FUNERAL OF LORD ROBERTS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2351, 6 January 1915, Page 3

FUNERAL OF LORD ROBERTS

BURIAL IN ST. PAUL'S '

THE PROCESSION AND SERVICE' Fields-Marshal Earl Roberts was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral on November 19. The grent congregation of eight or ten thousand which attended tho funeral service included tho King, Mr. Asquith, and many members of tho Government and the Opposition, and high representatives of tlio Army and Navy. From Lord Roberts's homo at Euglemere tho coffin was brought on a gun-carriage to Ascot Station, and by special train to London. Lady Ailcen Roberts, daughter of the dead soldier, accompanied it. From Charing Cross, where a guard of honour of fifty men of the Irish Guards, all of whom have lately been in the fighting line, awaited the arrival, the funeral procession, in which an Indian contingent had a place, was witnessed by great crowds, and when the service was over thousands of people who had waited hours in the cold and rain filed past the coffin in the Cathedral, and thousands more were waiting when further admission had to be refused. l Neap the Tomb of Nelson, The obsequies cf the old soldier were magnificent in all their circumstances (says the "Manchester Guardian"). The whole setting was in perfect keeping with the honoured career of the dead Field Marshal, brought back from the sound of the guns on the battlefield in which he had died happily, to. bo buried in St. Paul's Cathedral) near the tomb of Nelson. It was a direct link with the great struggle (on the Continent, the man himself more expressive of the heart of the country than any other of its captains. The most poignant emotions woro stirred by Chopin's Funeral March, played by the band of the Scots Guards: Above the curious sound of the soldiers' tread upon the gravelled roadrso silent were the people that it was all that could be heard—there was suddenly a roll of the druni's, a thud on the big drum which' startled' the. ear, and the band! began the Marche Furiebre. One heard its piercing strains as the Guards went down New Bridge Street, with the perpetual, insistent drum beats, until the plaintive tones were rounded off in the sweet, distant melody that lights up the music like rays of sun in a cloudy sky. It thrills even great. and moving moments too deep for words to tell.

Comrades of Many Battlefields.

In the. midst'of the troops whom Lord Roberts loved and bared for so well,, surrounded by the comrades, of many a battlefield, his _ body was borne on a gun-carriage. Distinguished soldiers and sailors, including Lord Kitchener and four other field marshals, wearing their plumed! hats, escorted it on either side. On the Union Jack rested a red cushion bearing the Field Marshal's, baton, and instead of the full-dress hat of his rank there was the simple khaki service cap lying by the sword. Immediately behind the coffin came Lord Roberta's black riderless charger, in black and gold trappings, with the riding boots reversed-in the stirrups.'' All hats were' raised as the carnage went by, followed by six officers carrying on cushions the insignia of the late Field Marshal-. Thousands of people united in paying their affectionate tribute. The route from Charing .Cross to'the Cathedral is not a long one, but within that area the pa'fts wore densely lined, and the procession was watched from tho vantage ground of all available windows. As early as nine, o clock people began to take ,their stand, and among them could be seen many soldiers arid a few' wounded men back from the front. India's Place In the Army of Soldier Mourners. '• The military were representative in character, containing units with which Lord Roberts had been particularly associated, and an interesting feature was the inclusion of an Indian contingent, with their guns carried by some fifty,or sixty mules.' It was/well that India, to which he gave the greater part of his life and for whose troops he •literally died, should have found a place in the army of soldier mourners, for such was every man of them. It was not a military' pageant, and there was little or nothing of military pomp' and circumstance. It was no ordinary military funeral. It was a simple tribute of an Army to &■ great and simple-hearted warrior. Its only pageantry lay in' its/ numberß and its sincerity. So the body of Lord Roberts was brought to the great Cathedral, there to be a monument and inspiration in what a soldier s life may be. Inthe Cathedral. Three-quarters of an hour before the appointed time the great .church was filled from end to end, save only for the places reserved for the mourners. Tho-army is away fighting. ThoSO who remain, grey-headed men mostly, were in the fighting kit in which the Army goes to war. The pomp and pageantry of colour which we associate with like ceremonials in St. Paul's was not. But rich harmonies—Schubert's "Farewell and the. Marche Fupnebre from: Betthoven's "Eroica" Symphony—from the band of the Royal Artillery filled-the mighty building .while the congregation waited. The King came to pay a, last tribute to a groat soldier who had served his grandmother' so nobly in the field, and had continued to serve his father and himself with voice and pen and example. The Kirig sat alone under the dome, 'waiting, with the rest until the west door was opened and the rattle and crash of the drums led up the first stately chords of. Handel's Dead March.

Beside Nelson; Wellington, and Wolse- ' leyVery slowly to this paean of victory over, death the coffin is borne to the tall at the corners of which sixteen candles shine, spear-heads ' of yellow flame. ' Around it, Lord Kitchener towering over the rest, are Sir Evelyn Wotid, Lord Greirfell, Lord Methuen, Lord Nicholson, his brother field-mar-shals'; Sir Edward Seymour and Lord Charles Berosford, representing tho Navy; General Sir James Hills-Johns, the life-long friend of Lord Roberts, who won his V.C. by his side in the Mutiny. The choir chant the sentences to Croft's music, and the psalm "The Lord is My Shepherd" to a single chant of Barnby. The Dean reads the lesson —a part of the great resurrection chap--ter, I Corinthians xv,: "Be ye steadfast, immovable, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." The hymn "Peace, Perfect Peace," which follows, peculiarly seems a fitting selection to be sung of. him whose warfare is thus accomplished. After committal sentences and prayers, the .coffin is borne into the crypt and lies beside Wellington, Nelson, and Wolseley; Then breaks forth Walsham How's stirring hymn of triumph, "For all the saints who from their labours rest. The congregation joins with the choir; ■'strong,' soldierly; voices sing the Christian warrior-strain. Tho great church flings back the echoes, acclaiming the belief that of a- hero it is true— Jjifc's work well done, Life's crown well won, Now comes rest. After the Archbishop of Canterbury had given the blessing, Garter King of Anns proclaimed the stylo and titles of Earl Roberts, according to the medieval rite, Then, came Chopin's "Miu'clm Funebre," finely, played »y. the Artillery

band, and finally tho thrilling notes of tho "Last Post" sounded by trumpeters of tho Royal Regiment. Slmpllolty of Life. In tho oourso of a speech in tho Houso of Lords Enrl Clinton mado an interesting rofereneo to the personal character of Lord Roberts. No Englishman of our time a't any rate (ho said) had sofc so rich and raro an example of simplicity and purity of life, ftiid iiono had been moro religiousminded or devout in the beliefs as well as in tho oxternal observances of religion. A little more than a fortnight ago ho rocoived from Lord Roberts the last letter ho over wrote to him, a letter in which, amidst tho_ trials of war, ho mado a strong plea in defenco of family prayers. , His words woro:— "We have had family prayers for 55 years. Our chief roason is that Jhey bring tho household together in a way that nothing else can. It ensures servants and others who may be in tho house joining in prayers which for one reason or another they may have omitted saying by themselves. Since the war began wo usually reed a prayer like tho enclosod, and when anything important has occurred ,1 toll thoso present about it. .In-this way I have found that tho servants are taking a great interest in what is going on in France. Wo havo never given any order about prayers. Attendance is quito optional, but ae a rule all the servants, men and women, come regularly on hearing the bell ring.". The man who penned these words, Lord Curzon said, ''even to a friend, was not only a great soldier, a patriot, and a • statesman; he . was also _ a humbW-mmded and devout Christian man, whoso name deserves to live, and will live, for ever in the memory of the nation whom he served with such surpassing fidelity to the last hour of a. long and glorious life." ' ,