How a PM disliked by Queen Victoria inspired her successors' lyings in state
The exasperation was mutual."The Queen alone is enough to kill any man," Gladstone wrote to a friend.When he died in 1898 of cancer, which started behind his cheekbone and spread, the commemorations ordered by politicians at Westminster accidentally inspired a royal tradition - the public lying in state at Westminster Hall.
The hall dates from 1097 and was a location for lavish feasts and banquets, as well the trials of Sir Thomas More, Guy Fawkes and Charles I.Among the 10 pallbearers at Gladstone's funeral at Westminster Abbey were the Prince of Wales and his son, the Duke of York . Queen Victoria lay in state in Windsor after her death in 1901, but she had requested that it not be public.
Edward VII's lying in state was an exercise in egalitarianism, according to the historian Jane Ridley:"Messenger boys were forbidden to hold places for others, and no tickets were sold, so the wealthy were obliged to wait in line with the poor, and the queue itself became a symbol for social equality."
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