Today, Elizabeth II will ride (or has already ridden) to the
State Opening of Parliament in her brand new set of wheels: the Jubilee State
Coach, made by Australian hardcore fancoachbuilder Jim Frecklington as
a labour of love. Usually, this is not the kind of history that interests me,
and I suspect, not the kind that interests very many of us at NHL, either. But
there is something more, and something strange, about this new carriage. It
looks like most of the others: drawn by 6 horses, painted wood and lots and
lots of gold leaf. But it's also absolutely studded with fragments of
historical artefacts, ranging from the wood of HMS Victory and the Mary Rose,
buttons from Gallipoli and the Western Front, to metal from a Spitfire and part
of Newton's apple tree, to name but a few from a very long list.
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| The Diamond Jubilee State Coach, or State Coach Britannia: from the outside, like any other of Elizabeth II's carriages. |
When I was sewing my baldrics (a pair of crossed sashes held
together at the back and front by pieces of fabric often containing a crest or
heraldic device of some sort) for my last Morris team, I enclosed bits of
fabric and ribbon from my previous teams' kits into some of the joins. I see my
kit as ceremonial and like to feel that I am carrying my previous history and
experience as a dancer with me when I am dancing. I understand, sort of, that
the same intention is present in this new coach: a rolling museum or monument
to the history of Britain and the Commonwealth. My pieces of past kit are
hidden in my new kit, and until now, I've never admitted to doing something so
sentimental: nobody but myself even knew they were there. But the interior of
Her Majesty's new carriage actually looks like a museum: the doors are inlaid
with wood from all kinds of historical treasures, including famous ships,
Hillary's Everest ladders, Scott's Antarctic sled, and the beams of British
Cathedrals, and smaller artefacts like the buttons, a musketball from Waterloo,
and a rivet from the Flying Scotsman, each item labelled.
Before I go any further, here is a selection of some of the
most notable artefacts, gleaned from news reports and Mr Frecklington's
website:
Wood from Newton's apple tree
A bullet from Waterloo
Metal from a Dambuster
Wood from HMS Victory
Wood from Scott's Antarctic sled
Wood from Hut 6 at Bletchley Park
Wood from the beams of every British Cathedral and palace
Wood from Edmund Hillary's Everest ladders
A piece of the Stone of Scone
A bolt from a Spitfire
A button from Gallipoli
A rivet from the Flying Scotsman
Metal from Victoria Cross cannon
Wood from the Mary Rose
Wood from the Mayflower
Wood from the Tower of London
Wood from the Ferriby boats
Wood from HMS Endeavour
A counterweight from Big Ben
Wood from the door of 10 Downing Street
Robert Baden-Powell's buttons
Wood from Shakespeare's mulberry tree
Roman and Viking timber
from Bath and York
Metal fragment from Rolls Royce Silver Ghost
Material from Lords and Wimbledon
Button from the Western Front
Wood from Stephenson's Rocket
Wood from the Royal Box at Ascot
Wood from the Cutty Sark
Wood from Oxford, Cambridge, Eton and Rugby
Wood from the Glastonbury Thorn
Weapon fragment from the Battle of Hastings
Fragments relating to Darwin, Jenner and Joseph Banks
Discs containing digital copies of the Magna Carta and the
Domesday Book
A compartment containing Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh
The last item warrants its own entirely separate blog post. So, a few musings about these artefacts, and a
few questions, which I hope will be discussed in the comments section. Firstly,
what are the implications of removing pieces of some historical objects which
are very fragile, and have been so very carefully protected and restored over a
period of many years, at a great cost of time and money, for use as mere
decorative objects? I am thinking in particular of the Bronze Age Ferriby
Boats, and the Mary Rose, which since 1982 has been subject to an intensive
conservation programme. It is nothing less than pilfering pieces of national,
public historical objects for use in a private collection: the coach will be
upon display at the Royal Mews after today's Parliament session, but the only
people who will actually be able to sit inside the coach and view this
collection will be the Queen, Prince Philip or other senior Royals, and the
staff who maintain the coach.
Secondly, these objects are divorced from their own
narratives to be placed in this grand narrative of British and Commonwealth
history. But more than that, they are reduced to decorative objects, the wood
samples polished out of all recognition and forming a smooth inlaid mosaic of
different coloured wood more at home on a parquet floor. Without the labels,
one would not know that one varnished, polished, perfectly square piece of oak
had been at the Battle of Trafalgar, another had assisted the ascent of
Everest, and one more had been dragged to the Antarctic.
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| Close up of nice inlaid wood effect achieved by polishing the history out of historical objects. |
Thirdly, the idea behind the collection itself, as well as
being an odd concept for a mode of transport and containing some frankly
bizarre inclusions (digital copy of the Magna Carta? A piece of a Rolls Royce?
Baden-Powell's buttons?), is somewhat reductive. It is fetishism: it holds up
these tiny objects as sacred relics, conferring yet more prestige on the
Monarch as she sits encased in the rarefied field of these objects. It is
cheaply emotive: buttons from Gallipoli and the Western Front, a bolt from a
Spitfire, metal from the wreckage of a crashed Dambuster: the things that make
Britain great.
I think that I have saved the best bit for last. Under the
seats (gold silk brocade from Sudbury, with armrests made from the rails of the
Royal Yacht Britannia - they even flip up to access heating and electric window
controls), there are two wooden cases, containing 60 gold-plated canisters.
Canisters for her Majesty to add to her collection of historical artefacts. Should
ERII actually wish to continue collecting these historical offcuts, what should
she consider filling her golden specimen jars with? Alongside bits of palaces
and Oxford, Cambridge, Eton and Rugby, maybe she should include some social
history: after all, the concept of the carriage is to tell the history of
Britain through objects.
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| Golden film pots for Her Majesty's further collections. Perhaps Prince Phillip will buy her some World Cup Stickers? |
Now that the carriage contains a chip of the Stone of Scone,
let's hope it has central locking and an immobiliser fitted.
