Meantime, at the Abbey itself everything had been got ready for the ceremony. It is the custom at a coronation that all the peers and peeresses should be present, and that they should all dress alike in rich robes of crimson velvet and white ermine, and each peer and peeress has a little coronet which he or she does not put on at first, but keeps on a cushion until the King puts on his crown. Then all the little coronets are put on at the same instant. Now, the arrangements for the coronation were very difficult to make, for all the peers and peeresses had to have seats in the Abbey given to them, and there were so many that it was difficult for them all to get in. Quite early that morning, at seven o'clock, the Abbey doors had been opened, and the dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons, with their wives, had rolled up in their carriages, and alighted and gone inside there to wait. I expect a good many of them had never been up so early in their lives, and had never waited patiently for so long before. Some of them did not come in carriages, but as it was fine walked across from their houses, which were only a short way off, and what a sight they made! Nowadays to see a man dressed in crimson velvet and white ermine, with white silk stockings, and with a page carrying a coronet on a cushion by his side, and another page holding up his long train, is not very usual. The people watching must have enjoyed all this unusual grandeur, and felt as if they were living in a page of English history.
Then the royal carriages, with the scarlet-clad coachmen and footmen, began to sweep up, and the great festival had begun. The guns boomed out, telling that the King and Queen had left Buckingham Palace, and not very long after they arrived at the hall which had been built at one end of the Abbey, and there the Duke of Norfolk, bareheaded, waited to receive their Majesties. The Queen, being nearest to him, stepped out first, and she was clothed in cloth-of-gold, which shone and glittered even on that dull day. The King followed her, looking up with pleased surprise at the beautiful reception-hall that was prepared for him, and they entered the Abbey hall to make ready for the procession in the Abbey itself.