PLAYFUL DUKES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3300, 19 August 1911, Page 4

PLAYFUL DUKES.

FUN AT CORONATION REHEARSALS. Anvthing but reverent, says the “New York World’s” London reporter, were the private rehearsals in Westminster Abbey of the ceremony of coronation. Dukes, Duchesses, and other high personages participating could not or would not be serious. The Duke of Norfolk, as the Earl Marshal in charge of all the ooronation arrangements, had to request Lord Rosebery once to attend to what he came for —which was not to make the Duchess of Sutherland and Duchess of Portland laugh all the time. At one moment, while Canon Duckworth, personating the King, and the Hon. Mrs Drummond as the Queen were about to seat themselves with the utmost grace and solemnity, the whole party, numbering some two hundred, bioke into peals of laughter as the Canon, by mistake, sat on an arm of his chair and very nearly fell sideways to the door. The, Capon , gravely rebuked the party for such a display in tlie.saeried edifice, and the . Duke of Norfolk, who is suffering from an acute attack of coronationitis (which is not surprisi|ig); lost his . temper and said .it wouldbe impossible to continue unless, the re-... kearsal was taken.-more-. seriously, . ' ( There is developing among King George’s subjects a distinctively derisive feeling respecting all this elaborate antiquated coronation ceremonial, with its symoblism intended to present the sovereign as a ruler by divine right and invest him with superhuman attributes utterly at variance with the British Constitution and common sense. The anointing with holy oils and other rites are looked upon askance by Protestants as undoubtedly survivals from Catholic tinxes