Should any of the staff of Lord French, the
present Viceroy, care to examine the sword of state and the mace,
they will find them both heavily dented. This is due to two small
boys having frequently dropped them when they proved too heavy for
their strength, during strictly private processions fifty-five
years ago. I often wonder what a deputation from the Corporation
of Belfast must have thought when they were ushered into the
throne-room, and found it already in the occupation of two small
brats, one of whom, with a star cut out of silver paper pinned to
his packet to counterfeit an order, was lolling back on the throne
in a lordly manner, while the other was feigning to read a long
statement from a piece of paper. The small boys, after the manner
of their kind, quickly vanished through a bolt-hole.
The Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle was built by my grandfather, the
Duke of Bedford, who was Viceroy in 1806, and it bears the stamp
of the unfortunate period of its birth on every detail of its
"carpenter-Gothic" interior. It is, however, very ornate, with a
profusion of gilding, stained glass and elaborate oak carving.
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