Jubilee Fever

With the lovely warmer weather, everything is certainly hotting up now for the Jubilee! The shops are filled with bunting, street party items, dressing up clothes for children (guards and princesses) and souvenir books and biographies of the Queen; and the newspapers are filled with supplements and patriotic CDs. The cake shops are filled with red, white and blue cakes, and manufacturers have changed their packaging on so many items...these pictures show just a few.

I happen to have a wonderful original programme from Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Procession, which was published at Queen Victoria’s request to raise money for the Prince of Wales’ Hospital Fund. The booklet contains sketches of the different groups making up the procession – numerous military and naval squadrons, civic dignitaries and members of the Queen’s Household, foreign presidents and representatives from all over the globe (strangely it states Morocco and Waldeck-Pyrmont: No representative – wonder why they bothered to write that, rather than just omitting them?) – what is most fascinating to me is the list of royalties who attended (alongside which princesses will travel in which carriage and with whom). Unlike her Golden Jubilee which was a great family occasion, Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was more a celebration of Empire and fewer of her descendants attended. Nonetheless this is quite an impressive list of royalties and I would have loved to have been in the crowd that day to watch them pass. (Ah well, at least I am here for this Queen’s Diamond Jubilee....something that doesn’t happen everyday!)

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria

Prince Charles de Ligne of Belgium

The Prince and Princess of Bulgaria

Prince Waldemar of Denmark

Prince Mohammed Ali Khan of Egypt

Prince Albert of Prussia

The Grand Duke and Duchess of Hesse

The Hereditary Prince and Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

The Prince and Princess of Naples

Prince Arisugawa of Japan

The Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg

The Grand Duke and Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Crown Prince Danilo of Montenegro

Prince Amir Khan of Persia

The Duke of Oporto

Grand Duke Serge and Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia

The Duke and Duchess of Coburg

Prince Alfred and Princess Beatrice of Coburg

Prince Herman of Saxe-Weimar

Prince Frederick Augustus of Saxony

The Crown Prince and Prince Mahit of Siam

The Duke of Sotomayor (Spain)

Prince Eugene of Sweden

Duke Albert of Wurttemberg

The Prince and Princess of Wales

The Duke and Duchess of Connaught

Prince Arthur of Connaught

Princesses Margaret and Patricia of Connaught

Princess Alice of Albany

Princess Alice of Battenberg

Princess Ena of Battenberg

Princess Victoria of Schleswig Holstein

Princess Marie Louise of Anhalt

Princess Margaret of Prussia/Hesse-Kassel

Princess Feo of Saxe-Meiningen

Princess Alexander of Battenberg

The Duke of Albany

Princess Louise of Battenberg

Princess Victoria Moretta of Schaumburg-Lippe

Princess Maud of Denmark

Princess Frederick of Hanover

The Duchess of Teck

Princess Mary of York

Princess Victoria of Wales

Prince Henry and Princess Beatrice of Battenberg

Princess Irene of Prussia

Princess Louise

The Duchess of Albany

Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife

Empress Frederick

The Duke of Cambridge

And I have probably overlooked a couple here!