The Life of King Henry the Eight • Paragraph 856
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The day opened with brilliant promise and bright sunshine, but became overcast and gloomy by the time the Royal progress from the Palace had commenced. The crowds gathered early, and soon every seat in the many stands were filled with expectant and interested people who numbered in the end fully half a million. Picked troops, chiefly Household Cavalry and Colonial and Indian soldiers of the King, to the number of 30,000, guarded the route, with a picturesque line of white, black, brown and yellow men of many countries and varied uniforms. When the King and Queen appeared in their gorgeous state coach from out the gates of Buckingham Palace they were greeted with tremendous cheers from the multitude, and these cheers continued all along the way to the Abbey. In the Royal procession were the Prince and Princess of Wales with thirty-one other members of the Royal family. The Princess was beautiful in a long Court mantle of purple velvet trimmed with bands of gold and a minever cape fastened with hooks of gold over a dress of white satin embroidered in gold and jewelled with diamonds and pearls. Then followed Lord Knollys and Lord Wolseley and Admiral Seymour, Lord Kitchener and General Gaselee and Lord Roberts, with many other notabilities. The Indian Maharajahs, who acted as Aides-de-Camp to the King, were brilliant in red and white and brown and blue and gold and jewels. Immediately in front of the King was the Royal escort of Princes and Equerries with a body of Colonial and Indian troops. The arrival at the Abbey was marked by great enthusiasm in the massed multitudes surrounding the famous building and seated in the crimson-covered stands which had been built on every side.