Harriet Martineau, from her elevated perch, says, "Her small dark crown
looked pretty, and her mantle of cloth of gold very regal; she, herself,
looked so small as to appear puny." (At a later stage of the proceedings
the same keen critic notes that the enormous train borne by her ladies made
the figure of the Queen look still less than it really was.) "The homage
was as pretty a sight as any: trains of Peers touching her crown, and then
kissing her hand. It was in the midst of that process that poor Lord
Rolle's disaster sent a shock through the whole assemblage. It turned me
very sick. The large infirm old man was held up by two Peers, and had
nearly reached the royal footstool when he slipped through the hands of his
supporters, and rolled over and over down the steps, lying at the bottom
coiled up in his robes. He was instantly lifted up, and he tried again and
again, amidst shouts of admiration of his valour. The Queen at length spoke
to Lord Melbourne, who stood at her shoulder, and he bowed approval; on
which she rose, leaned forward, and held out her hand to the old man,
dispensing with his touching the crown. He was not hurt, and his
self-quizzing on his misadventure was as brave as his behaviour at the
time. A foreigner in London gravely reported to his own countrymen, what he
entirely believed on the word of a wag, that the Lords Rolle held their
title on the condition of performing the feat at every coronation."

Sir David Wilkie, who was present at the coronation, wrote simply, "The
Queen looked most interesting, calm, and unexcited; and as she sat upon the
chair with the crown on, the sun shone from one of the windows bright upon
her."

Leslie, another painter who witnessed the scene, remarked, "I was very near
the altar, and the chair on which the Queen was crowned, when she signed
the coronation oath. I could see that she wrote a large, bold hand.... I
don't know why, but the first sight of her in her robes brought tears into