The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-06-29 00:00:00

FUNERAL OF THE LATE KING OF
HANOVER.

The funeral of King__George of Hanover took place on
Monday morning at Windsor. The remains of his late
Majesty arrived at Dover on Saturday afternoon, and
were conveyed by a special train on the London,
Chatham, and Dover and South Western Railways to
Windsor. They were then taken to the nave in St.
George's Chapel, where Viscount Barrington, Vice-
Chamberlain of her Majesty's Household, was in wait-
ing to receive them. A field officer's escort of the
Royal Horse Guards accompanied the Royal remains
from the railway station to St. George's Chapel. and a
guard of honour of the let battalion of Scots Guards
were mounted at the entrance to St. George's Chapel.
Long before 11 o'clock, the hour fixed for the cere-
monial preparations were commenced at the Palace for
the interment, while the nave and choir of St. George's
Chapel were arranged in readiness. A guard of
honour, composed of the First Battalion Scots Fusilier
Guard, with bands under Colonel Bridgeman, was
mounted near the south entrance. Crowds of specta-
tors assemble-din the Castle-yard. At half-past ten
the coffin, covered with black velvet pall and chaplets
of flow ere and imniortelles, was removed from beneath
the temporary chapel near the tomb of Princess
Charlotte, and placed upon the bier in the centre of
the nave, when the procession was marshalled in
readiness by Sir Albert Woo is, Garter King of Arms,
the Duke of Cumberland (chief mourner), the Prince
of Wales, Prince Leopold, Prince Christian, and
Prince Edward being in evening dress, with ribbons
and orders. _ _

The Prince Imperial, the Ministers of State, and
high officers not taking part in the procession, were
conducted to seats reserved for them within the choir.
Shortly before eleven o'clock the Princesses Marie and
Frederica of Hanover, and the Duchess of Teck, en-
tered the choir and took their places on the left of the
communion table. Precisely at eleven o'cloc, the
Hon. Spencer Ponsonby Fane, Controller of the Lord
Chamberlain's Department gave the signal for the
procession to move to the choir, and in the order pub-
lished the mourners followed the coffin, which was
covered with a pall of black velvet and surmounted
with several wreaths of flowers sent by the Queen
and by some of the late King's former subjects.

The chief mourner, the Duke of Cumberland, K.G.,
was preceded by Sir A. Woods, Garter King of Arms,
and was attended by four officers, behind whom came
the following mourneis :—The Prince of Wales, K.G.,
Prince Leopold, K.G., Prince Christian of Schleswig-
Holstein, K.G., Rear-Admiral the Prince of Lein-
ingen, G.C.8., the Duke of Teck, G.C.8., Prince
Albrecht Solms zu Braunfels, Lieutenant-General
Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, C. 8., the Marquis of
Lorne, K.T., and Rear-Admiral the Count Gleichen.
The rear of the procession was brought up by officers
in attendance.

The procession was preceded by the choristers
singing, "I am the Resurrection." Har Majesty the
Queen and Princess Beatrice occupied seats in the
Royal pew. When the coffin was placed in position
over the Royal vault the choir sang the 90th Psalm to
a chant arranged from Beethoven. As the procession
entered the choir the mourners were ranged round,
while the coffin was placed on the left, at the entrance
to the vault in front of the altar steps, where the
concluding portion of the service was read by the Dean
of Windsor, and Luther's Hymn sung. The coffin
was then lowered to the vault beneath the memorial
chapel, and placed an-, ong the remains of the illustrious
dead entombed therein.

The Times of Monday in a leader comments as follows
upon the death of the late king :

To-day the remains of the late King George of
Hanover will be deposited, with fitting and stately-
ceremonial, in the tomb of his ancestors at Wind-
sor. It is not HO very long ago that the late King
visited this country, where he was universally re-
ceived with the respect due to his exalted station,
and with the sympathy which his personal misfor-
tunes could not fail to awaken among all classes
of Englishmen. Now his son accompanies his re-
mains to the Royal vault in St. George's Chapel, and
the Heir to the English Throne will take his place
among the mourners. It is more appropriate
that the ceremony should take place at Windsor
than at Herrenhausen, as was at first proposed.
Hanover is no longer a kingdom, and its late
Monarch was an exile; but; he had not ceased to be
Duke of Cumberland in this country, and he was a
member of our own Royal Family in near relation to
the Throne. At Herrenhausen he must have been
laid in soil which was wrested from his sway by a
Power whose rights he never acknowledged; but
his title to a place at Windsor, among his ancestors
and relatives, is open to no dispute, and his in-
terment in this country will awaken only re-
spect for his memory and his misfortunes and
sympathy for those who mourn his loss. No
revived political antagonisms, no ill-appeased re-
sentment at the victory of the might of Germany
over the right of Hanover, no sullen memories of
past domestic controversies will divide the public
feeling of Englishmen on such an occasion as they
might have divided that of King George's former sub-
jects. The aolerensceremony of to-day is an event of
no political significance to us, though had circum-
stances been at one time but a very little different it
might have been one of the deepest moment. But it
is, nevertheless, an occasion of no slight historical
interest. Englishmen cannot forget how much they
owe to the House of Hanover, nor how closely the now
extinct kingdom of that country was formerly as-
sociated with the English Crown. The first Hanoverian
King of England died and was buried at Hanover,
away from the country he had ruled, though he never
pretended to love it. The last King of Hanover is
brought to-day to be buried at Windsor; for Hanover
knows him no more, and England is now the well-
beloved home of his royal race.
King George was three days younger than our own
Queen. To those who are curious in speculating on
what might have been, it may be interesting to con-
sider what would have been the consequences if either
the Salle law had prevailed in this country or had not
prevailed in Hanover. In the former case the Duke
of Cumberland of notorious memory, the fifth son of
George 111., would have succeeded William IV. as
King both of England and Hanover, and the present
Duke of Cumberland, who occupies to-day the post
of chief mouiner at the funeral of his father, might at
this moment have been King of England. In the
latter case our present Queen would also have been
Queen of Hanover, and it is difficult to conjecture
what would have been the relations of this country
to Germany. In either case it is not too much to
say that the whole course of European history from
1837 to the present moment would have been d,ffeeent,
How King Ernest would have ruh d England it is im-
possible to say, but if he had attempted to rule it as he
ruled Hanover the famous questisn of the Duke of
Wellington, "How is the King's Government to be
carried on?" might on more than one occasion have
been found very difficult to answer. Nor was the late
King George's temper as a monarch entirely likely to
find favour among Englishmen. Happily, Englishmen
do not know what it is to be at variance with the
Crown, but they might have learnt it by painful ex-
perience had either King Ernest or King George suc-
ceeded to the Throne of England. On the other hand,
if our present Queen had not been excluded from the
throne of Hanover, all the statesmanship of suc-
cessive English Ministers would have been taxed to
the utmost to avert a collision with Germany in
the adjustment of the relations between Hanover
and Prussia. We can afford now to look calmly back,
and to think that Hanover has lost nothing, while
Germany has gained much, by the aggrandizement of
Prussia. But the case might have been very different
if, in order to annex Hanover, Germany had been
forced to assail the Sovereign rights of the Queen of
England. Speculations, however, as to the possible
consequences of events that never happened are little
better than mere gropinga in the dark. We know
enough to be thankful that matters were ordered as
they were, and that when the time came for the
absorption of Hanover in a restored and united Ger-
many neither the national pride nor the dynastic
interests of England were injured by a consummation
of which the manner was, perhaps, less satisfactory
than the result.

Whatever considerations may have determined the
choice of Windsor rather than Herrenhausen as the
burial place of the last King of Hanover, certainly no
Englishman is likely to regret that the choice has
been made. At Herrenhausen King George would
have been laid beside his own father and the earlier
ancestors of his line. But between George I. and the
late King Ernest no ruler of Hanover has been buried
out of England. George IL, the last Elector of
Hanover, lies in Westminster Abbey. The three
Kings of England who were also Kings of Hanover
are buried at Windsor, and the remains of George
V. will to-day be laid beside them. But it is
not as King of Hanover that he gains admission
.to the Royal vault at Windsor; it is as Duke of
Cumberland, as grandson of an English King, as first
cousin of the reigning monarch, and as the Prince who,
until the birth of a child to our present Queen, was in
the direct succession to the Throne of Enaand. His
son, the titular Crown Prince of Hanover, attends the
funeral ceremony only in the style and title of Duke of
Cumberland. Thus with. the death of King George
V. the very shadow of the sovereign rights of the
House of Hanover becomes extinct. Whether the
present Duke of Cumberland will continue to claim the
dominions of which his father was somewhat harshly
dispossessed, or whether, accepting the inevitable, he
will be content with the indefeJsible position of a Royal
Dukeof England, it might at this moment he ungracious
to conjecture. It is clear that his position and his
claims are very different from those of his hither.
It was the late King's misfortune to lose his throne in
a crisis which issued ultimately in the bettered welfare
of his people; it would be the Duke of Cumberland's
misfortune to persist in Lis &inn to a throne which
there is no chance of his ever occupying. The position
of a pretender, however good his technical claim, is
never an enviable one; it is not even a creditable one
when it is manifestly at variance with the welfare of a
people. The Duke of Cumberland will be harpy and
respected as an English Duke of Royal blood. He
can only be unhappy and unfortunate as the claimant
of an extinct kingdom whose people are content to be
absorbed in the unity of the German Fatherland.