptre with the Cross to the Viscount Portal of Hungerford; the golden