How a PM disliked by Queen Victoria inspired her great-great granddaughter's lying in state

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Queen Victoria disliked William Gladstone, the prime minister who served her four times across four separate terms.

He “addresses me as though I were a public meeting”, she complained.

The exasperation was mutual. “The Queen alone is enough to kill any man,” Gladstone wrote to a friend.

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When he died in 1898 of cancer, which started behind his cheekbone and spread, the commemorations ordered by politicians at Westminster accidentally inspired a royal tradition – the public lying in state at Westminster Hall.

“The body was brought by special train to the adjacent Underground station before lying in state in Westminster Hall,” wrote Roy Jenkins in his biography of the statesman, “with a great file-past of the famous and obscure alike.”

The hall dates from 1097 and was a location for lavish feasts and banquets, as well the trials of Sir Thomas More, Guy Fawkes and Charles I.

Gladstone’s funeral

Among the 10 pallbearers at Gladstone’s funeral at Westminster Abbey were the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and his son, the Duke of York (later George V).

Queen Victoria, unhappy at her family taking such roles, telegrammed her son to ask what precedent he had followed and whose advice he had taken.

The prince responded that he knew of no precedent and had taken no advice.

Centuries-old tradition

The tradition of lying in state stretches back to the 17th century, when Stuart monarchs did so for several days.

Queen Victoria lay in state in Windsor after her death in 1901, but she had requested that it not be public.

When Edward VII died nine years later, Westminster Hall was again opened to mourners to pay their respects.