On November 29, 1900, Queen Victoria's long-prepared funeral finally began in grand fashion.
As the highly revered former monarch of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria had made extremely detailed arrangements for her own funeral, and Edward had approved every one of them.
The most distinctive of these personal arrangements was Queen Victoria's special request that everyone attending the funeral have something white on them. Even the horses at the funeral were to be draped in white cloth.
This naturally included the central figure of the funeral, Queen Victoria herself. The Queen wore a pure-white wedding dress, with a white veil covering her head, symbolizing her faithfulness to love and marriage.
To honor Queen Victoria's will, William II, Edward, Arthur, Princess Beatrice, the Queen's confidant James Reid, and three loyal servants positioned themselves around the Queen's head and body, lifting her and gently placing her in the coffin.
This was no simple task. Queen Victoria had been dead for a full month, and although her remains had been well preserved, Arthur and the others still had to be exceedingly careful while carrying her, lest they cause any unnecessary damage to the Queen's body.
Inside Queen Victoria's enormous stone sarcophagus, the bottom was covered with a thick layer of charcoal, upon which Prince Albert's dressing gown was laid.
Even though Prince Albert had been dead for more than forty years, Queen Victoria had kept her husband's dressing gown all this time. It was enough to show just how deep the love between the Prince and Queen had been.
Queen Victoria had also given specific instructions regarding the area beside her reserved for burial objects. Unlike other monarchs, who liked to place large quantities of jewelry and gold coins in their coffins, Queen Victoria's burial objects consisted only of her favorite shawl, handkerchief,