Just before eleven o'clock the splendid state coach drawn by eight cream-coloured horses came round from the stables to the front of Buckingham Palace, and then the people waiting near grew more intensely excited. The coach was just such as you might expect. It was all gold and glass, and swung upon high springs so lightly that as it stopped the body of the coach swayed about, and had to be steadied by the footmen. The cream-coloured horses wore harness of crimson and gold, and they tossed their heads and pawed the ground, as if they knew quite well what was expected of them and how important they were. Then the King and Queen took their seats, and as they were seen there was a great outburst of shouting, taken up and echoed again and again; it was a royal salute, and the volley of cheering rolled along the crowd from one to another, on and on, announcing to those who waited farther off that King George was really on his way to be crowned King of the greatest kingdom in the world. The King and Queen were in royal robes, and they both bowed and smiled, and the Queen's fair hair shone out like gold. As Princess she had been popular but as Queen and a model mother to her children, the darlings of the nation, she was to win a special position in the hearts of the people. The Royal couple did not wear their crowns on the way to the Abbey, but they would return in them after the ceremony.
As it went along under the trees in the park, the royal procession passed close by some large stands built near St. James's Palace, these were filled with children from the Foundling Hospital, the homes for soldiers' sons and daughters and sailors' sons and daughters, of which you have read in another chapter.
One of the most pathetic figures at the coronation was that of the widowed Queen-Mother, Alexandra, who had come as a beautiful young girl nearly forty years before from over the sea to marry King Edward.
[Illustration: THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
The royal coach was followed by an escort of soldiers, and all the way to the Abbey that loud roar of cheering was kept up. It must have been very delightful for the King and Queen to think how warmly all their people loved them, and how glad they were to see them crowned.