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While matrons unavoidably trampled by police horses were rubbed with liniment, the Duke & Duchess slipped off from their wedding feast, popped into a buzzing two-seater sport car. They zipped to a suburban station and Britain's most famed train, The Flying Scotsman, halted to take them aboard, sped them to honeymoon on the estate of his mother, a Maxwell. Short is their Scottish holiday, for conducting the Coronation of George VI is an hereditary duty which the Duke of Norfolk must discharge, and Westminster Abbey has already been closed for preparations and rehearsals.
Most troublesome of all Coronations to the family of Norfolk was that of Edward VII in 1902. Reason: Queen Victoria had lived so long (82 years) that most Court officials who knew how all the little details of a Coronation have to be managed, had preceded Her Majesty to the grave. Some $25.000 was spent by the Howards doing over and refurnishing apartments in one of their castles to be occupied on a brief visit of Queen Victoria, and the present Duke treasures in a glass case the parting gift to his late father bestowed by Her Majesty. This is a small, blue-glass bottle with stopper-intrinsic value perhaps 45¢.