Siting the People: Power, Protest, and Public Space

Abstract

I begin with three ‘theatrical’ events. On 21 June 1887, after almost 20 years away from public life, Queen Victoria travelled in an open landau through the streets of Westminster to Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey, escorted by her Indian cavalry and accompanied by rows of brightly uniformed soldiers. The streets were packed with well-wishers and spectators, arrayed on ten miles of specially erected scaffolding, who had gathered to see as much as they could of this glittering imperial pageant. This moment marked two things: the shift from actual to symbolic power of the monarch, and the beginning of Britain’s reputation for unparalleled pageantry. By the time of her Diamond Jubilee ten years later, Victoria was able to write, ‘[n]o-one, ever, I believe, has met with such an ovation as was given to me passing through these six miles of streets’ (cited in Cannadine, 1983, p.134).