(3 of 4)
The Royal train was met by Lord Tweedsmuir and his Lady, an escort of Princess Louise Dragoons in scarlet tunics and brass hats, and a landau with two postillions and two footmen—something dug out and refurbished from the Governor General's livery stable. A London-like overcast cloaked the scene, and from the Houses of Parliament sounded a bell that looked and rang like Big Ben.
Big function of that day was a convocation of Parliament to hear the Royal assent to a series of bills (a U. S.-Canada trade agreement, a wheat subsidy, the Dominion budget), something brand-new to Canada and a prerogative of the King-Emperor almost forgotten in England. At each the King nodded, and the deputy clerk droned "His Majesty doth assent." But as a warning that no individual may supersede Parliament, Ottawa's seven old men of the Supreme Court filed into the Senate chamber and plumped down on a big circular woolsack, from which they could symbolically keep an eye on everyone. After that Their Majesties received the 70-odd reporters covering their trip (see p. 45).
Fourth Day. George VI was born on Dec. 14, 1895, but a special Canadian birthday celebration was scheduled for May 20. In Ottawa's Parliament Square, to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance, Canada staged for the first time in its history a Trooping of the Colour to celebrate the King's "birthday," a celebration conducted since the 17th Century in London by the Guards Regiments. In Canada the troops honored were brigades of Canadian Foot from Ottawa and Grenadiers from Montreal in blue trousers, red coats and great bearskins.
Then Queen Elizabeth made her first speech, and exercised the Royal prerogative to break a date. The date she broke was engraved in six-inch letters on the cornerstone of the new Supreme Court building which will rise on a bluff overlooking the Ottawa River. Unwary of the fact that Their Majesties' visit might be delayed, engravers had marked the stone as laid on May 19. Blithely, with an ivory-handled gold trowel, the Queen tapped the stone on May 20, declared it laid, chatted with a Scottish stone mason whose accent moved her to remark: "You haven't lost your tongue."
That afternoon the Royal pair stole away for a stroll in the fields outside Ottawa, encountered a small boy who doffed his cap and ran away when the Queen introduced him to his King. That night they went to another State dinner, at Château Laurier.
Fifth Day. It was not until the trip's fifth day, however, that Their Majesties really got taken to Canada's heart, and when they did, it was to experience a spirit they had not met before, a hearty blend of U. S. hail-fellowship and a reassuring, yeoman love of King and Country that was truly British. This man-to-man meeting occurred in Connaught Square at the unveiling of the Canadian national war memorial. There was a reveille, the King placed a wreath at the foot of the shaft, tall redcoats holding standards stepped away, and the memorial was unveiled. The King spoke, with what some thought was a hint to Rome and Berlin:
"Not by chance do . . . Peace and Freedom appear side by side. Peace and Freedom cannot long be separated. . . . Without freedom there can be no enduring peace, and without peace, no enduring freedom."