Conquest

Knight of the Order of the Bath, another Trafalgar captain with surcoat, target and sword.

And the third – noble, dignified, with no standards, banners or pennons aloft except one: the Union Flag of Great Britain at half-mast.

With a thrill of unreality, Cecilia realised that the mortal remains of Lord Horatio Nelson himself lay under the black-plumed canopy, the four shields of his armorial bearings bright against the black velvet enshrouding all. Three bannerolls of the Nelson lineage were borne by officers of Victory known to him – Signal Lieutenant Pasco, Mr Atkinson the sailing master, and others who had done their duty at Nelson’s side on that fateful day. Norroy King of Arms himself bore the viscount’s coronet on a sable cushion.

Following in the fourth barge was the chief mourner – known in the processional as Admiral of the Fleet Sir Peter Parker, senior officer of the Royal Navy, but within the service as the captain of Bristol who, in 1778, had taken into his ship a raw Lieutenant Nelson. Now in his eighties, he shared ceremonials with sixteen admirals and two captains – Hardy of Victory and Blackwood of Euryalus.

Beyond the sombre blackness of the mourning craft came the splendour of His Majesty’s barge, with dignitaries representing the Crown of Great Britain, followed by the Admiralty barge immediately astern, with all the pomp of the Lords Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral.

Then it was the flamboyantly ornate trappings of the City State Barge, with the Lord Mayor of London and other officials, all in elaborate mourning dress.

Seven seamen from Victory were deployed in the next, two openly weeping: from time to time they held aloft the shot-torn colours worn by their ship to heartfelt huzzahs echoing out from the riverbank.

Then stretching away behind was the rest of the processional: the great livery companies of London in their ceremonials – the Merchant Taylors’ Company, the Goldsmiths, the Apothecaries, the Drapers and more.

It was pageantry on a national scale. And nothing less could do justice to the stupefying feeling that the nation shared of the world shaking on its foundations at the passing of both a hero and an age.

Cecilia stood numbly as the procession passed, barely able to take in that this day she was to be the one honouring the great admiral while those who knew him and loved him were far away at sea. For them she would see it through as they would have done, and later tell them of this momentous day.

The head of the river cortege had rounded the bend on the way to Whitehall Stairs and the Admiralty, and still the immense waterborne cavalcade moved past. It was an extraordinary expression of popular and imperial grief, and could never be forgotten.

‘Come, Frederick – we’re to be early at St Paul’s tomorrow, I’m told,’ said the marchioness, in hushed tones, and led the way to the carriage.

The next day was as bitterly cold, with lowering grey skies, but mercifully less wind. The streets began filling before dawn, the crowds jostling for the best vantage-points. More still packed the line of procession, from the Admiralty to Charing Cross and then along the Strand and through the City, but it was not until noon that they were rewarded with the sight of the first of the great cortege: the scarlet of battalions of soldiers in drill order advancing with the slow thump of a bass drum draped in black. Then came the colour and grandeur of heralds, and the massed figures of the great in the land, princes of the Blood Royal, nobility and gentry. But none of these could command the intense respect and attention that the next carriage did.

The funeral car of Lord Nelson. Drawn by six black horses, it was made up to be a simulacrum of HMS Victory in black and gold, a figurehead with laurels at the stem and an ensign at half-mast above an elaborate stern. Under a sable-plumed canopy was the richly worked coffin – crafted from the main-mast of L’Orient, the flagship of the French admiral at the Nile and preserved for its ultimate purpose.

Around the pillars of the canopy were laurels and Nelson’s motto – Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat: ‘Let he who deserves it wear the palm.’ Atop the whole was his viscount’s coronet and within were heraldic devices and trophies from a lifetime at sea.

A rustle, as of a long sigh, was the only sound as it passed: the simultaneous baring of heads. Many were visibly moved, silent, weeping, evidence of the depth of feeling at the loss of their paladin. At Temple Bar the procession was joined by the Lord Mayor with the City Sword, accompanied by the aldermen, sheriffs and other notables of London.

At the cathedral a strict discipline kept the crush of people from overwhelming the ushers. Only those with tickets personally issued from the College of Arms were admitted within. In respect to his diplomatic status, the Marquess of Bloomsbury’s party was accorded the envied privilege of seats under the dome.

Cecilia was awestruck: the lofty sweep of the dome’s catenary curves, with its noble paintings of St Paul, the richness of the pew’s carving, the splendour of the arrayed nobility of England. From the galleries hung vast battle- stained ensigns of enemy ships captured at Trafalgar, so evocative of what had recently passed out at sea. And before them the empty place reserved for the body.

After hours of patient waiting, there was a flurry of movement at the grand western portico. It was the seamen, taking position for the arrival of the catafalque. Soldiers of two Highland regiments filed in on each side, gravely marching in slow time until they had lined the processional route inside the cathedral. They halted, turned about inwards and rested on their arms reversed.

And then it was time. The Victory seamen lifted the coffin from the funeral car with infinite care and, with pallbearers and supporters, began the journey to their admiral’s final resting place. As it entered, the organ majestically filled the cathedral in homage until the coffin was reverently placed in the quire for the service of evensong.

The gathering shadows of the winter dusk added to the solemnity, and a special chandelier of 130 candles was lit and hung suspended within the dome, its light spreading grandeur for the final act of the burial service.

When the coffin with Lord Nelson’s earthly remains had been carried to the centre of the dome under a funeral canopy of state, it was placed on a raised platform. His relatives and close friends gathered by it – and the seamen of Victory, who still carried the colours under which he had fought.

Age-burnished words rang out clear and certain in the echoing silence. ‘“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live . . . and is cut down like a flower . . . Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed . . . ”’

A choir of a hundred men and boys, which included those of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey, sang the