During the first weeks of 1872 the convalescence of the Heir Apparent seemed to obscure all other topics of political interest. The anti-monarchical agitation, which Sir Charles Dilke had fomented, not only by his votes in Parliament, but by his speeches in the country, suddenly subsided, showing that the sentiment of affectionate regard which had linked the Crown and the nation together in the past, was not to be destroyed by political factions who were trading on the temporary and local estrangement of the Queen from her subjects in the capital. Faction, indeed, was for the time silenced throughout the land, and the Queen soon saw that it was the universal desire of the nation that the recovery of the Prince, which had saved the country from much anxiety as to its future under a Regency, should be celebrated by a solemn public function. It was therefore announced in the middle of January that the Queen would proceed in State to St. Paul’s Cathedral on as early a day as could be fixed after the 20th of February, to return thanks for the recovery of her son. Ultimately Tuesday, the 27th of February, was fixed for the ceremony.
The day was clear and bright, though cold, and a wintry sun shone on the splendid pageant, for which elaborate preparations had been made many days before. The demand for tickets to view the spectacle was unprecedented. Carriages were hired at fabulous prices, and writing on the morning of the ceremony to his daughter-in-law, Lord Shaftesbury tells her that when he had ordered a brougham on the previous day at his job-master’s he was told “that every vehicle had been pre-engaged for weeks. Thoroughfares like St. James’s Street were impassable, because for two days before the event they were blocked by crowds who had come to see the preparations.”[34] In fact, as Bishop Wilberforce says in a passage in his Diary, London was “quite wild on Thanksgiving Day.”[35] By general desire the day was celebrated as a national holiday. As for the crowds in the streets along the line of _route_, they were said to number from a million to a million and a quarter of spectators, and the decorations far surpassed any similar display ever seen in London. The procession started from Buckingham Palace at five minutes past twelve o’clock, led by the carriages of the Speaker, the Lord Chancellor, and the Duke of Cambridge, and was composed of nine royal carriages, in the last of which the Queen was seen accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Wales. Her Majesty seemed to be in good health, and she looked supremely happy. The Prince was pale and rather haggard, but his bright and happy nature shone through a countenance radiant with gratitude, and he kept bowing all along the way to the multitudes who cheered him. The hearty reciprocal feeling between the Queen, the Prince, and the populace, which the shouts of such a vast crowd expressed, rendered the scene a magnificent demonstration of national loyalty to a popular Sovereign. At Temple Bar the Queen was met by the Lord Mayor and municipal dignitaries of the City of London, arrayed in their robes, and mounted on white horses. Having alighted, the Lord Mayor delivered to and received back from the Queen the City sword, according to the usual custom. But, contrary to precedent and to general expectation, the gates of Temple Bar were not closed against the Queen, so that it was unnecessary to present her with the