The King was buried with great pomp on the night of the 8th of July, the Duke of Sussex being chief mourner, and Queen Adelaide occupying the Royal Closet. At the close of the ceremony, the members of the procession, who were much fatigued by the toil they had undergone and by the sultry heat of the chapel, proceeded to quit as quickly and as quietly as possible, but nothing like order was observed in the return to the Palace. In fact, it was, for a considerable time, a scene of indescribable confusion. Arrangements had been made, by orders of the Earl Marshal, for the places at which the carriages of those who had to take part in the procession were to set down and take up; but, owing to the immense number of the carriages, the ignorance of many of the coachmen as to the prescribed regulations, and the obstinacy of others, the rules very soon became a dead letter, and every man seemed disposed to take his own way. This, as might be expected, caused such confusion that it was long past midnight before anything like order was restored. There were smashed panels and broken windows in abundance, but no serious accidents were recorded.
The Queen soon had plenty of business on her hands, and on 30th June she gave her assent to forty Bills, one of which (a remarkably short one), the 7 Gul., iv. and i. Vic., c. 23, enacted: “That from and after the passing of this Act, Judgment shall not be given and awarded against any Person or Persons convicted of any Offence that such Person or Persons do stand in, or upon the Pillory.” Owing to the recent change in Sovereigns, there were a few slips in “Her Majesty,” and “La Reine le veult.” On the 13th July the Queen and her mother left Kensington Palace and took up their residence in Buckingham Palace. On the 17th, the Queen dissolved Parliament in person, dressed in white satin, decorated with gold and jewels, wearing the Order of the Garter and a rich diadem and necklace of diamonds. She bore the function remarkably well, although one evening paper said that “Her emotion was plainly discernible in the rapid heaving of her bosom, and the brilliancy of her diamond stomacher, which sparkled out occasionally from the dark recess in which the throne was placed, like the sun on the swell of the smooth ocean, as the billows rise and fall”! On the 19th July she held her first levée, and on the 20th her first drawing room.