Our columnist Katie Masters pays homage to the BBC Radio series.
34. Lewes’s Loving Cup.
Whether you’re a Royalist, a Republican or a Couldn’tcarelessbican, the sheer length of a sixty-year reign is something to marvel at. In over 1000 years of royal rule, Queen Elizabeth II is only the second sovereign to reach this milestone.
Most rulers haven’t even come close. Some only hold on to their title for a matter of months (stand up Edmund Ironside; Harold II; Edward V and Edward VIII). One only managed a few days (yes, you, Lady Jane Grey). Your average, run-of-the-mill monarch sticks around for under 20 years.
But there was one King who almost pipped Queen Victoria to first-past-the- Diamond-Jubilee-post. George III (reigned October 1760 - January 1820) had been on the throne for 59 years and three months when he died. But by then he’d been permanently insane for nine years, was blind, deaf and confined to Windsor Castle.
If he’d lived long enough to have a Diamond Jubilee, it would have been a very different affair to the one held to celebrate the reign of his grand-daughter, Victoria, in 1897. She was 78 years old. Under her rule, Britain had prospered. The country had amassed the largest empire the world had ever seen. The industrial revolution had brought – not wealth for all, but a new source of wealth for many. And life expectancy had increased by about ten years. Britons could now hope to live until the grand old age of 48.
Seen in that light, it wasn’t just the length of Victoria’s reign that was something to celebrate, it was her age itself. She’d already outlived most of her subjects by a staggering thirty years.
So in 1897, the British were ready to party. In Lewes the Mayor – 49-year-old Frederick Flint – ordered up the bunting and planned for the whole town to be illuminated. It was still the age of gas lamps, but their light was enhanced by a torch-lit procession from the Bonfire Societies. Over 1000 Bonfire Boys marched down the High Street to mark the Queen’s Big Day.
That kick-started the public celebrations. The following morning the Fitzroy Memorial Library (next to Lloyds on Cliffe precinct) was handed over to the town. The new park beside the Pells was opened. And 2,300 Lewes schoolchildren tucked into a massive tea, before dancing across the Dripping Pan.
When night fell, beacons were lit across the Downs and the National Anthem was played. It was all a great big knees-up – and in memory of the occasion, Mayor Flint decided to give Lewes a present. He chose this 24-ounce solid silver loving cup (a cup with two handles, so that more than one person can swig out of it at a time), and had it engraved. “Presented to the Corporation of Lewes in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Victoria”.
These days the cup sits in a cabinet in the Mayor’s Parlour, a private, wood-panelled room inside the Town Hall. But maybe the Council will have it out this June, full to the brim with Harvey’s, ready to toast the new recipient of a Diamond Jubilee.
