In just days, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II will take place at Westminster Abbey in London. It’s been centuries since a monarch had a funeral at the Abbey. The last one was King George II in 1760.
The funeral of King George II took place on 13 November 1760. Horace Walpole, the son of Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first and longest-serving prime minister wrote an account of the funeral. In that account, he said the Prince’s Chamber hung with purple and a number of silver lamps. The coffin was sat under a canopy of purple velvet with six chandeliers of silver on high stands.
The procession would be through a line of footguards with every seventh man bearing a touch. Horse guards lined outside while their officers sat on horseback with drawn sabres and crape sashes. Drums muffled and bells tolled in what is described as a very somber atmosphere.
Walpole continued to explain: “When we came to the chapel of Henry VII all solemnity and decorum ceased – no order was observed, people sat or stood where they could or would, the yeoman of the guard were crying out for help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin, the Bishop read sadly, and blundered in the prayers, the fine chapter, Man that is born of a woman , was chanted not read, and the anthem, besides being unmeasurably tedious, would have served as well for a nuptial.
“The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances. He had a dark brown Adonis [a type of wig] and a cloak of black cloth with a train of five yards. Attending the funeral of a father, how little reason soever he had to love him, could not be pleasant. His leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours, his face bloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke, which has affected too one of his eyes, and place over the mount of the vault, into which in all probability he must himself so soon descend – think how unpleasant a situation! He bore it all with a firm and unaffected countenance.”
The King, who was also crowned at the Abbey, died at Kensington Palace on 25 October 1760. He was buried in the vault he had constructed for his wife, Queen Caroline, when she died in 1737. Her funeral was the first royal funeral where special seats were built inside the church for the nobility to see the procession. The vault is constructed under the central aisle of the Lady Chapel.
His Majesty was buried in a large marble sarcophagus with his coffin next to his late wife. By the late King’s wish, the sides of the coffins were removed so their “dust” could mingle after death. No monument was ever erected and there are only small stones on the floor to mark the graves.
The King and Queen’s children, George William, Caroline Elizabeth, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, and Amelia also lie in the vault.
