200 THE DOVER ROAD 



by road, of course, for the railways that serve Dover 

 (and serve it badly, too !) had not as yet been built. 



Starting about midday, the father of our future 

 kings reached Canterbury at two o'clock. The 

 inevitable Address was, it is surely scarcely necessary 

 to add, immediately forthcoming, to which the Prince 

 as inevitably " replied graciously " ; afterwards 

 attending service in the Cathedral, where, as he could 

 have understood but little of the service, he must have 

 been supremely bored. The Cathedral was thronged 

 with crowds who came not so much in order to pray 

 as to peep at the Princeling whom the young Queen 

 had delighted to honour. 



The Prince slept at Canterbury that night, and left, 

 with his suite, en route for Chatham at half-past nine 

 the next morning, pursued by a body of clergymen 

 with an Address. Alarmed at this appalling eagerness 

 on the part of servile Britons to read lengthy orations 

 of which he understood not a word, the Prince gave 

 directions for the cavalcade to drive faster, and so they 

 swept on through Chatham and Rochester, without 

 stopping to hear what the Mayors and Corporations 

 of those places had to say. Those deadl}^ Addresses 

 were, in fact, " taken as read," and the Mayors, 

 Aldermen and others returned home with their 

 ridiculous parchments, wiser, and, it is to be feared, not 

 only sadder, but less loyal men. 



At Dartford, the bridegroom-elect was met by one of 

 the Queen's carriages, and he thereupon changed from 

 his travelling chariot to enter London in some degree of 

 State. At New Cross an escort of the 14th Dragoons 

 was waiting, and, instead of proceeding along the 

 classic Old Kent Road, and so to the traditional 

 entrance to London by London Bridge, he went to 

 town by way of romantic Peckham and idyllic 

 Camberwell, ending his journey at that dream of 

 architectural beauty, Buckingham Palace. What 

 followed : How the Times waxed violent and denuncia- 

 tory of Lord Melbourne and the frivolous entourage 



